First, a little history. The Free Software Movement was founded by Richard Stallman in order to pursue freedom within the context of software. There is a lot of confusion caused by the word “free”. As Stallman says, when you hear the word “free”, think of freedom, not free beer. Whenever Stallman means “free” as in free stuff, he will say gratis. Additionally, as Stallman knows too well, gratis software is often unfree software. Just how does freedom apply to software? The FSM lists a few criterion a piece of software must meet before it can be called free.
From gnu.org, software is free when the user has these four freedoms:
1. The freedom to run the program as the user wishes, for any purpose.
2. The freedom to study how the program works and modify it so it runs the way the user wishes. A precondition is that the code must be viewable and accessible.
3. The freedom to distribute copies of the software.
4. The freedom to distribute copies of software the user has modified.
As mentioned above, gratis software isn’t (necessarily) considered free software since it doesn’t (necessarily) meet all of these criteria. WinRAR, while being monetarily free software, isn’t free software because its source code isn’t viewable, modifiable, or distributable by the Average Joe. Conversely, there is paid-for software that could be considered free, by the FSMs standards.
The Free Software Movement is for free software, but what is it against? In a nutshell, the FSM is against proprietary software. But why? What does Stallman have against proprietary software and what is proprietary software?
From linfo.org, proprietary software is software that is owned by an individual person, company, or organization; there are almost always restrictions on its use and its source code is almost always kept secret.
Well, already we can see that proprietary software, by definition isn’t considered free software since its use is restricted and its source code is kept secret. So, what exactly does Stallman have against proprietary software, aside from that fact that it violates the freedoms provided by free software?
Stallman believes, and rightly so in most cases, that proprietary software contains malware that is harmful to the user’s privacy. Since users usually aren’t able to examine the source code of proprietary software, software programmers are free to put any kind of tracking and information stealing malware they please into the source code. Stallman believes, and rightly so, again, that since software users are at the mercy of the software’s developer, the software’s developer is likely to incorporate activity tracking malware, spyware, and other bad things, into the software.
Why doesn’t the government make laws to prevent programmers from doing this? Well, the government tends to be the biggest culprit of installing tracking software into programs. Governments will often encourage, and even require, companies to insert tracking software into their product’s source code for a number of reasons. Purportedly, the government’s reason for doing so is to catch criminals and enemies of the state. This is likely true, so what do we have to worry about? All the citizen has to do is behave himself and the government will give him a pass, so again, what do we have to worry about? There are a few things to consider.
Have you ever thought of yourself as an enemy of the state? I know I’ve never seen myself as such, along with most other people. But, the truth is, you might just be a criminal (assuming you live in the U.S). Not a single lawyer in all of the U.S. knows all of the federal laws that are currently in effect in our little region of the world. And this doesn’t include all of the state laws and common laws. There has never been a better time to be a lawyer and a worse time to be an Average Joe computer user. The Average Joe likely breaks five obscure laws a day just by browsing the web. But why isn’t he prosecuted? Well, that’s likely because no law-enforcement institution has the time, resources, or desire to persecute 99% of the U.S. population. However, what happens when an Average Joe computer user pisses off the wrong person? What if this wrong person has ties within law-enforcement agencies or some other government institution? Then, those obscure laws might just be used against the Average Joe. Stepping on the toes of the wrong person could mean prison time for some unfortunate individual.
There is always the possibility of the government misusing the gathered information. I’d love to believe the government would never do such a thing, however, I just can’t make myself believe that. I’m a student of history and I know of the atrocities government’s can commit. And I don’t believe my government is the one exception to the cycle of violence often perpetrated by out-of-control governments. I believe governments must be constrained by the people and the people can partly constrain the government by limiting the information a government has access to.
Even if our governments have proven themselves to be benevolent, they are still vulnerable to mistakes. What if the information gathered by a government falls into the wrong hands. Since the government would likely be centralizing much of the information it collects, it wouldn’t be hard for a rogue group of hackers to hit the information repository and steal all of that critical information. And what about the information collection process? I bet it wouldn’t be too hard to eavesdrop on that process in order to grab a juicy bit of info. Why are we putting so much trust in the competency and benevolence of this beast known as government?
And this isn’t even mentioning the annoying tendency companies have to sell our information to highest bidder. I’m looking at you Facebook and Twitter. I know I don’t want businesses exploiting my information in order to fill their pockets. And I doubt other people feel much different. The funniest thing about this is that companies will tell the user that they may sell their information. It’s all in the fine print, but who has time to read the fine print? Businesses like Facebook know that very few people will read the fine print, so include it all in there. What a kick in the teeth, right?
Still, isn’t this all just unfounded paranoia on the part of Stallman? I wish it was.
As Snowden has so boldly (or stupidly) proven, government spying is not only a real thing, it is more common than initially believed.
Free software may be the way out of the government/corporate spying ring. But, why care whether the government spies on its citizens; also isn’t spying for our benefit? I’m not one to trust the government. In addition to the reasons above, I can trust the government no more than I can trust the average hacker. Both are unknown to me and have power over me, the government more so than the hacker. Additionally, I can’t hold the government responsible for any reprehensible actions it may pull with its massive surveillance abilities. So, in this case, a healthy and reasonable distrust is the option I have chosen.
I won’t force anyone to make the complete jump to using free software. I won’t force anyone to throw their Windows out the window or trash their Mac. I use Windows because it has many useful programs that just aren’t available with free software. In fact, this is a common reason why people stick with proprietary software. Stallman may not consider it a good reason, but I consider it a good enough reason. The truth is, however, that a person doesn’t need to make the complete jump to free software in order to enjoy the benefits of free software. I’ve incorporated free software into my daily computing. In fact, I only keep Windows around to handle the tasks that can’t be easily handled by free software; I encourage others to do the same. Thank goodness for virtual machines and dual-booting. Indeed, I won’t force anyone to completely jump ship and use only free software. The only thing I want is for people to consider using and supporting free software.
With this post, I want to educate and spread the word about free software. I think information is the most valuable commodity on the planet. I’m doing my share by spreading it. Will you do a little bit to support the Free Software Movement? Remember, every little bit counts.
Preliminares 2013 [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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