2120 lines
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2120 lines
89 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement, Zagreb; 2006-03-09</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom; March
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9th 2006</h1>
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<p>
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The following is a transcript of a lecture given by Richard
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Stallman in Zagreb on March 9th 2006. The lecture was given in
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English. You may also be interested in
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our <a href="http://fsfe.org/transcripts#rms">list of
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transcripts by Richard Stallman</a>.
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</p>
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<p>
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Richard Stallman launched
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the <a href="/documents/gnuproject.html">GNU project</a> in
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1983, and with it
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the <a href="/documents/freesoftware.html">Free Software</a>
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movement. Stallman is the president of FSF - a sister
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organisation of FSFE.
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</p>
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<p>
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Transcription of this presentation was undertaken
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by <a href="/about/oriordan/oriordan.html">Ciarán O'Riordan</a>.
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Please support work such as this
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by <a href="http://fellowship.fsfe.org/">joining the Fellowship of
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FSFE</a>, by <a href="/help/donate">donating to FSFE</a>, and by
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encouraging others to do each.
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</p>
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<p>
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An audio recording of the lecture is online at:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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<a
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href="http://mjesec.ffzg.hr/~dpavlin/stallman2006/free_software_movement_and_the_future_of_freedom_zagreb_09_march_2006.ogg">http://mjesec.ffzg.hr/~dpavlin/stallman2006/...
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[long file name].ogg</a>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Lecture sections</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#what-is-free-software?">What is Free Software?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#why-are-these-the-essential-freedoms?">Why are these the essential freedoms?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#freedom-two">Freedom two</a></li>
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<li><a href="#freedom-zero">Freedom zero</a></li>
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<li><a href="#freedom-one">Freedom one</a></li>
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<li><a href="#freedom-three">Freedom three</a></li>
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<li><a href="#directly-funding-free-software-development">Directly funding Free Software development</a></li>
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<li><a href="#comparing-free-and-proprietary-software">Comparing free and proprietary software</a></li>
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<li><a href="#the-situation-in-1983">The situation in 1983</a></li>
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<li><a href="#choosing-the-unix-design">Choosing the Unix design</a></li>
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<li><a href="#the-name-gnu">The name "GNU"</a></li>
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<li><a href="#gnu-and-linux">GNU and Linux</a></li>
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<li><a href="#software-freedom-needs-to-be-widely-understood">Software freedom needs to be widely understood</a></li>
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<li><a href="#we-urgently-need-people-to-work-on-stage-2">We urgently need people to work on "stage 2"</a></li>
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<li><a href="#today-we-have-enemies">Today, we have enemies</a></li>
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<li><a href="#we-need-to-stop-wasting-our-market-power">We need to stop wasting our market power</a></li>
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<li><a href="#treacherous-computing">Treacherous Computing</a></li>
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<li><a href="#the-dmca-and-eucd-laws">The DMCA and EUCD laws</a></li>
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<li><a href="#software-patents">Software patents</a></li>
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<li><a href="#more-legislative-battles">More legislative battles to come</a></li>
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<li><a href="#free-software-and-schools">Free Software and schools</a></li>
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<li><a href="#st-ignucias-and-the-church-of-emacs">St. IGNUcius and the Church of Emacs</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q1">Question #1: Can you comment on Mono?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q2">Question #2: What do you think of BSD licences?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q3">Question #3: What if people violate our licences?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q4">Question #4: It should be made clearer that publishing modifications is optional</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q5">Question #5: Does your halo contain proprietary software?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q6">Question #6: Can you comment on the Creative Commons licence(s)?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q7">Question #7: Do you know any free culture organisation?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#q8">Question #8: Shouldn't Free Software be expensive because it is valuable?</a></li>
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<li><a href="#links-for-further-reading">Links for further reading</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>The lecture transcript</h2>
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<p>
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<span id="what-is-free-software?">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: What is Free Software?]</span>
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:03:10]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: What
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is Free Software? Free Software means software that respects
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the user's freedom. Software available to you but without
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respecting your freedom is called proprietary software or
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non-Free Software.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Divided
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because each user is forbidden to share with other people, and
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helpless because the users don't have the source code, so they can't
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change anything, they can't even tell what the program is really
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doing.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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But Free Software, which I believe is translated [into Croation]
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as slobodni softver, is software that respects the user's
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freedom. What do I mean by this? Because it's never enough
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just to say "<span style="font-style: italic;">I'm in
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favour of freedom</span>", the crucial issue is always:
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what are the essential freedoms that everyone should have?
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:04:27]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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There are four essential freedoms for the user of a program.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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Freedom zero is the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any
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purpose.
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</li>
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<li>
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Freedom one is the freedom to study the source code of the program and
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change it to do what you wish.
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</li>
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<li>
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Freedom two is the freedom to help your neighbour. That's the freedom
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to make copies and distribute them to others, when you wish.
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</li>
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<li>
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Freedom three is the freedom to help your community. That's the
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freedom to distribute or publish modified versions, when you wish.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p class="indent">
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With all four of these freedoms, the program is Free Software.
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If one of these freedoms is substantially missing - is
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insufficiently available - then the program is proprietary
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software, which means it is distributed in an unethical system
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and therefore should not be used and should not be developed at
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all.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:05:45]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Please note that the majority of software, nearly all software, is
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neither free nor proprietary, it is custom software developed for one
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particular user. If that one particular user has all these freedoms,
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say, if that user has the full rights to the software, then you might
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say in a trivial sense that it's Free Software. There's only one user
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and that user is free. No user has been subjugated; no one is being
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mistreated in this way. Of course there are always other ethical
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issues that might enter the situation. There are many ethical issues
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in life, but in this one particular ethical issue, at least in that
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case, nothing wrong is being done.
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</p>
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<p>
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<span id="why-are-these-the-essential-freedoms?">(<a href="#menu">go
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to menu</a>) [Section: Why are these the essential freedoms?]</span>
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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But why are these four freedoms essential? Why define the term
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Free Software <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> way?
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</p>
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<p>
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<span id="freedom-two">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Freedom two]</span>
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Freedom two is essential on fundamental ethical grounds, so that
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you can live an upright, ethical life as a member of your
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community. If you use a program that does not give you freedom
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number two, you're in danger of falling at any moment into a
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moral dilema. When your friend says
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"<span style="font-style: italic;">that's a nice program,
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could I have a copy?</span>" At that moment, you will have
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to choose between two evils. One evil is: give your friend a
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copy and violate the licence of the program. The other evil is:
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deny your friend a copy and comply with the licence of the
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program.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Once you are in that situation, you should choose the lesser
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evil. The lesser evil is to give your friend a copy and violate
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the licence of the program.
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</p>
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<p>
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[laughter]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Now, why is that the lesser evil? The reason is that we can
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assume that your friend has treated you well and has been a good
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person and deserves your cooperation. The reason we can assume
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this is that in the other case, if a nasty person you don't
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really like asked you for help, of course you can say
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"<span style="font-style: italic;">Why should I help
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you?</span>" So that's an easy case. The hard case is the
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case where that person has been a good person to you and other
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people and you would want to help him normally.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Whereas, the developer of the program has deliberately attacked the
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social solidarity of your community. Deliberately tried to separate
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you from everyone else in the World. So if you can't help doing wrong
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in some direction or other, better to aim the wrong at somebody who
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deserves it, who has done something wrong, rather than at somebody who
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hasn't done anything wrong.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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However, to be the lesser evil does not mean it is good. It's never
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good - not entirely - to make some kind of agreement and then break
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it. It may be the right thing to do, but it's not entirely good.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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The only thing in the software field that is worse than an
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unauthorised copy of a proprietary program, is an authorised
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copy of the proprietary program because this does the same harm
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to its whole community of users, and in addition, usually the
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developer, the perpetrator of this evil, profits from it.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Once you have thought about this and understood the nature of the
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dilema, what you should really do is make sure you don't get into the
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dilema. There are two ways of doing this. One way, the way that the
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proprietary software developers perhaps prefer, is: don't have any
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friends.
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</p>
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<p>
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[laughter]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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The other is: don't use proprietary software.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:10:25]<br />
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[00:11:25]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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If you don't use proprietary software, that means you never put
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yourself at risk of the dilema happening to you. If a friend asks me
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for a copy of a program, I will never be in that dilema because I can
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always legally say yes because I only accept copies of Free Software.
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If someone offers me a program that's attractive to me, on the
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condition that I not share it with you, I will say no, because I want
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to be in a condition where I have nothing to be ashamed of.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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The most essential resource of any society is not a physical resource,
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it's a physo-social resource. It's the spirit of good will; the
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spirit of helping your neighbour. It's no accident that the World's
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major religions for thousands of years have actively promoted the
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spirit of good will. Because if they can increase the level of this
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spirit by a little bit, it makes life better for everyone.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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So what does it mean when powerful social institutions say that it's
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wrong to share? What are they doing? They're poisoning this vital
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resource, something that no society can afford. No society has too
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much spirit of good will. No society can afford to burn off some of
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it.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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And what does it mean when they say if you share with neighbour you're
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a pirate? What are they doing? They're trying to equate helping your
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neighbour with attacking ships. And nothing could be more wrong than
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that because attacking ships is very very bad, but helping your
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neighbour is admirable.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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And what does it mean when they impose harsh punishments of years in
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prison on people who help their neighbours? How much fear is it going
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to take before your neighbours are too scared to share with you, or
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before you're too scared to share with them.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:14:07]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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That level of fear, that terror campaign, is what the developers
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of non-Free Software are trying to impose on people all around
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the World. And I use the term "<span style="font-style:
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italic;">terror campaign</span>", not just to show how
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strongly I disapprove of it, but because so far, in at least two
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countries, the developers of proprietary software have
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threatened people with being raped for having unauthorised
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copies. And when they start threatening people with rape, I
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think that qualifies as a terror campaign. I believe we should
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end their terror campaign. We should not allow it to continue.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:14:53]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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That's the reason for freedom number two, the freedom to help your
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neighbour. The freedom to make copies and distribute them to others.
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</p>
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<p>
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<span id="freedom-zero">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Freedom zero]</span>
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Freedom zero is necessary for a completely different reason. That's
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the freedom to run the program as you wish for whatever purpose. It
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may be shocking but there are proprietary programs that don't give you
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even this meagre freedom. They restrict how much you can run the
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program or when, or how, or for what jobs, for what purpose.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Obviously, this is not having control of your own computer. So
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freedom zero is necessary to have control of your own computer, but
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it's not enough because that's only the freedom to do or not do
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whatever the developer already chose for you.
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</p>
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<p>
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<span id="freedom-one">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Freedom one]</span>
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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To really have the control of your computer, you have to take those
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decisions away from the developer so that you can make them. For that
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you need freedom number one, the freedom to study the source code of
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the program and change it to do what you want. If you don't have that
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freedom, you can't even tell what the program is doing.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Yesterday I was told that Ceauşescu decided to have all
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telephones in Romania built for listening purposes - government
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listening purposes. Today, proprietary software developers do
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something similar. Many non-free programs contain malicious
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features designed to spy on the user, restrict the user, or even
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attack the user.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Spy features are quite common. One non-free program that spies
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on the user that you might have heard of is called Windows XP.
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When the user of Windows XP, and I won't say
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"<span style="font-style: italic;">you</span>" because
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you wouldn't use a program like this, when the user of Windows
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XP searches her own files for some word, Windows sends a message
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saying what word was searched for. That's one spy feature.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Then, when Windows asks for an update, to download the latest
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changes, it sends a list of all the software that's installed on
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the machine. That's another spy feature.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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It was not easy to find out about these spy features. I don't
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think Microsoft tells people that they're going to be spied on
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in this way. They probably put something in the licence saying
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"<span style="font-style: italic;">you agree to let us
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collect whatever information may be necessary for whatever blah
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blah blah</span>". And the users don't even bother to read
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this, and if they did, it wouldn't tell them anything.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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In fact, some clever research was needed to discover that Windows was
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sending the list of programs installed because it sends that list
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encrypted.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:18:45]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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But spying on the user is not limited to Windows. Windows Media
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Player also spies on the user, in fact, it does complete surveillance,
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reporting every site that the user looks at.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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But please don't think that this kind of malice is limited to
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Microsoft. Microsoft is simply one among many developers of
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user-subjugating software. RealPlayer does the same thing. It does
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complete surveillance of the user, reporting every page that the user
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looks at.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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And the Tivo does the same thing. And the Tivo was an interesting
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case because many in the Free Software community applauded the Tivo
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when it came out. The Tivo actually uses a lot of Free Software; it
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contains a GNU/Linux system in it.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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So people said "<span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, how
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great! They're using our software, they're benefiting from us,
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we should be happy</span>". Unfortunately, the Tivo also
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contains non-Free Software and it spies on the user. It reports
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exactly what the user watches.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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This shows us that it's not enough, our goal has to go beyond that
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they use Free Software. The goal has to be that they not use non-Free
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Software, that we not use non-Free Software. If you want to maintain
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your freedom, you have to reject any program that's going to take it
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away and every non-free program takes it away.
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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To get a computer that uses some Free Software, partly Free Software,
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doesn't mean that that computer is respecting your freedom. It's only
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partly respecting your freedom.
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</p>
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<p>
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[00:21:00]
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</p>
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<p class="indent">
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Malicious features go beyond spying. For instance, there is the
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functionality of refusing to function. Where the program says
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"<span style="font-style: italic;">I don't want to show you
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this file, I don't want to let you copy some lines from this
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file, I'm not going to print this file for you, because I don't
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like you enough</span>". This is also known as DRM -
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Digital Restrictions Management, the intentional feature of
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refusing to function.
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</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And then there are back doors. There was a non-free program that was
|
|
liberated a few years ago, and when the users then could see the
|
|
source code they discovered that it had had a back door for years.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
They couldn't tell while the program was proprietary. They couldn't
|
|
tell there was a back door. Only when it was free could they see that
|
|
there was a back door, and, of course, they took it out.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
One proprietary program that you might know of by name that has
|
|
a back door is called Windows XP. When Windows XP asks for an
|
|
upgrade, Microsoft knows the identity of the user, so Microsoft
|
|
can provide that user with an upgrade designed specifically for
|
|
him. And what does that mean? It means that that user is
|
|
completely at Microsoft's mercy, Microsoft can do anything
|
|
whatsoever to him.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
There is a piece of Microsoft server software which in 1999 was
|
|
discovered to contain a back door installed for the US National
|
|
Security Agency. You can't trust non-Free Software. Non-Free
|
|
Software gives the developer power over the users and with this power
|
|
comes the possibility of using it in many specific ways against those
|
|
users. Some developers of proprietary software do this. And others
|
|
don't. Of course, you can never tell which class any particular
|
|
developer falls into except when you discover a malicious feature.
|
|
Then you know. But aside from that, you don't know.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But let's suppose we're talking about one of the programs whose
|
|
developers do not put in malicious features - because there are some
|
|
developers, they sincerely try to write a program which will run in a
|
|
way that serves the user.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
They're still human, so they make mistakes. All programmers make
|
|
mistakes. Their code still has bugs. All non-trivial programs have
|
|
bugs. The user of a non-free program is just as helpless against an
|
|
accidental bug as she is against an intentional malicious feature.
|
|
The user of a non-free program is a prisoner of his software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:25:05]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
We, the developers of Free Software, are human too. We also make
|
|
mistakes, and our programs also have bugs. The difference is that
|
|
when our programs have bugs or features you don't like, you can fix
|
|
them because we have respected your freedom to fix them, to change the
|
|
code. Whatever we've implemented that you don't like, you can
|
|
change because we respected your freedom to do so.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But freedom number one is not enough. Freedom number one is the
|
|
freedom to personally study the source code and then change it to do
|
|
what you want. This is not enough because there are millions of
|
|
computer users that don't know how to program. They can't directly
|
|
exercise this freedom. But even for programmers like me, freedom
|
|
number one is not enough because there's just too much software -
|
|
there's too much Free Software. No one person can study it all and
|
|
master it all and personally make all the changes that she might
|
|
want.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It's beyond the capacity of one human being.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="freedom-three">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Freedom three]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So the only way we can fully take control of the software we use is to
|
|
do it working together, cooperating, and for that we need freedom
|
|
number three, the freedom to help your community, the freedom to
|
|
distribute or publish modified versions when you want.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
With this freedom, together we can take full control of the software.
|
|
So Free Software is software that develops democratically under the
|
|
control of its users. Not in the strict sense of democracy that
|
|
everyone votes and then people make the program do something according
|
|
to the vote and everyone gets it. It's better than that. Instead, if
|
|
you have a free program and a lot of people want it to make progress
|
|
in this direction, they will do a lot of work and publish their
|
|
improvements, so the program will make a lot of progress in this
|
|
direction.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Whereas, if only a few people want progress in this direction, they
|
|
can still do it, they can still make the program develop in that
|
|
direction but it will be limited by the amount of effort that people
|
|
want to put in. And if most people don't like that change, they'll
|
|
just use their own version. The main version will be one that goes in
|
|
this direction, but the other people who want something different,
|
|
they'll be free to have their own version which makes progress in
|
|
their direction.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
If there are a million people who want a certain change in a Free
|
|
program, then by chance, a few thousand of them will know how to
|
|
program, and sooner or later, a few of them will make that change and
|
|
publish their modified version and then all those million people will
|
|
switch and thus we can see that only programmers can directly exercise
|
|
freedoms one and three but every user can directly exercise freedoms
|
|
zero and two - the freedoms to run the program and copy the program -
|
|
and the non-programmer users indirectly get the benefit of freedoms
|
|
one and three. They can't use these freedoms directly, because that
|
|
means programming, but when other people exercise these freedoms, the
|
|
non-programmers also share in the benefits.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So these four freedoms are essential for all users, including the
|
|
non-programmers, who are the majority of society.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span
|
|
id="directly-funding-free-software-development">(<a
|
|
href="#menu">go
|
|
to menu</a>) [Section: Directly funding Free Software development]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Suppose there were just a thousand users who want a certain change in
|
|
a free program, and suppose nobody in that thousand knows how to
|
|
program, they can still get the benefit of these freedoms. Here's
|
|
how:
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
One of them can make an announcement and get in touch with the others,
|
|
get them to respond, and then once they're in touch, they can start an
|
|
organisation.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:30:04]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The purpose of this organisation is to raise money to make the change
|
|
they want. The organisation says to join you must pay 100 dollar.
|
|
So, these thousand people, we assume they really want this change, so
|
|
they all join and the organisation has 100,000 dollars with which it
|
|
can hire, perhaps, a couple of programmers for a year, and that is a
|
|
way to make quite a big change.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
If they only wanted a small change, maybe they could charge ten
|
|
dollars to join.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
To actually make this change, the organisation has to pay
|
|
programmers, which means first they have to find people to hire,
|
|
they ask some programmers "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">when could you make this change and what would you
|
|
charge?</span>" and then they could ask other programmers
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">when could you make this
|
|
charge and what would you charge?</span>" and then they can
|
|
hire whoever they wish.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Which shows that Free Software means a free market for all kinds
|
|
of support and services. By contrast, proprietary software
|
|
usually means a monopoly for support because only the developer
|
|
has the source code, so only the developer can make any change.
|
|
This means that users that want a change, have to beg the
|
|
developer. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Please make
|
|
the change that we want</span>". Sometimes the developer
|
|
says "<span style="font-style: italic;">pay us and we'll
|
|
listen to your problem</span>", and if the user does that,
|
|
the developer says "<span style="font-style: italic;">thank
|
|
you, in six months there will be an upgrade. Buy the upgrade
|
|
and you'll see if we've fixed your problem and you'll see what
|
|
new problems we have in store for you</span>".
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:32:07]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
With Free Software, anyone that has a copy, can study the source code,
|
|
master it, and begin offering support - in a free market. Thus, those
|
|
users that really value good support can expect in general to get
|
|
better support through the free market for support for Free Software
|
|
than they can get through the monopoly for support for proprietary
|
|
software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And this also shows us something paradoxical: usually when there is a
|
|
choice between products to do a certain job, we say there is no
|
|
monopoly, but when there is a choice between proprietary software
|
|
packages to do a certain job, there still is a monopoly, in fact there
|
|
is more than one monopoly. This is a choice between monopolies
|
|
because the poor user who chooses this proprietary program will be
|
|
stuck afterward with this monopoly for support. But if that poor user
|
|
chooses this proprietary program, he'll be stuck with this monopoly
|
|
for support. So there's no escaping monopoly.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And this is an illustration of a broader principle. It's a
|
|
mistake to equate freedom to "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">the freedom of choice</span>". Freedom is
|
|
something much bigger than having a choice between a few
|
|
specific options. Freedom means having control of your own
|
|
life. When people try to analyse freedom by reducing it to the
|
|
freedom of choice, they've already thrown away nearly all of it
|
|
and what's left is such a small fraction of real freedom, that
|
|
they can easily prove it doesn't really matter very much. So
|
|
that term is very often the first step in the fallacious
|
|
argument that freedom is not important.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be
|
|
able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:34:45]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So, now I've explained the reason for freedom number three - the
|
|
freedom to help your community, the freedom to distribute or publish a
|
|
modified version when you wish. And thus I've completed explaining
|
|
the reasons for the four freedoms. If a program carries all four of
|
|
these essential freedoms, then it is Free Software, and that means it
|
|
is being distributed in an ethical system. If one of these freedoms
|
|
is substantially missing, then the program is proprietary software and
|
|
that means you shouldn't use it and it shouldn't be developed at all,
|
|
not this way.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span
|
|
id="comparing-free-and-proprietary-software">(<a href="#menu">go
|
|
to menu</a>) [Section: Comparing free and proprietary software]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Developing a proprietary program is developing temptations for
|
|
people to give up their freedom, and this is not a positive
|
|
contribution to society. This is the place where people are
|
|
making a mistake when they try to compare Free Software with
|
|
proprietary software in terms of how much software could be
|
|
developed. That's like saying: "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">is it better to make guns or houses and food? Well,
|
|
let's see how much we could make of one or the other each. Oh,
|
|
we can make more guns, then make guns.</span>"
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It is getting the whole question wrong. When people say:
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">could we make more
|
|
proprietary software or could we make more Free
|
|
Software</span>", they're getting the whole question wrong.
|
|
The best thing is if you can make some Free Software, the next
|
|
best thing is if you don't make any software, and the worst
|
|
thing is if you make some proprietary software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:36:52]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I'm all in favour of the principle that it's good to reward
|
|
people who do things that contribute to society and it's good to
|
|
punish people, one way or another, if they do things that harm
|
|
society. This means that people who develop Free Software
|
|
that's useful deserve a reward, and people who develop
|
|
proprietary software that's attractive deserve a punishment.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Although it is good to reward and punish actions that contribute
|
|
to or harm society, we can't just say
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">I'm going to do whatever
|
|
is rewarded and it's up to society to make sure they only reward
|
|
good things</span>". Our responsibility as ethical beings
|
|
is to do right, whether it's being rewarded or not. And that's
|
|
why I made a decision long ago that I would develop Free
|
|
Software or no software. I will not develop bait for people to
|
|
give up their freedom. It's better if I did nothing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="the-situation-in-1983">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: The situation in 1983]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I reached these ethical ideas in the year 1983. More or less. Of
|
|
course I had been learning about these issues for many years before
|
|
that. But in 1983 was when I decided that what I wanted to do was
|
|
make it possible to use a computer in freedom as part of a community.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
How could this be possible? In 1983, it was impossible, and the
|
|
reason is that the computer won't do anything without an operating
|
|
system and in 1983, all the operating systems for modern computers
|
|
were proprietary. In fact, the user had to sign a non-disclosure
|
|
agreement even to get the executable version. And the source code was
|
|
not available to ordinary users.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So the second step in becoming a computer user, after buying the
|
|
computer itself, was to explicitly betray the rest of your community.
|
|
So what could I do about that?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I was just one man believing in an idea that most people would
|
|
have thought was ridiculously radical. I had no political
|
|
skill. Not much fame - outside of the circle of editor
|
|
developers. So what could I do to change this. I didn't think
|
|
I could convince governments to change their laws or convince
|
|
companies to change their practices. But there was one thing I
|
|
was very good at and that was developing software. Particularly
|
|
operating system software. And when I put that together, I
|
|
realised I could solve this problem without convincing anybody
|
|
in particular by developing another operating system that would
|
|
be free. And then we could all switch to it and live in
|
|
freedom. We wouldn't have to convince any other developers to
|
|
change, we could just turn our backs on them. If someone else
|
|
wouldn't respect our freedom, we just wouldn't use his software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:40:52]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I had discovered a way of making a political change in society,
|
|
through technical work. And when I realised that this path was
|
|
possible, and that it required exactly the kind of work that was may
|
|
main skill, I realised that I had been elected by circumstances to do
|
|
this job.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It's as if you see someone drowning, and you know how to swim, and
|
|
it's not Bush...
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
...then you have a moral duty to save that person. I don't know how
|
|
to swim, but in this case the job that needed doing was not swimming,
|
|
it was writing a lot of software. And for that, I had a chance. So I
|
|
decided that I would develop a Free Software operating system, or die
|
|
trying. Of old age presumably.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Because, at the time, the Free Software movement that I was
|
|
starting, had no active enemies. There were plenty of people
|
|
who disagreed, but they just laughed. No one was actively
|
|
trying to stop us from developing a free operating system. The
|
|
obstacle was just that it was a lot of work, and nobody knew if
|
|
we would ever reach that point. But, when you're fighting for
|
|
freedom, you mustn't wait until you know you're going to win
|
|
before you start to fight because if that's you're policy,
|
|
you're always going to miss the opportunities.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="choosing-the-unix-design">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Choosing the Unix design]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So, this decision lead me to other decisions, technical design
|
|
decisions. What sort of system should it be? Well, back in the 1980s
|
|
there were many different computer architectures and they kept
|
|
introducing new ones. I knew it would take years to finish an
|
|
operating system, and by that time the computers could look
|
|
different. So that meant the system had to be portable. Otherwise,
|
|
it would probably be obsolete before it was finished.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But there was just one successful portable operating system I knew of
|
|
and that was Unix. So I decided to follow the design of Unix,
|
|
figuring that way I would have a better chance of completing a system
|
|
that would really be portable and usable. Furthermore, since Unix was
|
|
popular, it was useful to make the system upward compatible with Unix.
|
|
And that way, the many users of Unix would be able to switch easily.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So I decided to do that, and that lead to an interesting consequence.
|
|
You see, Unix consists of hundreds of different separate components
|
|
that communicate through interfaces that were more or less
|
|
documented. And the users use those same interfaces to communicate
|
|
with these pieces.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So to be compatible with Unix, you have to keep the same interfaces,
|
|
more or less, and replace each piece compatibly. Which meant that all
|
|
the initial design decisions were already made. These pieces could be
|
|
replaced by many different people. For each piece, a different group
|
|
of programmers could work on it, and they could work on each piece
|
|
separately. Which eliminates one of the biggest problems of a large
|
|
programming project which is the difficulty of having so many people
|
|
talking to each other.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:45:30]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
By making the decision to be compatible with Unix, which was important
|
|
to make the system easy to switch to, it had already been chopped up
|
|
into separate parts for us. Hundreds of parts.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="the-name-gnu">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: The name "GNU"]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The only thing we needed in order to start working, was a name. In
|
|
the community of programmers who shared software in the 1970s, that
|
|
thought me that Free Software is a good and ethical way of life, we
|
|
programmed for the joy of it.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Many of us were students, and many of the rest were paid to do this
|
|
work, but that was secondary. The main reason we were programming was
|
|
because it was tremendously fascinating fun. Because we were doing
|
|
this in a spirit of joy and fun, we had lots of other practices that
|
|
were designed to have fun. For instance, we would often give our
|
|
programs funny names or even naughty names - mischievous names. And
|
|
we had a particular custom which was, when you're developing a program
|
|
that is inspired by another program - perhaps compatible with it - you
|
|
could give your program a name which was a recursive acronym saying
|
|
that this program is not the other one. It's a funny way of giving
|
|
credit to the original program which was an inspiration.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:47:32]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
For instance, in 1975, I developed the first Emacs text editor,
|
|
an extensible programmable text editor. You could actually
|
|
re-programme the editor while using it. And this was so
|
|
attractive that it was imitated about thirty times. And some of
|
|
them were called "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">something Emacs</span>", but there was also Sine,
|
|
for Sine Is Not Emacs, and Fine, for Fine Is Not Emacs, and
|
|
Eine, for Eine Is Not Emacs. And Mince, for Mince Is Not
|
|
Complete Emacs, and version two of Eine was called Zwei, for
|
|
Zwei Was Eine Initially.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So you could have lots of fun with recursive acronyms. For lack of
|
|
any better idea, I looked for a recursive acronym for something- Is
|
|
Not Unix, but I tried all twenty-six possibilities, but none of them
|
|
was a word in English, and if it doesn't have another meaning, it's
|
|
not funny. So what was I going to do? Well, I thought, I could make
|
|
a contraction, and that way I could have a three letter recursive
|
|
acronym.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I tried every letter, ANU, BNU, CNU, DNU, ENU, FNU, GNU! Well, gnu
|
|
was the funniest word in the English language. Given an intelligent,
|
|
meaningful, specific reason to call something gnu, I could not
|
|
resist.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:49:21]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Why is the word gnu used for so much wordplay? Because
|
|
according to the dictionary, it's pronounced
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">noo</span>". The
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">g</span>" is
|
|
silent. And the temptation to say gnu instead of
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">new</span>"
|
|
anywhere is almost irresistible to people who like wordplay.
|
|
There was even a funny song inspired by the word gnu when I was
|
|
a child. With so much laughter already associated with the
|
|
word, it was the best possible name for anything.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
However, when it's the name of our operating system, please do
|
|
not follow the dictionary. If you talk about the
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">new</span>"
|
|
operating system you'll get people very confused - especially
|
|
since we've been working on it for twenty-three years now, so
|
|
it's not new anymore. But it still is and always will be
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">gnu</span>" [two
|
|
syllables, like "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">canoe</span>"], no matter how many people
|
|
pronounce it "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">Linux</span>" by mistake.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So, how did that mistake get started?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="gnu-and-linux">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: GNU and Linux]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
During the 1980s, we developed one piece after another of the GNU
|
|
system. At first it was slow because there was just me and one other
|
|
person, because of course, the goal was not to have a system written
|
|
by me, the goal was to have a Free Software operating system as soon
|
|
as possible. So of course I recruited other people to help as well as
|
|
I could. Starting in 1983, before I actually began writing anything,
|
|
I began asking other people to join in. And over the years, each
|
|
year, more people joined in and started contributing to GNU.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:51:23]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
By 1990, we had almost all of the pieces. But one of the large,
|
|
essential components was still missing, and that was the kernel. So
|
|
in 1990, the Free Software Foundation - which I had started at the end
|
|
of 1985 in order to raise money to contribute to progress in Free
|
|
Software - hired someone to begin developing a kernel. I chose the
|
|
design of the kernel, and that was all I was involved with. I didn't
|
|
write it. I chose a design which I hoped would enable us to get the
|
|
kernel finished as soon as possible. Namely, I found a microkernel,
|
|
which had been developed by a government funded project at a
|
|
university and I said, well let's use that as the bottom layer, and on
|
|
top of that we'll develop a collection of user programs, each one to
|
|
do a particular kernel service, and they'll communicate by message
|
|
passing, which is the feature that the microkernel implements for you.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This is the way, also, that people thought was the cleanest possible
|
|
way to design kernels back in 1990. Well, it took many many many
|
|
years to get this kernel to run at all, and it still doesn't run well,
|
|
and it looks like there may be fundamental problems with this design,
|
|
which nobody knew about back in 1990.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Fortunately though, we didn't have to wait for it because in
|
|
1991 a college student in Finland developed another kernel using
|
|
the monolithic, traditional design, and he got it to barely run
|
|
in less than a year. This kernel, which was called
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Linux</span>",
|
|
initially was not Free Software, however, in 1992, he changed
|
|
the licence and adopted a Free Software licence, namely the GNU
|
|
General Public License which I had written to use as the licence
|
|
for the pieces of GNU that we were developing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Thus, although Linux was not developed for the GNU project, it was
|
|
Free Software at that point in 1992 and thus the combination of the
|
|
almost-complete GNU system, and the kernel Linux formed a complete
|
|
system. A system that you could actually install in a bare PC, and
|
|
for the first time it was possible to run a PC in freedom. The goal
|
|
that we had set out for in January 1984 had been achieved.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The development of Linux was an important contribution to the Free
|
|
Software community. That was the step that carried us accross the
|
|
finish line. Before that, we had many useful programs that people
|
|
could install on top of a non-free operating system. Once we had the
|
|
last missing piece, we had something you could install replacing the
|
|
non-free operating system.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:55:16]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
However, the confusion of thinking that the entire system was Linux,
|
|
that it had all been developed by the college student in 1991 has been
|
|
extremely harmful to the Free Software movement ever since because it
|
|
broke the connection from our software to our philosophy.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Before that time, there was no complete free operating system,
|
|
but there were many important parts of one and people would
|
|
install them on top of non-free operating systems because they
|
|
were not only free but also usually better. And when they did
|
|
so, they realised they were installing these GNU programs, so
|
|
they thought of themselves as fans or enthusiasts of GNU, and
|
|
when they saw the articles that were in some of these packages,
|
|
explaining the philosophy of Free Software, the same philosophy
|
|
that I've been telling you today, they would think
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, this is the
|
|
philosophy behind GNU, and I like GNU, I should read
|
|
this.</span>" This didn't mean they would all agree with
|
|
us, but at least they would pay attention to the arguments.
|
|
They would give it serious consideration. So we had a chance to
|
|
convince them, and if we did convince them, then they would feel
|
|
a motivation to contribute to Free Software, to contribute to
|
|
GNU. So the software spread the philosophy, and the philosophy
|
|
extended the software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Once people started using more-or-less the entire GNU system, and
|
|
thinking it was Linux, then, using the GNU system no longer lead
|
|
people to our philosophy - that I've told you today, the philosophy of
|
|
the Free Software movement - instead it lead people to look at the
|
|
philosophy of the developer of Linux.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
He has never agreed with the ideals of the Free Software movement.
|
|
In fact, he likes to call himself apolitical.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[00:57:44]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But, as often happens when people say they are apolitical, in
|
|
fact, they are espousing and promoting a particular political
|
|
point of view and his political point of view is that the
|
|
developer should have total power, the developer can simply
|
|
decide whether you have freedom or not and that it's always
|
|
wrong to disobey the developer. That is, it's always wrong to
|
|
violate any software licence. That's the view he has stated in
|
|
the past.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And when people think that the whole system is his work, they
|
|
tend to look to him for guidance in these ethical questions as
|
|
well. So we see the unpleasant situation that a system which is
|
|
mainly our work is leading people to follow views that are the
|
|
opposite of ours because the system is incorrectly attributed to
|
|
somebody else. And this is why I pay attention to the issue so
|
|
much. This is why I ask you, please call the system GNU+Linux
|
|
or GNU/Linux. Please don't call it Linux. It's not just unfair
|
|
to the system's principal developers if you call it by a
|
|
different name, it also leads people not to think about freedom.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And that's really dangerous because history shows us that
|
|
freedom is never guaranteed to be secure. And we don't have to
|
|
look very far back in history. Just look at the history of the
|
|
United States in recent years to see how people can lose their
|
|
freedom. Life always keeps handing you opportunities to lose
|
|
your freedom. Someone says "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">give me your freedom, and I'll give you this... or
|
|
that... I'll protect you... or I will take care of
|
|
you</span>" or whatever. If you don't appreciate your
|
|
freedom, if you don't appreciate it very strongly, you will lose
|
|
it. A fool and his freedom are soon parted.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span
|
|
id="software-freedom-needs-to-be-widely-understood">(<a
|
|
href="#menu">go
|
|
to menu</a>) [Section: Software freedom needs to be widely understood]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
In order for people to defend their freedom, they have to value their
|
|
freedom, they have to appreciate it. And in order for people to
|
|
appreciate and value their freedom, first they have to know what it
|
|
is. In other areas of life, most people have heard of human rights.
|
|
That doesn't mean defending them is easy, but at least we don't have
|
|
to start by teaching people what the concept means. We don't have to
|
|
start by explaining to people what freedom of the press means because
|
|
they've never heard of it before. The concept of freedom of the press
|
|
has had centuries to be developed and spread around the World.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But computing is new. It's only been about ten years that a
|
|
large number of people in most wealthy countries have been using
|
|
computers. And it's only been a few decades that there have
|
|
been computers. So the ideas of what the human rights are that
|
|
go with the use of software are just being developed. The Free
|
|
Software movement says that there are four essential human
|
|
rights for the user of software. This is a new idea. Most
|
|
people who use software have never thought about the question of
|
|
what human rights a software user should have. They have simply
|
|
accepted what they have been told, which is, the human rights
|
|
which a software user is entitled to are: none at all.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
That's what the developers of proprietary software give them. That's
|
|
what they see almost everybody accepting. That's what they have done.
|
|
And they have never heard anyone say that there is another idea.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So we actually have to start with step one, which is to tell people
|
|
what it means to have freedom as a user of software. And then we can
|
|
hope that people will value these freedoms enough to defend these
|
|
freedoms so that maybe we can stay free. The future of our community
|
|
depends on what we value, more than anything else.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:03:27]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And that's why it's so important today to teach people about the
|
|
ideals of the Free Software movement. It's not enough just to
|
|
teach people to use Free Software. Of course I hope that they
|
|
use Free Software, because it's a shame if they're using
|
|
non-free, user-subjugating software. But just to use Free
|
|
Software is not enough if we want to have freedom that will last
|
|
for many years. If we gave everybody that uses computers
|
|
freedom tomorrow, but they didn't know what that freedom was,
|
|
five years from now, many of them would have lost it because
|
|
someone would have said to them "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">I've got a nice program that will make things easier,
|
|
would you like it? Of course, you have to promise not to share
|
|
it, and I won't let you see what's inside, but it's a nice
|
|
program, don't you want it?</span>"
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
A person who has not learned to think that there is something wrong
|
|
there might say yes. And that means her freedom is partly gone. So,
|
|
it's not enough just to give people freedom. We need to teach people
|
|
to recognise it as freedom so that they can learn to value it and then
|
|
defend it and not let it go. That's what we need if we want to have
|
|
freedom not just tomorrow but permanently.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span
|
|
id="we-urgently-need-people-to-work-on-stage-2">(<a
|
|
href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: We urgently need people to work on "stage 2"]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Many people suggest a two stage solution. They say, first, let's teach
|
|
people to use Free Software, and then, once they're using it, we'll
|
|
teach people to appreciate the freedom.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Well, this two stage solution might work well, if it were properly
|
|
tried, but when people propose this, almost always they go and work on
|
|
stage one. In fact, I've come to recognise that this two stage
|
|
solution idea is really an excuse to work on stage one and ignore
|
|
stage two. Stage two is what I work on. So if you really believe in
|
|
a two stage solution, come join me and work on stage two because the
|
|
problem is that so much of our community has focussed on stage one,
|
|
and so much of our community has talked about practical benefits while
|
|
ignoring freedom, that in fact, at this point, if you start using the
|
|
GNU/Linux system, you may not hear anyone talk about freedom for
|
|
years. In other words, our community has not just begun to forget
|
|
about the goal of freedom, it has almost completely forgotten. With
|
|
the result that now it is a struggle to teach people in our own
|
|
community about the freedom which is the reason why we built this
|
|
community.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Of all the operating systems in history, all except one were developed
|
|
for commercial reasons or technical reasons. GNU was developed for
|
|
the sake of freedom. The users need to know this. And I would like
|
|
to ask you to join in helping to teach them this. This is why I
|
|
dedicate myself now to spreading these ideas of freedom. There are
|
|
more than a million contributors to Free Software now. The community
|
|
doesn't need me that much as a programmer, and besides, I'm getting
|
|
older, I probably can't do it as well as I used to. But there are not
|
|
a million people teaching the users to appreciate the value of freedom
|
|
and the value of specifically the freedom to cooperate in a
|
|
community. This is where we urgently need more people.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:08:19]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="today-we-have-enemies">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Today, we have enemies]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Especially since today, we have something we didn't have before:
|
|
enemies. Powerful enemies. Rich corporations that think they should
|
|
rule the World, and almost do.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
We face many kinds of obstacles today. For instance, many hardware
|
|
products do not come with specifications.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
In 1984, when I started writing GNU, this idea was almost unheard of.
|
|
Almost unthinkable. Of course when you buy a computer there's manual
|
|
that tells you exactly how to use every thing in the computer. How
|
|
could they possibly sell you a computer and not tell you how to use
|
|
it?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But nowadays that's what some hardware manufacturers do. And
|
|
it's hard to write a free driver for some input-output device
|
|
when you don't know what commands to give to it. Of course, the
|
|
manufacturers say "<span style="font-style: italic;">oh,
|
|
this is no problem, we support Linux</span>". They call
|
|
the system Linux. And they hand you a driver and they say
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Just use this
|
|
driver</span>". The only problem is that it's not Free
|
|
Software. It's a binary only program. So you can't change it.
|
|
You can't study what it does. So that's not acceptable.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
What we have to do is, on one hand, reverse engineering to figure out
|
|
how to make free drivers. And on the other hand, pressure these
|
|
companies to cooperate with us.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So that we can make Free Software that really uses the
|
|
computer's hardware. This computer has a modem that doesn't
|
|
work. It's a lose-modem. Well, the term they like to use is
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">winmodem</span>",
|
|
but I don't want to refer to Microsoft Windows as a win, because
|
|
that's term of praise. So I call it a lose modem.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It's a modem that only works with Windows because part of the job has
|
|
to be done in software and we don't know what that software is
|
|
supposed to, and I think some aspects of it are patented anyway.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:11:16]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So, I'm told that some of these lose-modems now have Free Software
|
|
support. I don't know the precise details. Today, all of the major
|
|
3D video accelerator chips fail to work with Free Software because the
|
|
specifications of the chip are secret.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span
|
|
id="we-need-to-stop-wasting-our-market-power">(<a href="#menu">go
|
|
to menu</a>) [Section: We need to stop wasting our market power]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This is an area where our community could exert tremendous
|
|
power. With tens of millions of users, if we were organised, if
|
|
we could say to one company: "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">We're going to boycott you until you start cooperating
|
|
with us, and when you start cooperating, then we're all going to
|
|
buy from you and we're going to boycott them</span>".
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
We could make them start treating us decently. But we're not
|
|
organised and most of the people in our community have never heard the
|
|
idea that there is an ethical issue of freedom here. So we waste the
|
|
market power that we have.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And the problems get worse than this. There is an effort going on
|
|
right now, a conspiracy of major companies, to change the design of
|
|
computers in the future so that it will be impossible to write Free
|
|
Software to do many important jobs.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:13:05]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="treacherous-computing">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Treacherous Computing]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This is known by them as "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">Trusted Computing</span>" and by us as
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Treacherous
|
|
Computing</span>". Their plan is that software developers
|
|
will be able to trust your computer to obey them instead of you.
|
|
From their point of view it's trusted, from your point of view
|
|
it's treacherous. So which name you choose is a matter of what
|
|
side you're on.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I'm on the side of the users who should be able to control their own
|
|
computers. So I call it Treacherous Computing. This is a very
|
|
dangerous plan, and it's not clear how we can stop it. We just have
|
|
to keep on fighting it out and hope that something will go wrong with
|
|
there plan, because sometimes something goes wrong.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="the-dmca-and-eucd-laws">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: The DMCA and EUCD laws]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And there are the laws that are passed that prohibit some Free
|
|
Software. For instance, in the US there are two such laws already.
|
|
One of them is called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and it
|
|
essentially gave publishers the power to write their own copyright
|
|
laws.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The idea is that if publishers publish something in encrypted
|
|
format or any other way designed to restrict the user, then
|
|
anything that helps the user escape to freedom, is illegal.
|
|
Thus, for instance, DVDs were designed to restrict the user.
|
|
The video on a DVD is stored in an encyrpted format, and
|
|
initially this encryption was supposed to be secret so that it
|
|
would be impossible ever to write Free Software to watch a DVD.
|
|
But people figured it out, and the result it that a few people
|
|
wrote a free program to watch a DVD. This program is now
|
|
censored in the US. The United States practices censorship of
|
|
software. So, if you are in the United States, and I'm sorry
|
|
for you if you are because you would not have much in the way of
|
|
basic human rights especially as a foreigner, but one right you
|
|
nominally still have is if you buy a DVD, you have a right to
|
|
watch it. But the Free Software that you could use to watch it
|
|
is illegal to distribute. Even telling people where they could
|
|
find it from outside the US is illegal.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Really Orwellian censorship.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:16:36]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And I'm sad to say that the European Union has adopted a
|
|
directive that is pretty similar. It doesn't go quite as far.
|
|
It only prohibits the commercial distribution of such software.
|
|
That might let us barely squeak by except that just about every
|
|
country, maybe every country, when implementing this directive
|
|
has gone further than necessary, has made it more strict than
|
|
the directive requires. Taking the side of some mega
|
|
corporations against their own citizens. So this becomes a sort
|
|
of picture in the the small of how democracy is endangered by
|
|
the European Union, and how democracy is sick all around the
|
|
World. A government of the people by the people for the people
|
|
wouldn't adopt restrictions like this. Wouldn't criminalise
|
|
millions of their own citizens on behalf of companies, usually
|
|
foreign companies. You have to ask: who are these governments
|
|
really working for? Do they represent their own people, or are
|
|
they the satraps of someone above?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This law only applies in limited areas of what you can do in
|
|
software. It applies to having access to published works. Even
|
|
though this is a narrow subfield of the software field it can still be
|
|
tremendously important. For instance, if millions of people want to
|
|
watch DVDs on their computer, and they can't do this with Free
|
|
Software, in fact they can't legally get a program to do this on a
|
|
free operating system, many of them might use non-free operating
|
|
systems and non-Free Software just for that reason alone. So even
|
|
though it's just one application out of the thousands that software
|
|
can have, it can be very important in practice.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="software-patents">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>) [Section: Software patents]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The other law that prohibits many kinds of Free Software can
|
|
actually apply to any kind of software, and that's patent law,
|
|
which I spoke about yesterday
|
|
[<a
|
|
href="http://mjesec.ffzg.hr/~dpavlin/stallman2006/dangers_of_software_patents_zagreb_08_march_2006.ogg">link
|
|
to audio file</a>]. Patent law is a threat to all software
|
|
developers. Patent law means that you can write a program and
|
|
then you can get sued because of the code that you wrote
|
|
yourself. Copyright law can't do this. If you write the code,
|
|
you or your employer have the copyright. Which means nobody
|
|
else does. So there's no danger someone else can sue you for
|
|
copyright infringement because of the code that you wrote. But
|
|
patents are totally different from copyright.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:20:07]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Patents cover ideas, techniques, features, methods - not the code
|
|
itself. And when you write code, you are implementing lots of
|
|
different techniques, methods, features, ideas. Any one of them could
|
|
be patented by somebody. In fact, fifty of them could be patented by
|
|
fifty different patent holder and then they could all threaten to sue
|
|
you, separately.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
All software developers are threatened by this, but most software
|
|
developers are only trying to have some successful products. We are
|
|
trying to serve all of the user's computing needs in freedom. Our
|
|
goal is that all software should be free, that all users should be
|
|
able to do whatever they want to do and keep their freedom. Our goal
|
|
is to provide people with Free Software for every job so that nobody
|
|
ever faces the choice: either I keep my freedom or I do this job with
|
|
my computer today.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It's sort of sad. This shows how little people value their freedom.
|
|
People find themselves, they have some reason to do a certain job,
|
|
it's attractive, it's appealing, it might make some money. And just
|
|
for that they give up their freedom. So sad.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:21:50]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Since we can't expect most people to value their freedom enough
|
|
to say "<span style="font-style: italic;">I'm willing to
|
|
not do this job because my freedom is more important to me than
|
|
doing this particular computer use</span>", our goal is to
|
|
give them a free program that will do that job. And then they
|
|
have an easy choice. They can reject the non-free program and
|
|
use the free program instead.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Every time there is some job that Free Software can't do, that's a big
|
|
problem.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="more-legislative-battles">(<a href="#menu">go to
|
|
menu</a>) [Section: More legislative battles to come]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But these two laws are not enough. New ones are being
|
|
considered all the time. For instance, WIPO, the World
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">Intellectual
|
|
Property</span>" Organisation, is now working on a treaty
|
|
that would make it illegal to make any receiver for digital
|
|
television that's encrypted, that the users can modify.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
In other words, for the first time, the idea would be to actually
|
|
single out the fact that something is Free Software as a reason to
|
|
prohibit it. This is how much they hate our freedoms.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So today it's not enough just to write software and have fun. Of
|
|
course we still need people to do that, and we have many people doing
|
|
that, but we need also to organise politically to keep our freedoms,
|
|
to organise against the frequent campaigns to take away one freedom or
|
|
another. And the European Union has been generally very willing to
|
|
adopt directives taking away its citizens freedom on behalf of the
|
|
movie companies and the record companies.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:24:27]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
We have a big fight on our hands and there's no way of telling whether
|
|
we can win. And that means we have to fight. I hope that you will
|
|
help in this fight.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="free-software-and-schools">(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)
|
|
[Section: Free Software and schools]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
It's vital for schools to use Free Software exclusively. The reason
|
|
is: schools have a mission to teach society to be capable, to educate
|
|
people to be parts of a capable, free society. Teaching students to
|
|
use proprietary software is teaching dependence. It's training them
|
|
to be dependent on specific powerful companies. Giving those
|
|
companies more power over society. Whereas, teaching them to use Free
|
|
Software, is directing society onto the path towards freedom and
|
|
strength. So schools must stop teaching proprietary software.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But there's an even stronger reason for this. And even deeper
|
|
reason. And that is, for moral education. Schools have to teach
|
|
children the spirit of good will, the spirit of helping other people
|
|
around them in society. So every class should have a rule: children,
|
|
if you bring software to class, you can't keep it for yourself, you
|
|
must share it with the other kids, and if you won't share it, you
|
|
can't bring it here because the way we do things is we help each
|
|
other.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The school, in order to teach this properly, has to follow its own
|
|
rule. It has to set a good example. This means the school must bring
|
|
only Free Software to class.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span id="st-ignucias-and-the-church-of-emacs">(<a href="#menu">go
|
|
to menu</a>) [Section: St. IGNUcius and the Church of Emacs]</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Sometimes people have accused me of having a holier-than-thou
|
|
attitude. I don't think that's true. When I encounter somebody who
|
|
is not doing all that he could do to encourage our freedom, I don't
|
|
look to attack that person, I look to encourage that person to do
|
|
more.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
However, I do have a <span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">holy</span> attitude, because I'm a saint. It's my job
|
|
to be holy.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[Stallman dons a robe and puts a 16-inch disk on his head]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[applause]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I am Saint IGNUcius...
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
...of the Church of Emacs. I bless your computer my child. Emacs
|
|
started out as a text editor, which became a way of life for many
|
|
users because they could do all there work on a computer while never
|
|
exiting from Emacs, and ultimately it became a religion as well.
|
|
Today, we even have a great schism between two rival versions of
|
|
Emacs, and we even have saints. But fortunately, no Gods. Instead of
|
|
Gods, we worship an editor.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
To be a member of the Church of Emacs, you must recite the confession
|
|
of the faith, you must say: there is no system but GNU, and Linux is
|
|
one of its kernels.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The Church of Emacs has certain advantages compared with other
|
|
churches I won't name. For instance, to be a saint in the Church of
|
|
Emacs does not require celibacy. So if you have been searching for a
|
|
church to be a saint in, you might consider ours. However it does
|
|
require living a life of moral purity. You must exorcise any evil
|
|
proprietary operating systems that possess any of the computers under
|
|
your control, and then install a wholly/holy free operating system,
|
|
and then only install Free Software on top of that. If you make this
|
|
vow and live by it then you too will be a saint and you too may have a
|
|
halo - if you can find one because they don't make them anymore.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Sometimes people ask me whether it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to
|
|
use the other text editor vi. Well, it's true that vi vi vi is the
|
|
editor of the beast, but using a free version of vi is not a sin, it's
|
|
a penance.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
And sometimes people ask me if my halo is really an old computer
|
|
disk. This is no computer disk, this is my halo. But, it was a
|
|
computer disk in a previous existence.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So, thank you, and now, I will answer questions for a while.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[applause]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q1">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q1</span>: I'm interested in
|
|
hearing your opinion on the relationship between Mono and GNOME.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Mono
|
|
is a free implementation of Microsoft's language C#. Microsoft
|
|
has declared itself our enemy and we know that Microsoft is
|
|
getting patents on some features of C#. So I think it's
|
|
dangerous to use C#, and it may be dangerous to use Mono.
|
|
There's nothing wrong with Mono. Mono is a free implementation
|
|
of a language that users use. It's good to provide free
|
|
implementations. We should have free implementations of every
|
|
language. But, depending on it is dangerous, and we better not
|
|
do that.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q2">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q2</span>: What is your view on
|
|
other licences, other than the GPL? Such as BSD style licences?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Well,
|
|
there's no such thing as "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">BSD style licences</span>". There are two
|
|
different BSD licences, and they're both Free Software licences,
|
|
but there's an important difference between them. If you use
|
|
the term "<span style="font-style: italic;">BSD
|
|
style</span>", you are overlooking the difference. For
|
|
more information,
|
|
see <a
|
|
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html">www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html</a>.
|
|
It exaplains the issue.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
However, both of those licences are Free Software licences. Both of
|
|
them grant the four essential freedoms, which means they're both
|
|
basically ethical.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
One of them has a significant practical drawback, and the other does
|
|
not. I convinced Berkley to change its licence to get rid of the
|
|
practical drawback. And by the way, the reason that the BSD
|
|
developers started making their code free was at least partly due to
|
|
the visit that I paid to them in 1984 or 1985, because I wanted to be
|
|
able to use some of their code in GNU. So I asked them, because at
|
|
that time, BSD existed, it was a version of Unix, and you had to show
|
|
them an AT&T source licence in order to get a copy of BSD.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So I told them: you are effectively donating your labour, your work,
|
|
to a company. It's not even a charity, and you're donating to it.
|
|
Why don't you separate your code from AT&T's code, and that way you
|
|
could make your code free. I did this because there were parts that I
|
|
knew were their work, and I figured this way we would get to use them
|
|
in GNU and we would more quickly have a free operating system.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
The website <a href="http://www.gnu.org/">www.gnu.org</a> is the place
|
|
to look for information about GNU and Free Software. There is also a
|
|
site <a href="http://fsf.org/">fsf.org</a> for information about the
|
|
Free Software Foundation.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q3">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3</span>: As part of a
|
|
community that develops a piece of software, there is a problem
|
|
with some of the users of that software, they simply develop it
|
|
further but they do not release their source code.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: What
|
|
does this program do?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3b</span>: This program is an
|
|
emulator for an MORPG
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: In
|
|
general, there is nothing wrong with a person adapting a
|
|
program, and using it privately...
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3c</span>: But they released only binaries.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Oh,
|
|
well then they're violating the licence. The developers need to
|
|
talk to a lawyer, and you can sue them.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3d</span>: The problem is that
|
|
they are scattered all around the World.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Well,
|
|
that doesn't necessarily matter. Don't take a defeatist
|
|
attitude. A few of the main developers, instead of talking
|
|
about how hopeless it is, should talk to a lawyer, for instance,
|
|
the Software Freedom Law Centre. For instance, when they do
|
|
this to the Free Software Foundation, we make them comply.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
We vigorously enforce the GNU General Public License, and the reason
|
|
we do it is that when people are violating the GPL, that generally
|
|
means that some users are losing their freedom. So to protect their
|
|
freedom, we enforce the licence. We use the same weapons, namely
|
|
copyright law, that other people use to take away others freedom,
|
|
except we use this to defend people's freedom, and that's what makes
|
|
it legitimate.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3e</span>: So, we should be
|
|
able to fight all of these kids all around the World using this
|
|
weapon?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: I
|
|
don't know. Are they all kids?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q3f</span>: They are mostly kids.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Then
|
|
it will be easy.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[laughter, applause]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:38:46]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q4">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q4</span>: There is a common
|
|
confusion about freedom number three, some people think there is
|
|
an obligation to publish all modifications, maybe it is worth
|
|
adding a sentence or two to your speeches to clarify this.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Well
|
|
that's why I say: the freedom to distribute modifications when
|
|
you wish. I put in the "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">when you wish</span>" to try to correct that
|
|
confusion. There's just so many things I need to say, and there
|
|
wasn't time for them all. I left out a lot of things. You're
|
|
right, it's just that there are many other misunderstandings I
|
|
didn't correct today. There's too much to be said to fit, I
|
|
just do the best I can. You're right, but what can I do.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q5">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q5</span>: Does your halo [a
|
|
large, old computer disk] contain proprietary software?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Not
|
|
any more. Once there are fingerprints on it, I don't think
|
|
anything's going to be able to read it.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q6">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q6</span>: Can you comment on
|
|
the Creative Commons licence?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: The
|
|
thing is, it's meaningless to talk about Creative Commons
|
|
licence. The bad thing about Creative Commons is that it has
|
|
produced a broad series of licences that have nothing in common.
|
|
In fact, if you look at these licences and determine what is the
|
|
freedom that is common to all these licences, the answer is:
|
|
nothing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This is a problem because the reason why I would want to support such
|
|
a thing is because it recognises the important freedoms, and
|
|
initially, when Creative Commons got started, all of its licences
|
|
recognised a certain minimum freedom which is also the freedom that I
|
|
believe everyone is entitled to for works of art and opinion, namely,
|
|
the freedom to non-commercial distribute exact copies of the work.
|
|
That is, at the time I believed, the minimum freedom that everyone
|
|
should always have for all kinds of works.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Larry Lessig has sort of convinced me that there is another essential
|
|
freedom, which is, what he calls, remix. Which is the freedom to take
|
|
parts of various works and change them and put them together into
|
|
another work that is quite different overall and makes a different
|
|
point, and so on. But in the US, that's usually going to be fair use,
|
|
so I didn't see a need to talk about that so much.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But in any case, the initial Creative Commons licences all recognised
|
|
the freedom to non commercially distribute exact copies of the whole
|
|
work. But then, they developed some more licences which don't give
|
|
you that freedom. In fact, there're some licences which give me no
|
|
freedom at all, because I'm in developed country, and that probably
|
|
applies to you too.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
Because of that, those licences I consider unacceptable. There
|
|
is no legitimate use of those licences. However, the problem
|
|
is, Creative Commons functions in a way that encourages people
|
|
to lump it all together. They don't encourage people to look at
|
|
these different licences and think about them individually.
|
|
Instead they promote the brand "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">Creative Commons</span>". So you'll see lots of
|
|
people saying "<span style="font-style: italic;">Let's use a
|
|
Creative Commons licence for this</span>", or
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">please contribute to our
|
|
project, we're using a Creative Commons licence</span>".
|
|
And they think they have told you something substantial, and
|
|
many people read that and they think that they have been told
|
|
something substantial, and in fact, they have been told nothing
|
|
- about what freedoms users will have in using that work.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
This is why I can't support Creative Commons at all. Because the way
|
|
they've set it up, you either support all of it or none of it, and for
|
|
me that means it has to be none of it.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
I've asked them to split it up into two activities with different
|
|
names and different brands. And then I could support one of them and
|
|
not the other. I would be glad to do that if they made it possible to
|
|
do that.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So what this shows is a basic philosophical difference between
|
|
Creative Commons and the Free Software movement. Creative Commons may
|
|
have been in some sense inspired by the Free Software movement, but it
|
|
isn't similar to the Free Software movement. The Free Software
|
|
movement starts by saying: these are the essential freedoms, everyone
|
|
should have these freedoms, we're going to work to establish and
|
|
defend these freedoms. Creative Commons doesn't say anything like
|
|
that. Creative Commons talks about helping copyright holders exercise
|
|
their power flexibly. A totally different philosophical orientation.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
So it's no surprise that they don't have a list of essential
|
|
freedoms. At the beginning, I thought they effectively did.
|
|
It's true they didn't explicitly say
|
|
"<span style="font-style: italic;">This is the freedom we
|
|
intend to defend</span>", but from their actions, it looked
|
|
like they were defending it, and I thought that was good enough.
|
|
But because it was not really their intention, they changed
|
|
their practices, and now, even in a purely practical sense, they
|
|
don't defend this minimum freedom, and that's a terrible thing.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[01:46:07]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q7">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q7</span>: Do you know of any
|
|
organisations that do support this approach - unlike Creative
|
|
Commons?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: Not
|
|
really. There are some "<span style="font-style:
|
|
italic;">free culture</span>" organisations, which are
|
|
trying to go even further and they're trying to encourage the
|
|
making of art that is free in the full sense of the same four
|
|
freedoms.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p id="q8">
|
|
(<a href="#menu">go to menu</a>)<br />
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Q8</span>: Shouldn't Free
|
|
Software be more expensive than proprietary software, since it's
|
|
more valuable?
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Richard Stallman</span>: I don't know
|
|
what that would mean, sorry. To ask whether software is cheap or
|
|
expensive, is actually making a number of hidden assumptions. In the
|
|
proprietary software world, because people are forbidden to copy the
|
|
program, usually, there's only one place from which copies can be
|
|
legally obtained. So, you can then ask, how much does that one source
|
|
of copies charge for a copy. So it's a meaningful question, although
|
|
the answer might be: this much today over here and that much tomorrow
|
|
over there. There's not necessarily an answer to that question.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But with Free Software, because people have freedom, everyone is free
|
|
to make copies. So there are many places you can get a copy, and any
|
|
one of them could offer to give you a copy or could offer to sell you
|
|
a copy. So there is no one price.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p class="indent">
|
|
But Free Software is an issue of freedom, not price. The price
|
|
question is secondary. People are free to buy and sell copies, but
|
|
that's just because people should be free. The price issue is not
|
|
what I care about.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>
|
|
[End of session, applause]
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h2 id="links-for-further-reading">Links for further reading</h2>
|
|
|
|
<ul>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
"<a
|
|
href="http://www.ifso.ie/documents/rms-2004-05-24.html">The
|
|
Dangers of Software Patents"</a>", by Richard
|
|
Stallman (transcript)
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
"<a
|
|
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html">Copyright
|
|
vs. Community in the age of computer networks</a>", by
|
|
Richard Stallman (transcript)
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
"<a href="../projects/gplv3/tokyo-rms-transcript.html">GPLv3 - an
|
|
overview of the changes</a>", by Richard Stallman
|
|
(transcript)
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
<li>
|
|
"<a href="eur5greve.html">European perspectives and work of the FSF
|
|
Europe</a>", by Georg Greve
|
|
</li>
|
|
|
|
</ul>
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
|
|
</html>
|