Sunday, October 11, 2015

Richard Stallman: Copyright VS. Community

Copyright versus Community in the Age of Computer Networks



Richard Stallman provides a detailed speech on proprietary software and free software, sponsored by the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington.

Richard has been working to promote software freedom for over 25 years. His ideas about software freedom and free access to information were used by Tim Berners-Lee when he created the world's first web server, and in 1999 his musings about a free online encyclopedia inspired Jimmy Wales to set up what is now Wikipedia.

Some interesting excerpts from Richard's speech:
"Free software is software that respects the user's freedom, and there are four specific freedoms that the user deserves always to have.
  • Freedom 0 is the freedom to run the program as you wish.
  • Freedom 1 is the freedom to study the source code of the program and change it to make the program do what you wish.
  • Freedom 2 is the freedom to help your neighbour; that is, the freedom to redistribute copies of the program, exact copies when you wish.
  • And Freedom 3 is the freedom to contribute to your community. That's the freedom to publish your modified versions when you wish."

"But any proprietary software gives the developers unjust power over the users. Some of the developers abuse this power more, and some abuse it less, but none of them ought to have it. You deserve to have control of your computing, and not be forcibly dependent on a particular company. So you deserve free software."

"As a result of this change, [copyright] is no longer easy to enforce, no longer uncontroversial, and no longer beneficial.
It's no longer easy to enforce because now the publishers want to enforce it against each and every person, and to do this requires cruel measures, draconian punishments, invasions of privacy, abolition of our basic ideas of justice. There's almost no limit to how far they will propose to go to prosecute the War on Sharing."

For the full transcript of Stallman's speech, please visit: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.en.html 

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