User clubs. One more step on the road to Linux

History is not a series of events that unfold in a linear fashion. An event is the result of the sum of the consequences of many other large and small events that took place at different times in different parts of the world.

I interrupted the internet story to start telling the story of the birth of the free software movement. Now is the time to pick up this story to get to the point where the two meet. Remember that in the previous article we left Richard Stallman mPainful because the professional environment of the programmers was becoming commercialized and losing the original spirit of collaboration associated with the hacker movement. Yet that spirit was more alive than ever elsewhere.

In the early 70s, the manufacture of computers was simplified and made more economical thanks to the mass production of microprocessors. In this way it was possible marketing electronic component kits for enthusiasts to build their own microcomputers.

The interest aroused by these kits was great, and clubs soon arose where those who built their own teams, and those who wanted to learn how to do it, got together in person to exchange ideas and learn about news. These groups had qualities that Stallman would miss in professional programmers: the love of knowledge for its own sake, the desire to fully exploit the capacity of technology and the vocation to be useful to others by sharing what one knew.

These user groups were generally non-profit organizations with varying numbers of members who met once a month and, depending on their size and resources, published a printed newsletter. What's more, more experienced members volunteered to answer inquiries from novice users. As it becamen more popular, manufacturers of kits (and later of assembled computers and software) began attending meetings to promote their products. But, as described by some participants, it was not the typical promotional talk, but rather they taught tricks and gave information useful for participants.

AT&T. The enemy to defeat

We already have computers in the hands of non-corporate users and a universal communication protocol to connect them. You just had to get rid of AT&T. for the Internet to reach the masses.

AT&T, a company that had owned Graham Bell's patents since the nineteenth century, had become the monopoly of telephone communications in the United States in the twentieth century. Their domain was so absolute that users didn't even own their phone sets. nor could they connect non-company devices to the network. As the sole manufacturer of modems, AT&T never bothered to offer anything other than expensive and bulky devices.

The power of the company began to crack when the Hush-A-Phone appeared, a plastic device that fitted the telephone receiver and prevented a sound other than the voice of the sender from being transmitted. A court ruling allowed the device to be marketed despite protests from AT&T that it damaged its network.

A decade later, the company suffered a final defeat when Ronald Reagan came to power. Free market fanatic and promoter of strong deregulation of the economy. The US government took advantage of the manufacturer's demand for a device that allowed the telephone to be integrated into a radio, avoiding having to stand next to the device to communicate. When AT&T threatened users to cut their connection, the manufacturer turned to the regulator. The telephone company would end up agreeing to divide and the telephone network to free itself.

User clubs connect to the network

But, before that there were already advances. In 1975 the Federal Communications Commission of the United States finally allowed the user to connect any device to the network as long as it did not damage it. One of the first modems available to home users under the new arrangement was purchased by a certain Ward Christensen.

Christensen was eThe creator of xmoDEm, a program that allowed computers of the time to communicate with each other using the traditional telephone network. This software was freely shared between user clubs and adapted to different operating systems.