Ergebnis für URL: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html #[1]alternate [2]English [3]français [4]russkij
[5]Skip to main text
[6]Free Software Supporter: email address_____ Sign up
[7]JOIN THE FSF
[8] [A GNU head] GNU Operating System
Supported by the [9]Free Software Foundation
[10] [Search www.gnu.org]
[11] [Other languages]
[12]Site navigation [13]Skip
* [14]ABOUT GNU
* = [15]PHILOSOPHY =
* [16]LICENSES
* [17]EDUCATION
* [18]SOFTWARE
* [19]DISTROS
* [20]DOCS
* [21]MALWARE
* [22]HELP GNU
* [23]AUDIO & VIDEO
* [24]GNU ART
* [25]FUN
* [26]GNU'S WHO?
* [27]SOFTWARE DIRECTORY
* [28]HARDWARE
* [29]SITEMAP
[30]GNU Home / [31]Philosophy / [32]Speeches & interviews /
Interview with Richard Stallman, Edinburgh, 2004
Transcript of an interview that took place at the School of Informatics,
Edinburgh University, on 27 May 2004; originally published at [33]Indymedia
([34]audio recording).
____________________________________________________________________________
A person doesn't devote his whole life to developing a new form of freedom
without some pre-existing beliefs that drive him to do so. What drives you
to spend so much time on software freedoms?
First of all, growing up in the US in the 1960s, I certainly was exposed
to ideas of freedom. And then, in the 1970s at MIT, I worked as part of a
community of programmers who cooperated, and thought about the ethical and
social meaning of this cooperation. Then that community died in the early
eighties, and by contrast with that, the world of proprietary software,
which most computer users at the time were participating in, was morally
sickening. And I decided that I was going to try to create once again a
community of cooperation. I realized that, what I could get out of a life
of participation in the competition to subjugate each other, which is what
nonfree software is, all I could get out of that was money, and I would
have a life that I would hate.
Do you think that the free software movement, or parts of it, could or does
benefit from collaboration with other social movements?
I don't see very much direct benefit to free software itself. On the other
hand we are starting to see some political parties take up the cause of
free software, because it fits in with ideas of freedom and cooperation
that they generally support. So in that sense, we're starting to see a
contribution to the ideas of free software from other movements.
Have you considered that the free software movement is vital to oppositional
movements in the world that are against corporate rule, militarism,
capitalism, etc.?
Well, we are not against capitalism at all. We are against subjugating
people who use computers, one particular business practice. There are
businesses, both large and small, that distribute free software, and
contribute to free software, and they're welcome to use it, welcome to
sell copies, and we thank them for contributing. However, free software is
a movement against domination, not necessarily against corporate
domination, but against any domination. The users of software should not
be dominated by the developers of the software, whether those developers
be corporations or individuals or universities or what.
The users shouldn't be kept divided and helpless. And that's what nonfree
software does; it keeps the users divided and helpless. Divided because
you're forbidden to share copies with anyone else, and helpless because
you don't get the source code. So you can't even tell what the program
does, let alone change it. So there is definitely a relationship. We are
working against domination by software developers. Many of those software
developers are corporations, and some large corporations exert a form of
domination through nonfree software.
And also that free software developers could provide a technical infrastructure
for these movements that would be impossible to develop using proprietary
software, which are too expensive and locked into an ideological model
that reflects the interests of the dominant world-system like
commoditization, exploitation, control and surveillance, instead of
sharing, justice, freedom and democracy?
At the moment I wouldn't go quite so far as to say that nonfree software
couldn't be usable by opposition movements, because many of them are using
it. It is not ethical to use nonfree software. Because... At least it is
not ethical to use authorized copies. But it's not a good thing to use any
copies.
You see, to use authorized copies, you have to agree not to share with
other people, and to agree to that is an unethical act in itself, which we
should reject. And that is the basic reason why I started the free
software movement. I wanted to make it easy to reject the unethical act of
agreeing to the license of a nonfree program. If you're using an
unauthorized copy, then you haven't agreed to that. You haven't committed
that unethical act. But you are still... you are condemned to living
underground. And you're still unable to get the source code, so you can't
tell for certain what those programs do. And they might in fact be
carrying out surveillance. And I was told that in Brazil, the use of
unauthorized copies was in fact used as an excuse to imprison the
activists of the landless rural workers movement, which has since switched
to free software to escape from this danger. And they indeed couldn't
afford the authorized copies of software. So, these things are not lined
up directly on a straight line, but there's an increasing parallel between
them, an increasing relationship.
The business corporation as a social form is very closed--it answers to no one
except its shareholders, for example a small group of people with money,
and its internal bureaucratic organization is about as democratic as a
Soviet ministry. Does the increasing involvement of corporations with free
software strike you as something to be concerned about?
Not directly. Because as long as a program is free software, that means
the users are not being dominated by its developers. Whether these
developers be a large business, a small business, a few individuals or
whatever, as long as the software is free, they are not dominating people.
However, most of the users of free software do not view it in ethical and
social terms. There is a very effective and large movement called the open
source movement, which is designed specifically to distract the users'
attention from these ethical and social issues while talking about our
work. And they've been quite successful; there are many people who use our
free software, which we developed for the sake of freedom and cooperation,
who have never heard the reasons for which we did so. And, this makes our
community weak. It's like a nation that has freedom, but most of its
people have never been taught to value freedom. They are in a vulnerable
position, because if you say to them, "Give up your freedom and I'll give
you this valuable thing," they might say yes because they've never learnt
why they should say no.
You put that together with corporations that might want to take away
people's freedom, to gradually encroach on freedom, and you have a
vulnerability. And what we see is that many of the corporate developers
and distributors of free software put it in a package together with some
nonfree user-subjugating software. And so they say that the
user-subjugating software is a bonus, that it enhances the system. And if
you haven't learnt to value freedom, you won't see any reason to
disbelieve them.
But this is not a new problem and it's not limited to large corporations.
All of the commercial distributors of the GNU/Linux system, going back
something like 7 or 8 years, have made a practice of including nonfree
software in their distributions, and this is something that I've been
trying to push against in various ways, without much success. But, in
fact, even the noncommercial distributors of the GNU+Linux operating
system have been including and distributing nonfree software; and the sad
thing was that, of all the many distributions, until recently there was
none that I could recommend. Now I know of one, that I can recommend; its
called "Ututo-e"; it comes from Argentina. I hope that very soon I will be
able to recommend another.
Why are the more technically-oriented beliefs of the open source movement not
enough for you?
The open source movement was founded specifically to discard the ethical
foundation of the free software movement. The free software movement
starts from an ethical judgment, that nonfree software is antisocial; it's
wrong treatment of other people. And I reached this conclusion before I
started developing the GNU system. I developed the GNU system specifically
to create an alternative to an unethical way of using software. When
someone says to you, "You can have this nice package of software, but only
if you first sign a promise you will not share it with anyone else," you
are being asked to betray the rest of humanity. And I reached the
conclusion in the early eighties that this was evil.
But there was no other way to use a modern computer. All the operating
systems required exactly such a betrayal before you could get a copy. And
that was in order to get an executable binary copy. You couldn't have the
source code at all. The executable binary copy is just a series of
numbers, which even a programmer has trouble making any sense out of. The
source code looks sort of like mathematics, and if you've learnt how to
program you can read that. But that intelligible form, you couldn't get,
even after you signed this betrayal. All you would get is the nonsensical
numbers, which only the computer can understand.
So, I decided to create an alternative, which meant another operating
system, one that would not have these unethical requirements, one that you
could get in the form of source code, so that, if you decided to learn to
program, you could understand it. And you would get it without betraying
other people, you'd be free to pass it on to others. Free either to give
away copies or sell copies. So I began developing the GNU system, which in
the early nineties was the bulk of what people erroneously started calling
Linux.
So it all exists because of an ethical refusal to go along with an
antisocial practice. But this is controversial.
In the nineties, as the GNU+Linux system became popular and got to have
some millions of users, many of them were techies with technical blinders
on, who didn't want to look at things in terms of right and wrong, but
only in terms of effective or ineffective. So they began telling many
other people, "Here is an operating system that's very reliable, and is
powerful, and it's cool and exciting, and you can get it cheap". And they
did not mention that this allowed you to avoid an unethical betrayal of
the rest of society, that it allowed users to avoid being kept divided and
helpless.
So, there were many people who used free software, but had never even
heard of these ideas. And that included people in business, who were
committed to an amoral approach to their lives. So, when somebody proposed
the term "open source," they seized on that, as a way that they could bury
these ethical ideas. Now, they have a right to promote their views. But, I
don't share their views, so I decline ever to do anything under the rubric
of "open source," and I hope that you will, too.
Given that it helps users to understand the freedoms in free software when the
ambiguous use of the word free in English is clarified, what do you think
of the use of the name FLOSS as in Free/Libre Open Source Software?
There are many people who, for instance, want to study our community, or
write about our community, and want to avoid taking sides between the free
software movement and the open source movement. Often they have heard
primarily of the open source movement, and they think that we all support
it. So, I point out to them that, in fact, our community was created by
the free software movement. But then, they often say that they are not
addressing that particular disagreement, and they'd like to mention both
movements without taking a side. So I recommend the term Free/Libre Open
Source Software as a way they can mention both movements and give equal
weight to both. And they abbreviated FLOSS once they have said what it
stands for. So I think that's a... If you don't want to take a side
between the two movements, then yes, by all means, use that term. Of
course what I hope you will do is take the side of the free software
movement. But not everybody has to. That term is legitimate.
Are you happy with the development of the community which has grown out of your
vision of a free operating system? In what way did it develop differently
from the vision you had at the beginning?
Well, by and large, I am pretty happy with it. But of course there are
some things that I am not happy with, mainly the weakness that so many
people in the community do not think of it as an issue of freedom, have
not learned to value their freedom, or even to recognize it. That makes
our future survival questionable. It makes us weak. And so, when we face
various threats, this weakness hampers our response. Our community could
be destroyed by software-idea patents. It could be destroyed by
treacherous computing. It could be destroyed simply by hardware
manufacturers' refusal to tell us enough about how to use the hardware, so
that we can't write free software to run the hardware. There're many
vulnerabilities that we have over the long-term. And, well, the things we
have to do to survive these threats are different. In all cases, the more
aware we are, the more motivated we are, the easier it will be for us to
do whatever it takes. So, the most fundamental long-term thing we have to
[do is to] recognize and then value the freedom that free software gives,
so that they will fight for their freedoms the same way people fight for
freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, because
those freedoms are also greatly threatened in the world today.
So, what in your opinion threatens the growth of free software at the moment?
I have to point out that our goal is not precisely growth. Our goal is to
liberate cyberspace. Now, that does mean liberating all the users of
computers. We hope eventually they all switch to free software, but we
shouldn't take mere success as our goal; that's missing the ultimate
point. But if I take this to mean, "What is holding back the spread of
free software?" Well, partly at this point it's inertia, social inertia.
Lots of people have learnt to use Windows. And they haven't yet learnt to
use GNU/Linux. It's no longer very hard to learn to use GNU/Linux. Five
years ago it was hard, now it is not. But still, it's more than zero. And
people who are, you know,... if you never learned any computer system,
then learning GNU/Linux is as easy as anything, but if you've already
learnt Windows, it's easier... it's easier to keep doing what you know. So
that's inertia. And there are more people trained in running Windows
systems than in running GNU/Linux systems. So, any time you're trying to
convince people to change over, you're working against inertia. In
addition, we have a problem that hardware manufacturers don't cooperate
with us the way they cooperate with Microsoft. So we have that inertia as
well.
And then, we have the danger in some countries of software-idea patents. I
would like everybody reading this to talk to all of... or anybody
listening to this to talk to all of their candidates for the European
Parliament, and ask, "Where do you stand on software-idea patents? Will
you vote to reinstate the Parliament's amendments that were adopted last
September and that apparently are being removed by the Council of
Ministers? Will you vote to bring back those amendments in the second
reading?" This is a very concrete question. With a yes or no answer. You
will often get other kinds of... you may get evasive answers if you ask,
"Do you support or oppose software-idea patents?" The people who wrote the
directive claim that it does not authorize software-idea patents. They say
that this is because the directive says that anything to be patented must
have a technical character. But somebody in the European Commission
involved in this admitted that, that term means exactly what they want it
to mean, humpty-dumpty style. So, in fact, it's no limitation on anything.
So if a candidate says, "I support the Commission's draft because it won't
allow software-idea patents," you can point this out, and press the
question, "Will you vote for the Parliament's previous amendments?"
OK, thanks very much.
____________________________________________________________________________
[35]^
[36]BACK TO TOP
[37]Set language
Available for this page:
[en] [38]English [fr] [39]français [ru] [40]russkij
____________________________________________________________________________
[41]BACK TO TOP ^
[42] [FSF logo] "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a
worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of
all software users".
[43]JOIN [44]DONATE [45]SHOP
Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to [46]. There are also
[47]other ways to contact the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or
suggestions can be sent to [48].
Please see the [49]Translations README for information on coordinating and
contributing translations of this article.
Copyright © 2004, 2021 Richard M. Stallman
This page is licensed under a [50]Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0
International License.
[51]Copyright Infringement Notification
Updated: $Date: 2021/09/11 09:55:40 $
References
1. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html
2. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.en.html
3. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.fr.html
4. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.ru.html
5. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#content
6. http://www.fsf.org/fss
7. https://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom?referrer=4052
8. http://www.gnu.org/
9. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#mission-statement
10. http://www.gnu.org/cgi-bin/estseek.cgi
11. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#language-container
12. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#navigation
13. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#content
14. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu.html
15. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html
16. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
17. http://www.gnu.org/education/education.html
18. http://www.gnu.org/software/software.html
19. http://www.gnu.org/distros/distros.html
20. http://www.gnu.org/doc/doc.html
21. http://www.gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html
22. http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html
23. http://www.gnu.org/audio-video/audio-video.html
24. http://www.gnu.org/graphics/graphics.html
25. http://www.gnu.org/fun/humor.html
26. http://www.gnu.org/people/people.html
27. http://directory.fsf.org/
28. https://h-node.org/
29. http://www.gnu.org/server/sitemap.html
30. http://www.gnu.org/
31. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html#content
32. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/speeches-and-interviews.html#content
33. https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/05/292609.html
34. https://web.archive.org/web/20050310050052if_/http://www.scotland.indymedia.org/usermedia/application/3/rms-interview-edinburgh-270504.ogg
35. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#top
36. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#top
37. http://www.gnu.org/server/select-language.html?callback=/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html
38. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.en.html
39. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.fr.html
40. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.ru.html
41. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-interview-edinburgh.html#header
42. http://www.fsf.org/
43. http://www.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom?referrer=4052
44. http://donate.fsf.org/
45. http://shop.fsf.org/
46. mailto:gnu@gnu.org
47. http://www.gnu.org/contact/
48. mailto:webmasters@gnu.org
49. http://www.gnu.org/server/standards/README.translations.html
50. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
51. http://www.fsf.org/about/dmca-notice
Usage: http://www.kk-software.de/kklynxview/get/URL
e.g. http://www.kk-software.de/kklynxview/get/http://www.kk-software.de
Errormessages are in German, sorry ;-)