"Individual programmers can contribute by writing a compatible duplicate of some Unix utility and giving it to me. For most projects, such part-time distributed work would be very hard to coordinate; the independently-written parts would not work together. But for the particular task of replacing Unix, this problem is absent. Most interface specifications are fixed by Unix compatibility. If each contribution works with the rest of Unix, it will probably work with the rest of GNU."
This stood out to me. Back in 1983 online collaboration was unheard of, and it was only the incredibly modular nature of Unix which made the project seem at all plausible.
This stood out to me. Back in 1983 online collaboration was unheard of, and it was only the incredibly modular nature of Unix which made the project seem at all plausible.