In 1980, the US government amended the law to treat software as a literary work. Software released after this point was restricted by IP laws. At that time, American activist and programmer Richard Stallman was working as a graduate student at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Stallman witnessed fragmentation among software developers. He blamed the spread of proprietary software and closed models of development. To push back against these trends, Stallman founded the free software movement. Throughout the 1980s, he started the GNU Project to create a free operating system, wrote essays on freedom, founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and wrote several free software licenses. The FSF used existing intellectual property laws for the opposite of their intended goal of restriction. Instead of imposing restrictions, free software explicitly provided freedoms to the recipient.
In 1980 the US government amended the law to treat software as a literary work Software released after this point was restricted by IP laws At that time American activist and programmer Richard Stallman was working as a graduate student at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Stallman witnessed fragmentation among software developers He blamed the spread of proprietary software and closed models of development To push back against these trends Stallman founded the free software movement Throughout the 1980s he started the GNU Project to create a free operating system wrote essays on freedom founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and wrote several free software licenses The FSF used existing intellectual property laws for the opposite of their intended goal of restriction Instead of imposing restrictions free software explicitly provided freedoms to the recipient