Z:gnu-www-ja-stallman-mec-india--de63c7-They knew that publishing the/en

They knew that publishing the ideas would get them credit from the community, and meanwhile anybody else who wanted to compete with them would still have to write a program, which is the big job. So they typically kept the details of the program secret &mdash; of course some of us think that's wrong, but that's a different issue. They kept the details of the program secret and they published the ideas, and meanwhile the software development &mdash; because software development was going on &mdash; That provided the field with a steady stream of ideas, so ideas were not the limiting factor. The limiting factor was the job of writing programs that would work and that people would like using.