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Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. He also originally authored a number of well known and highly used development tools, including the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), the GNU symbolic debugger (GDB) and GNU Emacs.
To better understand Richard Stallman and the GNU project, I recommend you begin by reviewing their philosophy page. On it you will find a wealth of information.
We began this interview via email, but later had to finish by telephone after Richard Stallman fell and broke his arm. He was kind enough to speak with me at length, discussing his first contact with computers, his time in the AI lab, the current state of the GNU Hurd, his current role in the Free Software Foundation, the problems with non-free software, and much more. The following words offer much insight into how we got here, and what challenges we still face.
Background:
Jeremy Andrews: When did you first start working with computers?
Richard Stallman: I first read manuals and wrote programs on paper in 1962 or so. 1969 was when I first saw and used a real computer.
JA: What types of programs were you writing prior to actually seeing and using a real computer?
Richard Stallman: They were pretty trivial, like things to add up a vector of numbers. About the time I first started with a real computer I designed a computer language based on string substitution. In some ways like SNOBOL, although I'd never used SNOBOL.
And then, the first thing I started writing when I had a real computer to use--I'd seen the language PL/I and I was thrilled by how many features it had. But there was a feature it didn't have: it didn't have the summation convention used in tensor analysis. So I started to write a pre-processor for PL/I that would implement the summation convention. I didn't ever finish it, but I actually got some parts of it to work. I wrote it first in PL/I, and then we discovered that even one pass of it wouldn't fit in the machine that was available. (I had actually written a lot of parts of this in PL/I on paper by that point.) Then I started rewriting it in assembler language, but I only rewrote a few passes of it in assembler language. And then I learned about things like lists and about Lisp, and lost interest in languages like PL/I.
JA: When you graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in physics, how did you intend to use your degree?
Richard Stallman: I thought I would become a theoretical physicist; however, the pleasure of programming, where I could make real progress and see results, gradually grew and overtook the pleasure of learning physics.
Life In The AI Lab:
JA: What tasks occupied your time at the AI Lab through the 1970s?
Richard Stallman: Mostly operating system development, but I did one AI research project with Professor Sussman; we developed dependency-directed backtracking.
JA: What is dependency-directed backtracking?
Richard Stallman: You make some assumptions, and with those together with some given facts you draw a conclusion. You may reach a contradiction; if so, at least one of your assumptions that led to that contradiction must be wrong. You also record which combination of assumptions actually related to the contradiction, so you can deduce that that combination of assumptions cannot all be true. Then you backtrack by changing assumptions, but you never try a set of assumptions that includes the combination that you know are contradictory. Now, this is a technique that people had used for a long time in thinking. It's also known as proof analysis. But it hadn't been used in computerized reasoning.
JA: What was the result of this research project?
Richard Stallman: We published a paper. The technique got used by other people later, so apparently it became part of AI.
Also, I learned how to understand electrical circuits better. The program that we wrote, which used this technique, was a program for understanding electrical circuits. By imitating the program, I could understand circuits better than I could before.
The GNU Project And The Free Software Foundation:
JA: The story of your encounter with non-free printer software in the early 80's is very well known. This incident ultimately resulted in your founding the GNU Project in 1984, and the Free Software Foundation in 1985. You have remained quite active in this movement ever since, as a public speaker and a prolific author of free software. Of which of your many achievements in the past two decades are you the most proud?
Richard Stallman: What I am proud of is that we have built a community where people can use computers and work together in freedom.
JA: What are the largest challenges you're facing today?
Richard Stallman: Software patents. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The broadcast flag. Cards with secret specifications. Non-free Java platforms.
In other words, organized efforts by people with power to put an end to our freedom.
JA: Is there a plan for addressing these issues?
Richard Stallman: Regarding the laws, not much of one, in the US. In other countries that do not yet have these laws, we can try to prevent them.
JA: That's a bit scary.
Richard Stallman: It is.
"Free Software" vs. "Open Source":
JA: You regularly have to explain the differences between "free software" and "open source software", and yet the media continues to confuse these terms. For our readers that may therefor be confused themselves, can you explain the differences, and why it is important to get it right?
Richard Stallman: Free software and open source are the slogans of two different movements with different philosophies. In the free software movement, our goal is to be free to share and cooperate. We say that non-free software is antisocial because it tramples the users' freedom, and we develop free software to escape from that.
The open source movement promotes what they consider a technically superior development model that usually gives technically superior results. The values they cite are the same ones Microsoft appeals to: narrowly practical values.
Free software and open source are also both criteria for software licenses. These criteria are written in very different ways but the licenses accepted are almost the same. The main difference is the difference in philosophy.
Why does the philosophy matter? Because people who don't value their freedom will lose it. If you give people freedom but don't teach them to value it, they won't hold on to it for long. So it is not enough to spread free software. We have to teach people to demand freedom, to fight for freedom. Then we may be able to overcome the problems that today I see no way to solve.
"GNU/Linux":
JA: Another frequent area of confusion is the name 'GNU/Linux'. Why is the GNU project's contribution significant enough that it should be in the name of the operating system, especially compared to other large pieces of any Linux-kernel based operating system, such as XFree86?
Richard Stallman: It's no coincidence that the code we wrote for the GNU system is the largest single contribution to the GNU/Linux system today. Many other people and projects have developed free software programs now used in the system; TeX, BSD code, X11, Linux, and Apache are noteworthy examples. But it was the GNU Project that set out to develop a complete free operating system. The combined system we use today is founded on GNU.
JA: In talking about GNU Linux...
Richard Stallman: I prefer to pronounce it GNU-slash-Linux, or GNU-plus-Linux. The reason is that when you say GNU-Linux it is very much prone to suggest a misleading interpretation. After all, we have GNU Emacs which is the version of Emacs which was developed for GNU. If you say "GNU Linux", people will think it means a version of Linux that was developed for GNU. Which is not the fact.
JA: You're trying to point out instead that it's a combination of the two.
Richard Stallman: Exactly. It's GNU plus Linux together.
JA: Which makes up the GNU+Linux operating system that everyone uses.
Richard Stallman: Exactly.
JA: What is gained by people using the term GNU/Linux?
Richard Stallman: People know that Linus Torvalds wrote his program Linux to have fun. And people know that Linus Torvalds did not say that it's wrong to stop users for sharing and changing the software they use. If they think that our system was started by him and primarily owes existence to him, they will tend to follow his philosophy, and that weakens our community.
It's an interesting anecdote to think that the whole operating system exists because an undergraduate thought that it was a fun project. But the real story is that this system exists because of people who were determined to fight for freedom and willing to work for years if that's what it took. That's a story that teaches people something worth learning.
When people forget that, they start drifting toward the practical but superficial values shared by the open source movement and Microsoft: the idea that the only thing that matters about your software is whether it gets your jobs done and what it costs.
JA: Which begins to answer my next question, what is lost when people refuse to use the term GNU/Linux?
Richard Stallman: What's lost is an opportunity to teach people. The software is equally free regardless of whatever name you call it--if, that is, the distro you're using really is free. But the only free GNU/Linux distro I know of is UTUTO. Most versions of the GNU/Linux system are not entirely free software. All the commercial distributors put in non-free software. And then there's Debian which keeps all the non-free software clearly separated, but does distribute it. And those who sell Debian GNU/Linux often add a few non-free programs as a "bonus"... They invite you to think it's a bonus you're getting that your freedom is no longer complete.
If you happen to be running a version of GNU/Linux which doesn't have the non-free software, then the situation is not materially changed by the name you use. But the situation we're likely to find ourselves in five years from now depends on what we teach each other today.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you called it an onion you'd get cooks very confused.
GNU/Hurd:
JA: The GNU Hurd has been under development for over a decade. There was talk of a 1.0 release over a year ago, but this was delayed due to a couple of lacking features. What is the current status of this project?
Richard Stallman: The Hurd runs, and missing features are gradually being added. However, for practical use today, you would use a Linux-based version of GNU.
JA: Do you have any predictions as to when we're going to see a 1.0 release?
Richard Stallman: No, I'm afraid I don't, I'm sad to say. A lot of the Hurd developers seem to have decided that they should re-write it to work with a different micro-kernel (L4). I was disappointed to hear this, but now it looks like it will be some more years before the Hurd is usable.
At least we do have a free kernel that works with GNU.
JA: Will the GNU Project focus solely on a GNU system built around the GNU Hurd when it is released, or will it continue to support a widening range of free-software kernels?
Richard Stallman: We will keep supporting Linux-based versions of the GNU system for as long as they remain popular.
JA: How will we refer to a Hurd-based operating system? Is it GNU Hurd, or GNU slash Hurd?
Richard Stallman: It's the GNU operating system, and the Hurd is its kernel. But because it's so common for people to use version of GNU that are based on Linux as the kernel, it's useful to contrast the two, and talk about GNU/Linux and GNU/Hurd, which are two different versions of the GNU system with different kernels.
JA: What would the advantages of using a GNU/Hurd system be over say a GNU/Linux system?
Richard Stallman: There's probably no gigantic advantage that jumps out at the user's face if you're not writing interesting programs. The Hurd offers interesting, powerful capabilities. For instance, you can write your own filesystem, so you could implement any sort of behavior you want and package it as a file. It offers the possibility of implementing sandboxes, where you can run a program but have another program monitoring all its I/O to make sure it doesn't start writing in files it wasn't expected to.
These things may be doable with a kernel that doesn't have the Hurd's architecture, but with the Hurd it's trivial and the most natural thing in the world.
Writing Code vs. Management:
JA: How much source code do you write these days?
Richard Stallman: I myself? Only a little, on Emacs. I was involuntarily self-promoted into management.
JA: That's an interesting description. How did this happen?
Richard Stallman: The amount of management and activism that had to be done got more and more, and so I had to find other people to take over more and more of my programming responsibilities.
JA: Do you miss the programming?
Richard Stallman: Yes. It's fun.
JA: Is the management/activist role something you desire to remain in?
Richard Stallman: I wouldn't say I desire to, but it's necessary that I do so. At the moment we don't have anyone to replace me. We're actually thinking about how we we could try and develop people who could do this, so that I will not be indispensable.
JA: What is your role these days?
Richard Stallman: Partly it is being a very firm and determined leader. Partly it is being an orator. Partly it is advising other people on how to be activists or how to contribute to free software. I've learned something that a lot of people could usefully know: how to be extremely persistent and whenever one avenue was blocked find another.
I've also learned the spirit of what you do when you're fighting for freedom. When it's a fight that you can't ever give up as lost.
JA: Many of the programs you were the original author for are key components of much software development today (free and non-free alike), such as the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc), the GNU symbolic debugger (gdb), and GNU Emacs. All of these projects have remained under constant development over the years. How closely have you followed the many projects you've started, and how do you feel about the directions they've taken?
Richard Stallman: I don't follow GCC and GDB in technical detail nowadays--other people now have that responsibility. I still supervise Emacs development.
GNU Emacs:
JA: Then you are still working on Emacs at a code level?
Richard Stallman: Yes, although now with my broken arm I really have no time to program anything. I will when my arm is better and I can type for myself again.
JA: May I ask what happened to your arm?
Richard Stallman: I fell and broke my arm, and I needed surgery. It hurts, and I think it will never be normal again. But I think it will work for typing. (Later: it works fine for typing, but it tingles all the time.)
JA: I'm sorry to hear about your arm, and I wish you a speedy recovery.
I recently reread Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg". Are you familiar with the book?
Richard Stallman: I have a vague memory of it.
JA: A quick summary, he talks about a spy that breaks into a university computer system, initially using a security hole in GNU Emacs...
Richard Stallman: Well, whether it's really a security hole, or whether he had made a mistake by installing a certain program setuid is subject to argument.
JA: That's exactly what I was curious about, just what your reaction would have been to the book when it came out.
Richard Stallman: His book made it sound like Emacs, or actually movemail I think it was... His book made it sound like it was normal to install movemail setuid. I think some people sometimes did that, as there was a certain problem you could get around by doing that, but that wasn't the normal way to install it. So in fact, people installing Emacs the usual way would not have had that problem.
On the other hand, it certainly was useful to make Emacs more bulletproof, so that that problem couldn't happen even if you installed movemail as setuid.
That was ages ago.
Non-Free Software:
JA: What is your reaction to tools such as gcc, gdb and GNU Emacs being used for the development of non-free software?
Richard Stallman: Any development of non-free software is harmful and unfortunate, whether it uses GNU tools or other tools. Whether it is good or bad, in the long term, for the future of computer users' freedom that one can use these tools to develop non-free software is a question whose answer I could only guess at.
JA: How do you react to the opinion that non-free software is justified as a means for raising dollars that can then be put into the development of completely new software, money that otherwise may not have been available, and thus creating software that may have never been developed?
Richard Stallman: This is no justification at all. A non-free program systematically denies the users the freedom to cooperate; it is the basis of an antisocial scheme to dominate people. The program is available lawfully only to those who will surrender their freedom. That's not a contribution to society, it's a social problem. It is better to develop no software than to develop non-free software.
So if you find yourself in that situation, please don't follow that path. Please don't write the non-free program--please do something else instead. We can wait till someone else has the chance to develop a free program to do the same job.
JA: What about the programmers...
Richard Stallman: What about them? The programmers writing non-free software? They are doing something antisocial. They should get some other job.
JA: Such as?
Richard Stallman: There are thousands of different jobs people can have in society without developing non-free software. You can even be a programmer. Most paid programmers are developing custom software--only a small fraction are developing non-free software. The small fraction of proprietary software jobs are not hard to avoid.
JA: What is the distinction there?
Richard Stallman: Non-free software is meant to be distributed to the public. Custom software is meant to be used by one client. There's no ethical problem with custom software as long as you're respecting your client's freedom.
The next point is that programmers are a tiny fraction of employment in the computer field. Suppose somebody developed an AI and no programmers were needed anymore. Would this be a disaster? Would all the people who are now programmers be doomed to unemployment for the rest of their lives? Obviously not, but this doesn't stop people from exaggerating the issue.
And what if there aren't any programming jobs in the US anymore?
JA: You mean what if all the programming jobs were outsourced to foreign countries?
Richard Stallman: Yes, what if they all go? This may actually happen. When you start thinking about things like total levels of employment, you've got think about all the factors that affect it, not blame it all on one factor. The cause of unemployment is not someone or society deciding that software should be free. The cause of the problem is largely economic policies designed to benefit only the rich. Such as driving wages down.
You know, it's no coincidence that we're having all this outsourcing. That was carefully planned. International treaties were designed to make this happen so that people's wages would be reduced.
JA: Can you cite specific examples?
Richard Stallman: FTAA. The World Trade Organization. NAFTA. These treaties are designed to reduce wages by making it easy for a company to say to various countries, "which of you will let us pay people the least? That's were we're headed." And if any country starts having a somewhat increased standard of living, companies say "oh, this is a bad labor climate here. You're not making a good climate for business. All the business is going to go away. You better make sure that people get paid less. You're following a foolish policy arranging for workers of your country to be paid more. You've got to make sure that your workers are the lowest paid anywhere in the world, then we'll come back. Otherwise we're all going to run away and punish you."
Businesses very often do it, they move operations out of a country to punish that country. And I've recently come to the conclusion that frictionless international trade is inherently a harmful thing, because it makes it too easy for companies to move from one country to another. We have to make that difficult enough that each company can be stuck in some country that can regulate it.
The book No Logo explains that the Philippines have laws that protect labor standards, but these laws count for nothing any more. They decided to set up "enterprise zones" - that's the euphemism they used for "sweat shop zones" - where companies are exempt from these rules for the first two years. And as a result, no company lasts for more than two years. When their exemption runs out, the owners shut it down and they start another.
JA: How does free software address this?
Richard Stallman: Free software doesn't address this. Free software addresses the issue of how computer users can have freedom to cooperate and to control their own computers. This is the larger issue that becomes relevant when you start talking about "How are people going to have jobs that pay them decently?" The answer is: in the world of the low wage treaties, they're not going to.
It's inconsistent and future to subject millions of people to the loss of freedom that non-free software imposes, just so that a tiny segment of society will have better paying jobs, when we're ignoring all the rest of society with their lousy jobs.
If you want to start doing something about that problem, do it at the right level, which is the level of the power balance between corporations and countries. Corporations are too powerful now. We have to knock them down. I don't believe in abolishing business or even in abolishing corporations, but we've got to make sure that no corporation is powerful enough that it can say to all the countries in the world, "I'll punish any country that doesn't obey."
That is the way it works now. And it was deliberately set up by people such as Reagan, and Clinton, and Bush and Bush.
New Technologies:
JA: I have read that the free software model tends to imitate existing software, rather than blaze new trails and developing completely new technologies.
Richard Stallman: To speak of a free software "model" is somewhat misleading. The open source movement speaks of a "development model", but our concern is for the user's freedom, not how the program is developed.
Free software doesn't always imitate, but often it does. There's a good reason for this: freedom is the main goal, and innovation is secondary.
Our goal is to develop free software so that we can use computers exclusively with free software. In 1984, we started with nearly zero (we had TeX, nothing else). We had a lot of catching up to do, so we have done it. Even if GNU/Linux had no technical innovations compared with Unix, it would be completely superior because it respects your freedom as Unix does not.
JA: Do you believe that free software has caught up with non-free software?
Richard Stallman: To a large extent, but not totally.
JA: Would you say that we're going to start seeing a lot of technical innovations originating from free software as things are catching up?
Richard Stallman: We already have. We already have seen a technical innovations in free software. A lot of them help make up the world wide web.
The Internet:
JA: Does the importance of using only free software apply to the Internet?
Richard Stallman: I don't understand the question.
JA: Software not only runs on personal computers, but also the computers that comprise the Internet...
Richard Stallman: That may mean your computer. If your computer is on the Internet, then that's one of the computers you're talking about.
JA: You're correct. At this very moment my computer is part of the Internet. And my computer is comprised entirely of free software. However there are plenty of computers on the Internet that are not comprised of free software.
Richard Stallman: I think you meant to say, "not running entirely free software." There are many computers on the net that are not running free software, and that means the people who use and own those computers have lost this aspect of their freedom. That's a problem.
JA: Do you consider it proper for people who are trying to only use free software to utilize...
Richard Stallman: To connect to a server that's running non-free software?
I don't feel I need to refuse to connect to a server that is running non-free software. For that matter, I won't refuse to type on a computer that's running non-free software. If I were visiting your house for a little and you had a Windows machine, I would use it if it were important for me to use it. I wouldn't be willing to have Windows on my computer, and you shouldn't have it on yours, but I can't change that by refusing to touch the machine.
If you connect to a server that runs non-free software, you're not the one whose freedom is harmed. It's the server operator who has lost freedom to the restrictions on the software he runs. This is unfortunate, and I hope that he switches to free software; we're working to bring that about. But I don't feel you have to boycott his site until he switches. He isn't making you use the non-free software.
JA: Back to my earlier question, as a specific example do you use tools such as Google when attempting to locate online content?
Richard Stallman: I have nothing against communicating with Google's network server, but for Google's sake I hope they have the freedom to study, change and redistribute the software used on their server. Having the freedom to do so does not imply the obligation to do so; Google doesn't have to change or redistribute the software they run. But they ought to be free to do this, just as you and I should be free to do this with the software on our machines.
The Workplace:
JA: What if your job requires you to use non-free software?
Richard Stallman: I would quit that job. Would you participate in something anti-social just because somebody pays you to? What if the job involves hitting people on the head in the street and taking their wallets? What if it involves spreading the word that Democrats should vote on Wednesday instead of Tuesday? Some people seriously claim that you can't criticize what someone does if it is part of their job. From my point of view, the fact that somebody is being paid to do something wrong is not an excuse.
Embedded Applications:
JA: Embedded applications have become more and more prevalent in society. Is it possible to completely avoid non-free software and still remain in-touch with current technologies?
Richard Stallman: I don't know if it is possible, but if it is not, that is something we need to change. Once an embedded system can talk to a network, or users normally load software into it, its software needs to be free. For instance, if it uses non-free software to talk to the network, you can't trust it not to spy on you.
SCO:
JA: How do you react to SCO's recent accusations about the Linux kernel?
Richard Stallman: The vague and cagey nature of their statements, coupled with having seen that the only specific facts they produced proved to be false, suggests they have no real case.
JA: What impact do you expect this to have on free software?
Richard Stallman: I don't expect it to have a big impact because I don't think they have a case. They're trying to create FUD and they may scare some timid people off.
JA: Do you expect this to bring the GPL into the courtroom?
Richard Stallman: I don't know.
JA: Is that a concern for you?
Richard Stallman: We think the GPL will stand up in court, but no wise person is eager to get into a battle, even if he thinks he's well enough armed that he'd probably win.
The arguments that SCO have been making are so laughably absurd that they lend support to the idea that SCO has no real case, that they're only interested in creating FUD.
JA: To what end?
Richard Stallman: They hope some companies will pay them money, and Microsoft already did.
To people who know almost nothing about copyright law, anything sounds as plausible as anything else. When they hear what SCO says, they don't know how ridiculous it is. So they think, "SCO says this, IBM says that, how do I know who's right?"
JA: What's in store for the GNU General Public License (GPL)? Are there plans for a version 3?
Richard Stallman: Yes, but we are not really sure what will change. What we can say is that the changes will be details.
Getting Involved:
JA: Is there any other current event that you'd like to address?
Richard Stallman: The FCC last year decided to require digital restrictions management in all receivers of digital TV. And not only that, to require that they be made not modifiable by the user. I think they have not yet decided whether this device is software controlled. If they make it software controlled then for the first time there will be a government policy explicitly banning free software for a job that millions of people are going to want to
do.
JA: Are you optimistic about this?
Richard Stallman: I don't know. I am a pessimist by nature. Many people can only keep on fighting when they expect to win. I'm not like that, I always expect to lose. I fight anyway, and sometimes I win.
I'm not the main leader in this particular battle. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting. Public Knowledge is fighting. People need to get involved politically. At this point people should go to the EFF website and the Public Knowledge website, and continue doing so over the coming weeks to see how they can get involved in this coming campaign. It's going to take a lot of people spending probably at least twenty minutes. If you care enough about your freedom to spend twenty minutes on it, if you can tear yourself away from whatever little job it is you're doing this week, and next week, and so on. Spend a little time fighting for your freedom, and we can win.
JA: Thank you.
Richard Stallman: Happy hacking!
Interview translations:
I would like to see an "open
I would like to see an "open source" car, where one has acces to all the manufactoring and design documentation. Actually these open source protagonists should refuse to travel with a car to be consequent. Does Mr. Stallman use an airplane? Oh, oh, oh airplanes are so evil, You cannot modify and distribute them, all the drawings are deeply secret. And does he know how much non-free software was used to calculate the aerodynamics of an airplane? It is so "nonfree", that the companies have their own codes and they do not even cell them, so that no other could even use their knowledge.
The only thing that he could probably use (i am not very shure, you cannot get any documentation on it, but it should be simple enough to be disassembled easily) is a cheap (no no, not the good high-tec-ones) bicicle. Aha, I got a light! Now I know what Mr. Stallman does all the time!!! He is riding with his bicicle from Seattle to Florida and back to attend some dubious meetings.
No serious, his biggest concern should be to moderate his statements so that one could take them seriously, sorry, so far I cannot.
You are mistaken. Books and a
You are mistaken. Books and art are "open source" and "free" in the sense that no aspect of them are hidden from you. You are free to modify your paintings or books in any way that you like. However, it might not be legal to redistribute your modifications; thus you would have to keep them "in-house".
Software isn't free when it is re-distributed in binary form and you can't modify the underlying code. Books and Art don't suffer from these problems. Do you understand some of the differences now?
"However, it might not be leg
"However, it might not be legal to redistribute your modifications; thus you would have to keep them "in-house"."
No I do not understand the distinction, because you have just pointed out the crux of the issue in the sentence above. It is (usually) is not legal to redistribute your modifications to a book. Is that immoral? If not, why is placing restrictions on software immoral? It is illogical.
Copyrighted books and art and music are definitely not "open source" or "free" by any means. You are the one that is mistaken.
From the horse's mouth:
From: another interview with stallman.
Purely practical
He doesn't explain why they "
He doesn't explain why they "don't necessary need to be treated exactly like software". Because they are used differently? How is software used so differently that it needs to be "free" and the other items do not?
Even in the case of material goods - you are allowed to modify them, but not usually allowed to duplicate and redistribute.
RMS is leaving out portions of his philosophy by not fully explaining them. What is he hiding?
Elaboration
First, you're being slightly trollish by suggesting that he's hiding something when the fact of the matter is that you've simply not researched his opinions thoughroughly. You'll find that he has in fact commented on the issue in the past.
He is of the opinion that 'practical' things like software and documentation should be freely distributable and modifiable because they serve a purely practical purpose, they're meant do do or convey something specific and if they don't fully fulfill that task then you should have the freedom to change them so that they do.
Books and other works such as essays are slightly more complex, they are, as opposed to software works of art, and should as such maybe be freely distributable. You will in fact find that most of the GNU website texts are not "free software" or "free content" but merely "freely distributable", this is so that nobody could change the The GNU Manifesto to reflect something else than the opinions of its author.
Then finally there are works which he, and most others believe should not be freely distributable or modified at all, these works include private corrispondance and other works not meant to be published at all.
See this and this for further reading, and please do not take what i just wrote as stallmans "official" views, it might not be 100% accurate since I'm writing all this from memory.
Patch
Danm small webforms which make it near-impossible to proofread your comments.
Anyway, some fixes:
so that nobody could change i.e. The GNU ....
I'm unable to find any sources for this, so presume that I was wrong.
I have read his opinions, in
I have read his opinions, in person and in the web. I am warning you that his opinions are completely illogical.
It is illogical to say, for instance, "this is a work of art" therefore it does not need to meet the "free as in freedom" guidelines, versus "this is a piece of software" and needs to meet the "free as in freedom" guidelines. What is the difference between that two that requires such a drastic change in treatment? I suspect the answer is in reality he would prefer that they BOTH met his "free as in freedom" critieria, because in his heart he is a Marxist. This is why he is dangerous.
witches hunting ...
"because in his heart he is a Marxist."
erf... witches hunting is finish a long time ago (and was one of the darkest period of US history...).
RMS think that "Free as in freedom" should only apply to software. Because the reste is less pratical (software are tools) and the reste more an art. Since then, Creative Common is born. Open Hardware is developing.
Then he change is mind. He considered also that Open Hardware could became important. I don't heard anything from him about CC.
Maybe it should be possible t
Maybe it should be possible to copyright and then charge everyone using language to express an idea (on an internet forum, or otherwise). Are we guilty of stifling linguistic innovation because we allow it's use without fee. Maybe if the existing proprietary software companies hadn't made such a pig's ear of producing satisfactory products then I wouldn't be praising the heavens for the advent of open source software. Having spent a long hard day wrestling with SCO Openserver and Windows XP and having them thwart me at every turn with their infuriating awkwardness. I cannot wait for the day when I can work only with transparent, open and FREE software.
I understand the arguments put here about market forces and revenue generation but I do think that software has to be treated differently. It is becoming so ubiquitous that we need to be careful about to who we allow control of it. The same can be said of other commodities but software is where I am and that is where I can make a difference.
Cheers
Dan
If you cannot wait, then DO N
If you cannot wait, then DO NOT WAIT. There are infinate paths open to you. Pick one that works for you.
Defining books as "open sourc
Defining books as "open source" is impossible because there's no compiled binary or such.
But books are definitely not "free" and that's the problem.
Why am I not allowed to take a book, make some modifications and sell it as my own? (yeah, sell... it's perfectly moral to sell free software, as you have to eat, to sleep somewhere and maybe grow up a family etc.. the customer still may modify the software)
Well, it's not allowed with books because the author regards the text as mental property. In software, this is solved by giving credit to the author. Why doesn't it work with books then? If you ever tried it, you'll see that those greedy folks just want money, or they think that they will lose money/sell less books if theres a similar book to their own. However, their greed overrides their responsibility for freedom.
I do think books should be free aswell, but there's no way in changing this. But with software, we have the chance and I won't let it go past.
PS: it seems to me that some of you still haven't got the difference between "free software" and "open source software"
But books are definitely not
Wouldn't be that great? You could spend your life writing a revolutionary book... and I could simply change some bits here and there to claim it as my own. Of course, I couldn't erase your name from the credits but I would still reap some benefits. I could make a living by ripping people... all in the name of freedom.
What works for software doesn't necessarily work for everything. I am all for freedom but I believe we still to draw limits to it or our society wouldn't work very well. Hey, even the GPL and the BSDL are putting restrictions on what you can do with the code/software licenced under one of these.
comparing apples & oranges
The point is that it is not immoral that software isn't "free". Books aren't "free", I am not free to modify or redistribute them. Art is not "free" either. Are these authors and artists immoral as well? Why is software singled out as something that is "immoral" to keep closed?
Because it's a commodity you work with, and not a piece of art?
How does calling something a
How does calling something a "commodity" change anything? Software is no more a commodity (whatever that is) than art or music or books, which are similarly marketed and mass produced. It is illogical, and calling software a "commodity" changes nothing.
commodity vs tool
Art and music are the means to an end. I don't buy a book to do something, I buy a book to read the book. I don't buy a movie to make something, I buy a movie to watch it.
Software, on the other hand, is *usually* not in the same boat. I don't buy a word processor just to type into it, I buy a word processor to write papers that I distribute/use elsewhere. I don't buy an OS just to have an OS, I buy an OS to run applications, which themselves I use to compose other forms of data.
Imagine this. Say you bought a book about making dog houses. You don't use the book itself to make the dog house. You do, however, use the knowledge in the book to make the dog house. If books worked like software, you wouldn't be allowed to do this - you couldn't reuse the knowledge in the book to make a dog house. In fact, redistributing any of the knowledge between the covers would be violating the book's license agreement. The only way you'd be allowed to use the book for making a dog house is to use the physical as part of the materials.
That's the difference. A book is itself the end product. When you buy a book, you are buying the actual physical book, not the knowledge within it. The book is not a means to an end, it's the end in itself. You don't need a book on dog house making to make a dog house.
With software, you need to use it for something. Buying a word processor if you aren't going to type up documents is a complete waste, while buying a novel can be fully rewarding. You often *need* a particular piece of software to make certain things, as well, which is the *real* crime and restriction of freedom. You can use a dog house made with a copyrighted book all you want in any way you want, but you can't use a Microsoft Word file without buying the tool that made it or having to do a *lot* of reverse engineering.
I, personally, don't look at things in quite so hard lines as RMS. I don't think proprietary software in itself is evil. I do believe in freedom. To me, freedom means choice. Microsoft Word attempts to destroy my freedom *not* by keeping me out of its source (I never have and likely never will hack the source of a word processor), but it *does* try to lock me in with its file format.
The FSF and RMS focus on freedom from a programmer's standpoint, not a user's standpoint. I, as a user of word processors, do not care if the source is available to me. I do care if I can use the data I generated using the tool, however.
A common metaphor is that proprietary software is like having the hood of your car welded shut. You know what? I'm fine with that. I don't look under the hood of my car anyhow. I only take it to the dealership to have work done. *HOWEVER* I do have the choice of selling the car and buying a different one by a different manufacturer if that welded hood ever starts being a problem. Just like when a proprietary software package stops working and the vendor won't fix it or enhance it the way I need it, I can use something else. Internet Explorer is proprietary and closed, but nothing stops me from switching to Firefox or Opera and using all the sites I used under IE. (Except for sites that tie themselves to IE - that's no more IE's fault than it's Mozilla's fault for sites that tie themselves to Mozilla XUL and don't work in Opera or IE - that's entirely the sites' faults.)
There are many proprietary apps I'm fine with using - most of them are tools I can replace at any time, but choose to use the proprietary tools because they work better. JVMs, for example. There are Free JVMs, but they don't work as well as Sun's, so I quite voluntarily use Sun's even though I could use a Free one. If and when a Free JVM becomes available that works as well as Sun's, I'll gladly switch. If the FSF or RMS tried to take away my freedom to use the best tool for the job, then they would be doing far more harm to me than Sun ever has.
Another example would be computer games. A game is the rare piece of software that's like a book or movie. A game *is* the end product.
For other software, I *would* prefer the source be available, even if it's copyrighted. Copyrights exist for a reason. Copyrights are also expected to expire. When a book's copyright expires, you can tweak it all you want and redistribute the changes. When software's copyright expires, your freedom only marginally increases because you can't tweak it - only distribute it.
A lot of people might think that sharing code to proprietary apps would mean the end of all possible profit for the market. Not true. The fear of distributing source to an application is that the source could be copied into a competing product. However, if the competing product must also have its source distributed, then you can easily enough see when the competition is violating your copyrights and sue, just like an author of a book can easily see that another author plagerized the book's contents.
If software were always distributed as source (binaries weren't somehow capable of existing) I doubt the FSF would exist or that RMS would have found and expressed his ideas of absolute freedom. His ideas are extremist that counter the extremist anti-freedom of the industry. No other market/industry is as free as RMS wants the software industry to be. But they are all a lot more free than the software industry currently is.
(Note: I don't think software *should* only be distributed as source, but only that source should always be available to customers, even if not redistributable. Binaries are damn convenient and I the current GNU/Linux system is already too hard to get new working software installed on without killing all binaries.)
Boy, did I ramble a lot. I need to put a refined copy of this in a public paper somewhere... ;-)
Freedom for users, not programmers
This is incorrect. Free Software is not Free for the programmer, it is Free for the user. The Freedom that is granted is for the user to hack the software. I own, among many other things, a bicycle. I, the bicycle user, am allowed to modify it in any way, for example, to improve its function. One should be able to do the same thing with software.
This is why there no conflict with Free Software and with making money through sales, especially if it is "custom" for one or a few clients. The user deserves the freedom to use and modify the software they buy anyway the need to. This means they need the source code, and the right to modify it. The GPL adds the additional freedom of redistribution, since this improves everyone's ability to improve on the software. This is possible since software can be copied with little cost, and without diminishing the original in any way.
Note that there was a time when all software was sold this way, with source code.
Freedom to modify software
But this is a fundamentally flawed assertion. Who said that you can't modify the software without the source? The source code does make it eaiser to modify the software, but it is not impossible for you to modify it without the source.
In fact, some software I have seen I would rather not look at the source code. Seriously though. I worked at one job on an embedded system where it could not go down; even for fixing bugs. We were allowed a maximum downtime of 30 minutes per every 30 years. So how did we fix bugs at installations? We patched the binary. Often times we didn't even bother looking at the sources for reference. Then the changes could be batched up and shipped to a customer site.
If the customer had the inclination they could go in and execute the memory patch and display commands on the administration console of the device. In fact, it may have even been in the user docs. How many of our customers did that is another matter. Most of them bought the product from us because they had no interest in developing it in house. We weren't placing a restriction on them modifying it -- although we wouldn't support them in that case.
Maybe embedded systems are a special case though. But I really feel that having the source code is not 100% essential for modifying the behavior of software. On the other hand, there is room for many different models. Saying all software should be free is taking away your freedom to not make your software modifyable.
As with art or other intellectual property, it should be up to the author to choose and not have their creations ripped from their hands.
-MYG
but the orginal source is the art
Machine crafted op codes isnt freedom. LOL EULA's from Microsoft even restricts this claimed illegal behavior. The way I see GPL is that, at first you were giving the right to use GPL code, therefore you should give that right to someone else if you have made changes to the code. The GNU system would have never gotten this far if everyone made changes but never contributed back. Basically, never underestimate your influence on the code. You can write dumb functional code, distribute it and someone can fix it and make it better. Thats the true nature of free software.
Confusion about Free Software
There is an important difference between software and many other types of good. Traditional 'goods' follow very closely the traditional ideas of classical economics. The idea of 'scarcity of resources' is imbedded deeply in classical economics (as Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Naitons" for example). This scarcity neither applies to knowledge, nor computer software. Books that are old enough to have expired copyrights (see Project Gutenberg) can be distributed easily, and distributing widely does in no way affect the resource. Free Software is not diminished by reproduction as copying the material in no way reduces it (quite the opposite actually). So all of the classical economics ideas which are based on scarcity of resources fail. Even the terms 'capitalist' and 'communist' are washed aside as they do not fit within the more modern ideas of economics without scarcity. Many people have been confused by Free Software (the term is like 'Free Market' --in a free market economy, it doesn't mean they are giving away good at zero price, so too with Free Software--). Free Software exists and grows in an economics system without scarcity of resources. It also follows the dynamics proposed by John Nash (Nobel Prize, Economics 1994 "A Beautiful Mind"). Its a type of non-zero-sum game theory, and it works very well (less than optimal system that provides for a maximal result). Example: 4 men are in a bar. 4 women come in --1 absolute beauty and 3 of her so-so friends. In the classical economics 'scarcity' model, each of the young men goes after the optimal result --the beauty. Result: her 3 friends get bored and want to leave, She doesn't want to be torn apart by all 4, so she leaves with them. Result: 0/4. Example 2; We charge what we believe is fair for each of our extreme programmers. We will not sell software for less than what we can leverage the market for, and will not sell any of it for a less than optimal price: in many cases, result 0/4. Free software may have split licences (Stallman rejects this) which use the GPL for unsupported use, and a private licence for people wanting support. This is one example of a non-optimal but excellent solution. JBOSS, MySQL, etc. follow it. Then there is pure-play free software. It may or may not be written by a private company. As people may not have 100% time available for it, it may not follow an optimal development model. It gets written and published anyway. Due to the unrestricted (Free) licence, it can be improved by anyone. While the theory specifies that it is a non-optimal development model, past experience shows that it develops at a pace equal to or faster than commercial software. However it all depends on exactly how many people find the software useful. The rate at which any project is developed is directly proportional to the number of people using it. There are some software programs that are large, and important, but hindered by the numbers of people finding the software useful. In the Bar example, if 3 of the men follow a non-optimal solution, the result may be 4/4. It could still turn out to be 0/4, but if each follows the classical model --each competeing as hard as he can for the best scarce resouce--, the result with certainty is 0/4.
John Nash
Perhaps John Nash was always an 0 for in bars. But in competing for the scarce resource bird I'd take my chances vs JN. So my money is on 1/4 ;-)
"People like Stallman are dan
"People like Stallman are dangerous"
No - it is people like you who are dangerous. You exhibit the same mentality as the person who claims the Indian programmer is taking food out of his mouth. Why shouldn't people be able to develop and distribute free software (you may claim you do not wish to stop them, but when you label people "dangerous", that is what you implicitly wish to do) ?
Just because you type something doesn't give you the same status as the author of a book, or the painter of a picture. What Stallman is saying is that your typing is more akin to manufacturing or design work, with the end result being more like a tool than a work of art. What if you bought a car, but could only take it to certain mechanics to be worked on (and we're not talking about voiding the warranty here, we're saying "by law", with fines and threat of imprisonment), or there was a black impenetrable box over the engine that you were not allowed to open ? What if the same were true of your power tools, your house, et-cetera ? A book is something you read for edification or enjoyment, while a tool is something that you need to work with every day, and may need to modify to suit your needs. You may not agree with this, but it is certainly a subtantial reply to the question you claim "has never been answered", and this idea has been around for a long while.
I do not get the schematics t
I do not get the schematics to my car or power tools. Is that "immoral" as well. I don't know of any common tools which are sold and distributed with instructions on how to duplicate and modify and redistribute for free.
It is people like you who are labeling us as "immoral", which is a considerably more hateful than "dangerous".
You dont get the schematics,
You dont get the schematics, but you also aren't charged with a crime if you work on them and modify them. If you tried to build your own car or tools and give them away, no one would call you dangerous, either - mainly because you wouldn't have the resources to replicate them ad infinitum. It is the danger of free replication which causes software developers to be so paranoid (as well as "content" developers now) -but it was cheap/free replication which allowed them to grow so rapidly in the first place. Just because somebody in the 1960s or '70s came up with the idea that you could charge for software independant of the hardware platform doesn't mean that this will always be so. If someone, or a group of someone's can equal or better your product, and will give it away - what is your moral case for stopping them (IE vs. netscape, anyone ?) ?
In Stallman's case, you would do well to remember that he was programming before there were routinely charges for programs or "closed source" drivers, which he wasn't allowed to look at or modify. Most of what we think of as the modern GUI/Interface was developed as research in the "Ivory Towers" that people like Stallman worked in, and which you disparage. It is in this spirit that he sees such developments as diminishing freedom and "immoral".
Incidentally, if your feelings are hurt by being called immoral, that is a separate question than whether or not free software is workable, or whether Stallman is dangerous.
"You dont get the schematics,
"You dont get the schematics, but you also aren't charged with a crime if you work on them and modify them."
If I reverse engineered and copied a Toyota engine and resold it under a different brand name I would certainly be charged with a crime.
I am certainly not claiming that OSS is "immoral", I will leave it to people like RMS to decide who is "moral" and who is not. I am simply saying it is a bad trend for the sotware industry.
I also agree that publically funded academic and government sponsored research should be "free as in freedom" and access should be given to all - after all it is funded by them. This is not an issue.
If you duplicated the perform
If you duplicated the performance and function of the Toyota engine without making an exact copy, you would not be charged with a crime -but you are shifting the grounds of the argument. The question, more properly, is: should Toyota able to make an engine that you cannot look at or modify for you own purposes , when you are paying for the car ? The software equivalent of Toyota did exactly this, and got away with it -which pretty much explains why the free software movement exists.
Just because free software does much the same thing as non-free software doesn't make it reverse-engineering and copying. Pretty much all cars have a steering wheel and four tires, after all. Commercial spreadsheets all share some features with each other, etc.
"should Toyota able to make a
"should Toyota able to make an engine that you cannot look at or modify for you own purposes , when you are paying for the car"
Please explain why they should not be allowed to? This is interesting to me. Is it because you are paying for it that you feel you have to right? If Toyota gave it to you for free, would it be OK for them to place restrictions on that? Do your rights override theirs? Do you then have the right to duplicate the Toyota and redistribute without restriction?
Closed source software is certainly modifiable as well. You do not need access to the source to customize most good closed source software.
"Please explain why they shou
"Please explain why they should not be allowed to?"
Because I'm buying it from them in order to OWN it. If I'm not allowed to do as I please with what I purchased, what am I paying for? Do I really "own" anything in that case?
If the rights of the manufacturers to control their creation are inviolable, complete, and perpetual, as you seem to be suggesting they SHOULD be, what keeps them from putting a clause in the "automobile-use license" that makes it possible for them to take back their "property" from me, if I do something they don't like; for example, buying a car from a competitor for my second vehicle?
If this isn't what you're suggesting, and you believe the car really BELONGS to me, why should their "rights" to keep me from doing what I please with my own property trump my property rights in the property I have legitimately purchased?
I don't believe they should b
I don't believe they should be able to do this because it gives them too much power. I make a capital purchase of 8 grand, I expect to be able to choose who I will have maintain this. I have had main dealer garages destroy a car in the past by screwing up an oil change. I have had main dealer garages fail to tell me about dangerous conditions in a vehicle. I have had main dealer garages lie to me about potential impact of problems. Why should I be forced at time of purchase to commit myself to this treatment for the entire time that I own the car ?
I demand the right to be able to take the vehicle to an independant mechanic who I can build a relationship with and who I know is more likely to have my best interests at heart than a single initial sale.
You have it backwards. The F
You have it backwards. The Free Software movement is not saying "Everyone is wrong who uses non-Free software, destroy all non-Free software and condemn its users!", it is saying "It is better if software is Free. If you are a user you ought to choose Free software. If you are a software vendor you ought to use a copyleft license." That is all!
This is the best part about a license like the GPL, and the Creative Commons copyright licenses, and even to some extent the other Open Source licenses. They use the power of copyright law itself to give some freedom (as well as sometimes some restrictions), rather than to restrict the user's freedom harmfully.
The FSF is *not* trying to tear down the system and impose some kind of anarchy or communism on all of the world! It is trying to tell people simply that it is a good thing for an author to *choose* to give users freedom with their software!
crystler did it!
how about you google the history of the guy who was the founder of crysler. Specificly take a look at his inspiration (for the impatient, he took a Ford appart, and tried to improve it...the result is history)!
I do not get the schematics
Yes, it is.
You Can Get the Schematics
In most cases you can get the schematics for your car, power tools, appliances, etc., which is one of the reasons that there has not been a repairperson in my house over the last 30 years. I repair nearly everything myself.
While I may not be able to duplicate a Toyota engine and sell it legally, I can develop modifications (everything from turbo chargers to rods, valves, fuel injectors, modifications to the program for the engine control computer to tweak the power curves, etc.) and I can sell this stuff, or use it myself in autocross or amateur racing, etc.
Freedom should not be relinquished lightly!
Patents require disclosure of the technology, in return for the disclosure you get time limited monopoly control over the technology - when the patent runs out, then anybody can simply copy your invention and sell it for less or improve it and perhaps sell it for more, or simply give it away.
I do not get the schematics to my car
You just looked in the wrong place. The schematics can be purchased from Chilton, Clymers, etc. Look in any full service bookstore, or most car parts stores. Again, it's like Free Software. You don't get the code with the binaries in most Linux distro's, but it is available separatly. You just have to look.
Next stupid point?
Huh?
You can't 'modify' your car;
You can't 'run' your car;
You can't 'redistribute' your car;
Your car isn't similar to mathematics;
The binary of your car is not what is all 100% directly derived from your sourceode;
At least not in the same way as software... far from it... obviously?
What status does the author o
What status does the author of a book or a painter of a picture have that the rest of us don't have? Who grants them that status?
intangible versus tangible goods
I believe there is a distinction to be made between intangible and tangible goods. A physical book cannot be entirely free, as it consumes physical resources. It is logical that every copy have a price to recoup at least the cost of these physical resources.
The *text* of that book, however, (in digital form, for example), represents an intangible good. Those words can be copied indefinitely without a significant consumption of physical resources. In the case of such an intangible resource, only the *first copy* needs to cost money. The author's time and energy to produce the text might be quite expensive, and should be recouped, but every copy of that original work costs nothing. With intangible goods, one copy costs the same as one million copies.
To paraphrase a quote from Lawrence Lessig's book, "Free Culture", "If a loaf of bread can be replicated ad infinitum with the push of a button, what is the moral stance for denying nourishment to anyone?"
For me, it is this distinction between tangible and intangible goods that suggests a "price-per-item" system for intangible goods is not the best way to fund their creation. If we can find ways to fund authors and software writers and artists and musicians in other ways, we get the benefit of their creations *and* the freedom to fully utilize the power of digital copying.
Like you, I am sensitive to this difficulty. I am a musician, and trying to figure out a way to survive while releasing my music under a GPL-style license is not easy. While it might sound like Mr Stallman is *demanding* we be able to do this perfectly, I try to just do my best in this regard, and always push myself to do better. I am forging my own path, separate from where the recording industry might lead me. All I can do is do my best. Richard Stallman is an inspiration to me, of someone who was brave enough to strike out on unknown territory, and talented enough to make it work.
Ebooks and music are now deli
Ebooks and music are now delivered digitally and can be considered "intangibles". There is no difference anymore. Do not let people like ESR and Stallman pull the wool over your eyes. They have a definite agenda, and it is not to help the commercial software market and those that depend on it for income. THERE IS NO MORAL IMPERATIVE TO PROVIDE THE RESULTS OF YOUR DIGITAL WORK AS "FREE".
I am giving you my perspective, they have their own, and it is orthogonal to mine. Anyone who is hoping for a future career in the software development industry should be more interested in what I have to say, not Stallman.
MORAL IMPERATIVE ?
Well, for a very long time the results of one's work were 'free': copyright and patents were introduced about 200 years ago, with the declared purpose of encouraging creativity. They are in no way a natural right ... and lately patents seem to hurt creativity, rather than to encourage it.
maybe there is no moral imperative to provide the results of your digital work as "free", but in my oppinion it shows bad judgment not to do it. If one was able to grow and distribute fruits at a very small cost, it would not make sense to insist on selling apples instead of giving them away for free, and benefit from others sharing their pears. Software development is very expensive only if it's proprietary software. In my opinion the Free/Libre/Open Source movement is about pooling resources and reducing cost instead of competing, since the real money are not made from making and selling software for software's sake, but from writing software that heps producing "material" objects. As RMS put it, most of the software development takes place in writing custom software. This software runs your telephone exchange, the site of your favorite online shop, helps with the running of the beancounting department at your favorite hospital etc. While Microsoft is a very rich corporation, most of the money are made by lots of smaller companies you never heard of, and who do not sell software in boxes in supermarkets because they write it only once, for one customer.
Even if it would be mandatory to release your software under GPL, it would not matter, since there is not very likely for two custormers to have identical needs. There will always be a market for custom software, and Free/Libre/Open Source software makes it easier to write custom software: you share the libraries, the algoritms, the compiler and the database engines etc., but those do not make a marketable product in themselves.
I don't buy the moralistic and "make love not proprietary software" rethorics, but I think it's plain stupid to go the way of proprietary software ... I have been in this bussines for more than three years, and I did not have to write any piece of proprietary software.
Wouldn't it be stupid to have to reinvent words or turns of phrase, just because somebody else coined them before? Fortunately natural languages are free.
I don't remember RMS asking for artistic works to be released under GPL-like licences.
"Anyone who is hoping for a f
"Anyone who is hoping for a future career in the software development industry should be more interested in what I have to say, not Stallman"
That's a non-sense. I'm sure you meant:
Anyone who is hoping for a future career in the software development industry should be more interested in what Stallman have to say, not me.
End of ironic mode.
You fear something you don't understand. I know you can. Give it a try. A long-time free software example: bread recipe is well known to every baker all over the world. Even you can get it and make some bread to feed your family. Do you think bread industry has been hurt from bread recipe's "public license"?
I won't even look this thread again (I was here just to read the interview) so don't even bother to answer me.
Peace and love. C'ya flamer.
"bread recipe is well known t
"bread recipe is well known to every baker all over the world."
Really? All bread recipes are known to every baker all over the world? Please point me to the recipe that my local baker uses for his particular raisin cinnamon bread - he will not share it with me (I have asked).
This discussion is very disturbing the more I get into. It is clear that many people have been roped into believing this nonsense.
re: bread recipe is well known t
I can't since you're keeping everything (identity, location, bread sample, etc., etc...) proprietary.
Let's put aside the question
Let's put aside the question of morality and focus on the issue of practicality for a moment.
Is there a foolproof way of ensuring that every digital copy of a work is paid for? Of course not. No technological or legal approach will ever completely solve the problem that information can be copied "for free".
So guess what--we're back to morals again, how disappointing. The only way that companies that peddle information can stay in business is to convince enough people that it is morally wrong to make copies of information without paying for it.
However, boundless copies of free software can be made without any moral dilemma at all, because the developers of free software have decided that's what they want. So the question of morality is not as cut and dried as you seem to want it to be.
After all, is RMS advocating that people should continue making unauthorised copies of non-free software? No--he is advocating that people stop using non-free software. In other words, RMS is saying that rather than be faced with a moral dilemma, do the right thing and only use non-free software--for then there will be no moral dilemma.
If you ask me, that's a pretty sensible suggestion.
There is no obligation--moral or otherwise--for me to use commerical software over free software. There is no obligation for me to help fund the continued existence of non-free software. Indeed, in our capitalist system, there is no obligation for any ailing company to be propped up rather than simply left to die a natural death.
Will free software truly result in the death of shrinked-wrapped software? Only if every consumer of software on the planet deems it to be so, and at that point no seller of shrinked-wrapped software has any right to suggest that consumers be held at gun point and forced to purchase shrink-wrapped software over the free alternatives.
It may seem to you that it would be a crying shame if programmers could not longer be paid to write shrink-wrapped software. But as RMS rightly points out, most programmers are employed to write and customise in-house software, where the companies that own the software also own the source code. There's no moral dilemma there either. Are you saying you simply couldn't bear to work as a programmer writing in-house software, as opposed to shrink-wrapped software? Shame on you!
In the end, however, these questions are all acedemic, because it's not the free software movement that is going to determine whether non-free software continues to exist in the near or far future: that's the providence of the free market (guess what the "free" in free market stands for--I'll give you a hint, it's not "free as in beer").
Clarification.
"RMS is saying that rather than be faced with a moral dilemma, do the right thing and only use non-free software [...]"
For the sake of clarity, Philip meant here "[...] use free software [...]". He misused a negative statement for a positive one whereas the positive is in the context of what RMS says obviously the right one.
Right, it is orthogonal.
You are correct, they have an agenda. Do you fully understand what it is?
Do you also know that while it is not to "help" any commercial software market, it is in no way opposed or contrary to it?
However I think that is not irrelevant to making a living by writing software, as you claim, since many people write free software and sell it or otherwise earn income because of it, or they could if they wanted to, with no financial detriment.
If you really think that your
If you really think that your right to make money is more important than my freedom, you better not bump into me in real life, I might kill you for this stance.
People like you are dangerous.
"I might kill you for this st
"I might kill you for this stance"
You sounds like a freedom lover to me!
Don't mock me.
I might kill you for that remark.
Immorality is a free software issue only.
Please note that only free software people throw around accusations of immorality. Members of the Open Source movement don't do that.
plenty of accusations from the OSI side
Most of us respect both sides: Stallman's correct that freedom is important; the "open source" people are correct about the technical advantages of free/open source software. However, OSI people have thrown around plenty of accusations as well, trying to bar people like RMS from conferences, talking about dangerous fanaticism, even resorting to Red-baiting.
I don't think that all software needs to be free, but it must be possible for software to be free, and the OSI hasn't fought hard enough for that.