Z:gnu-www-ja-rms-nyu-2001-transcript--817ea3-But at that point, we were com/en

But at that point, we were completely stymied, because the software that ran that printer was not free software. It had come with the printer, and it was just a binary. We couldn't have the source code; Xerox wouldn't let us have the source code. So, despite our skill as programmers &mdash; after all, we had written our own timesharing system &mdash; we were completely helpless to add this feature to the printer software.