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   [46]Licensing free software / [47]Copyleft /

Releasing Free Software If You Work at a University

   In the free software movement, we believe computer users should have the freedom
   to change and redistribute the software that they use. The "free" in "free
   software" refers to freedom: it means users have the freedom to run, modify and
   redistribute the software. Free software contributes to human knowledge, while
   nonfree software does not. Universities should therefore encourage free software
   for the sake of advancing human knowledge, just as they should encourage
   scientists and other scholars to publish their work.

   Alas, many university administrators have a grasping attitude towards software
   (and towards science); they see programs as opportunities for income, not as
   opportunities to contribute to human knowledge. Free software developers have
   been coping with this tendency for almost 20 years.

   When I started developing the [48]GNU operating system, in 1984, my first step
   was to quit my job at MIT. I did this specifically so that the MIT licensing
   office would be unable to interfere with releasing GNU as free software. I had
   planned an approach for licensing the programs in GNU that would ensure that all
   modified versions must be free software as well--an approach that developed into
   the [49]GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)--and I did not want to have to beg
   the MIT administration to let me use it.

   Over the years, university affiliates have often come to the Free Software
   Foundation for advice on how to cope with administrators who see software only as
   something to sell. One good method, applicable even for specifically funded
   projects, is to base your work on an existing program that was released under the
   GNU GPL. Then you can tell the administrators, "We're not allowed to release the
   modified version except under the GNU GPL--any other way would be copyright
   infringement". After the dollar signs fade from their eyes, they will usually
   consent to releasing it as free software.

   You can also ask your funding sponsor for help. When a group at NYU developed the
   GNU Ada Compiler, with funding from the US Air Force, the contract explicitly
   called for donating the resulting code to the Free Software Foundation. Work out
   the arrangement with the sponsor first, then politely show the university
   administration that it is not open to renegotiation. They would rather have a
   contract to develop free software than no contract at all, so they will most
   likely go along.

   Whatever you do, raise the issue early--well before the program is half finished.
   At this point, the university still needs you, so you can play hardball: tell the
   administration you will finish the program, make it usable, if they agree in
   writing to make it free software (and agree to your choice of free software
   license). Otherwise you will work on it only enough to write a paper about it,
   and never make a version good enough to release. When the administrators know
   their choice is to have a free software package that brings credit to the
   university or nothing at all, they will usually choose the former.

   The FSF can sometimes persuade your university to accept the GNU General Public
   License, or to accept GPL version 3. If you can't do it alone, please give us the
   chance to help. Send mail to licensing@fsf.org, and put "urgent" in the Subject
   field.

   Not all universities have grasping policies. The University of Texas has a policy
   that makes it easy to release software developed there as free software under the
   GNU General Public License. Univates in Brazil, and the International Institute
   of Information Technology in Hyderabad, India, both have policies in favor of
   releasing software under the GPL. By developing faculty support first, you may be
   able to institute such a policy at your university. Present the issue as one of
   principle: does the university have a mission to advance human knowledge, or is
   its sole purpose to perpetuate itself?

   In persuading the university, it helps to approach the issue with determination
   and based on an ethical perspective, as we do in the free software movement. To
   treat the public ethically, the software should be free--as in freedom--for the
   whole public.

   Many developers of free software profess narrowly practical reasons for doing so:
   they advocate allowing others to share and change software as an expedient for
   making software powerful and reliable. If those values motivate you to develop
   free software, well and good, and thank you for your contribution. But those
   values do not give you a good footing to stand firm when university
   administrators pressure or tempt you to make the program nonfree.

   For instance, they may argue that "We could make it even more powerful and
   reliable with all the money we can get". This claim may or may not come true in
   the end, but it is hard to disprove in advance. They may suggest a license to
   offer copies "free of charge, for academic use only," which would tell the
   general public they don't deserve freedom, and argue that this will obtain the
   cooperation of academia, which is all (they say) you need.

   If you start from values of convenience alone, it is hard to make a good case for
   rejecting these dead-end proposals, but you can do it easily if you base your
   stand on ethical and political values. What good is it to make a program powerful
   and reliable at the expense of users' freedom? Shouldn't freedom apply outside
   academia as well as within it? The answers are obvious if freedom and community
   are among your goals. Free software respects the users' freedom, while nonfree
   software negates it.

   Nothing strengthens your resolve like knowing that the community's freedom
   depends, in one instance, on you.
     ____________________________________________________________________________

   This essay is published in [50]Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays
   of Richard M. Stallman.
     ____________________________________________________________________________

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