TITLE=Palestra do Stallman AUTHOR=PROCERGS, POA, Brazil. Subtitles: Arturo Espinosa TYPE=VIDEO FORMAT=TIME 0 4 1st International Free Software Forum 2000 0 4 Porto Alegre, Brazil Subtitling: Arturo Espinosa 1 4 And to coordinate this panel, 0 3 we have the presence of the PROCERGS president, 0 5 Marcos Mazzoni who, after this moment, will be speaking. 10 3 So when do I start? 0 4 OK, I'll do an introduction, then you will speak. 4 5 Well, we prepared here an introduction 1 3 and as I do the introduction he'll sleep a bit. 4 4 Evidently we don't need to do all this presentation for you, 0 2 but 15 years ago, in 1984, 0 3 Stallman started the Free Software movment 0 2 and the creation of GNU, 0 4 who at some point worked for the artificial intelligence labs 0 3 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 0 3 Stallman developed his own free tool applications, 0 4 and to protect the open source projects, created 0 4 the Free Software Foundation ("Free Software Foundation"). 0 3 One of the goals of the project was to develop a whole 0 3 operating system, combined, complete and 0 2 autonomous, under a free and open license, 0 2 so that nobody would ever have to pay 0 2 for software again. 1 4 In 1991, Stallman received the Association 0 4 for Computing Machinery's Grace Hopper award, 0 4 for his development of the EMACS editor. 0 4 In 1990, he received the MacArthur foundation 0 4 fellowship and also received an honorary doctorate 0 6 from the Royal Tech Institute in Sweden by 1996. 0 3 In 1998 he receives, along with Linus, the 0 4 "Electronic Frontier Foundation's pioneer award" 0 4 (Electronic Frontier Foundation's pioneer award). 0 3 Completely dedicated to his Free Software cause, 0 3 Stallman has generated discussions in the 0 4 community in which he participates; 0 3 his insistence that the open-source term 0 3 or open source software 0 3 was made specifically to repress 0 3 the issues related with the freedom of 0 4 Free Software is just one of the many stances 0 3 that sometimes entitled him as an extremist. 0 3 Regardless of his political stances, 0 3 Stallman is recognized for a number of 0 2 software projects. The most 0 6 prominent, the GNU compiler and the EMACS editor. 0 3 So, as you are evidently more interested in 0 5 listening to Stallman than to me, I'll now pass the word to him. 22 3 Greetings. 1 4 I'm going to speak about the GNU project 0 3 and the Free Software movement, 1 4 about questions of how society 0 5 should be organized for users of software. 1 4 Most of the people who have considered such questions 0 5 in the past worked for software companies, 0 5 and they approached the questions in a self-serving way. 0 5 They asked, "What rules can we impose 0 6 on the users of software to make them give us a lot of money?" 3 4 I had the good fortune in the 1970's 0 4 to join a community of programmers who shared 0 4 software, and that led me to look at the same questions 0 3 from a different approach, 0 4 to ask, "What rules of society 0 4 make for a good community for the users of computers?" 1 4 And thus I reached completely different answers 0 2 from the usual ones. 1 3 But let me say a little bit about 0 3 what that community was like: 0 3 the community included a number of universities 0 3 and sometimes even people with computer companies 0 5 and within this community if you wrote a program, 0 4 it was normal to share the program with everyone else. 1 3 The center of this community perhaps - 0 3 well, it had no official center - 0 4 but in fact, in practice, the center probably 0 4 was the MIT artificial intelligence lab, 0 2 because there all of the software 0 3 we used was to be shared. 0 3 We had an entire operating system, 0 3 the Incompatible Time- sharing System, 0 2 or ITS for short, 1 5 which was written by the hackers of the lab 0 3 and other people in the community, and we 0 3 would share it with anybody who wanted it. 1 3 So in this community, if you walked past 0 2 another hacker's terminal and saw 0 2 something interesting on the screen, 0 3 you'd say, "Hey, what is that?", 0 3 and the other hacker would say, "That's the 0 4 new foo-bar program that we just got from Stanford, 0 3 it's in the foo-bar directory". 3 3 So then, in that directory you'd find 0 3 the executable that you could run, 0 3 and you'd also find the source code, so you 0 5 could study it, and see how they solved those problems. 1 3 In addition, when running a program, 0 4 if you found bugs or if you had ideas for more features, 0 4 you could go to the source and make the changes you wanted. 2 4 You could even cut out a piece of the program 0 3 and put it into some other program you were writing. 1 4 We called that "cannibalizing" the old program. 3 3 Nowadays some professors make a big fuzz 0 3 and they call it "code re-usability", 2 3 and they make... 0 4 obscure studies of how you can encourage code reuse, 0 5 but we discovered the best way to encourage code reuse 0 4 was just to make the code available to everybody 0 3 so they could use it if they wanted. 3 4 So, you could use the program, not just by running it, 0 3 but in all the various ways it was useful. 3 3 I was very happy to be participating in this 0 3 kind of collaboration with the community. 0 4 Obviously, it wasn't always friendly; people sometimes 0 3 got angry at each other, but in general, we were all working 0 3 together to advance humanity's knowledge, 0 5 so we were on humanity's team; we were not against anybody. 2 4 But then, we got a taste of how it was like 0 5 for most computer users, who used proprietary software, 0 5 and this happened when Xerox gave MIT a laser printer. 1 4 Now this was a very nice gift, because it was the first time 0 3 anybody outside Xerox ever had a laser printer. 1 4 It was, it was actually a very 0 3 high-speed, heavy-duty office copier, 0 2 modified with a computer attachment - 0 2 it was a first-generation laser printer. 2 2 And this printer was very fast, 0 4 had high resolution, and straight lines came out nice 0 3 and straight, but it was unreliable: 0 3 it frequently got paper jams. 0 3 Now we knew what to do about that, 0 4 because our old printer, which was slow, 0 3 and low-resolution, and tended to make 0 4 vertical lines come out a bit wavy, 0 3 was also unreliable. 1 4 Well, it would frequently run out of paper or ink, 0 2 or get a paper jam. 0 3 Since we couldn't improve the printer itself, 0 4 we added features to the software that controlled 0 4 the printer to compensate for the shortcomings of the printer. 0 4 We were able do this, because the old printer 0 2 was controlled by a free program. 2 2 And so, we added a feature that, 0 3 every time it finished a print job, 0 4 the system would display for that user 0 4 a message saying, "Your file foo is printed". 0 4 So, you had to wait because the printer was slow, 0 3 but you didn't have to wait extra just for not 0 3 knowing when the printing was finished. 0 4 And then, I added a feature later on, 0 3 where every time the printer got in trouble, 0 4 the system would display a message for each user 0 3 currently waiting for printing 0 4 saying, "The printer is in trouble: go fix it". 2 3 Now, if you got that message, 0 4 you would know that probably just a few people 0 4 were getting that message, so you couldn't assume somebody 0 3 else would fix it, you would go to the printer. 0 3 So the minute the printer got into trouble, 0 4 two or three people would arrive there, at least one of them would 0 3 know how to fix the problem, and would teach the others. 0 3 So, the printer was still unreliable, 0 4 but it was running all the time. 0 5 In effect, we took the printer and we added the user to the 0 3 system, treated the user as part of the system 0 3 and we added end-to-end feedback, 0 4 so we got reliable operation for the system as a whole, 0 4 even though the printer component was still unreliable. 2 5 Well, when we encountered the problems with the new printer, 0 3 of course we wanted to do the same thing. 0 3 But then we ran into a brick wall, 0 5 because the new printer was controlled by proprietary 0 6 Xerox spooling software on a proprietary Xerox computer: 0 4 we did not have the source code for this program, 0 4 and that meant we were helpless to make any changes at all, 0 6 even though we were among the best programmers anywhere, 0 4 there was nothing we could do to improve that software, 0 3 and so we just had to suffer with it 0 3 the way it was given to us. 1 2 So, here is how it was like: 0 3 you would type a command to print a file, 0 4 and then you'd go back to work. 0 4 A while later you would notice the time, 0 3 "Oh, it's been half an hour... not long enough... 0 3 probably isn't printed now", so you'd go back to work. 0 5 A while later, you would notice the time again, 0 3 "Oh, it's been a whole hour, maybe it's printed now". 0 3 So you'd go upstairs to the printer 0 3 and you'd see it had been jammed the whole time. 2 4 So at that point, you would fix the jam and go back to work. 0 4 A while later, you would notice the time, 0 4 "Oh, it's been a half hour! Maybe it's printed now", 0 3 so you'd go to the printer and you'd see 0 3 it printed 200 pages of other people's stuff, 2 5 which for that printer was just 3 minutes of printing, 0 2 and then jammed again. 2 2 And at that point you'd say, 0 3 "I'm going to stand here and fix this damned printer 0 3 every time it jams until my printout comes out". 2 3 It was constantly frustrating, 0 4 but the most frustrating thing about it was to realize that 0 4 other people were deliberately inflicting this on us 0 5 by refusing to let us fix the problem. 1 4 Now I don't know why the people at Xerox didn't want to fix this 0 4 problem. Maybe this was obsolete for them, 0 4 maybe they had so many laser printers, 0 2 and they only printed short files, 0 3 that you'd just always go to the printer 0 2 and fix the jam immediately after you printed 0 2 something - I don't know. 0 4 But in any case, since they had already given us 0 3 this expensive printer, I couldn't say they owed it 0 3 to us to fix these problem themselves. 0 4 But they certainly should at least have let us 0 3 do the work: that's what was so walling. 3 6 Then, I found out that somebody at Carnegie Mellon University 0 3 had a copy of that source code. 0 4 Eventually, I went on a trip to Pittsburgh, 0 5 so I went to his office and I said, "Hello, I'm from MIT. 0 3 Could I have a copy of the printer source code?" 3 4 He said, "I promised not to give you a copy". 3 4 I was so angry I didn't know how to express it. 0 4 All I could do was turn on my heel and 0 2 walk out of the room without saying a word. 3 5 Well, this was very bad for the MIT AI lab, 0 3 because we never got that source code, 0 4 we never fixed the problems, and the printer was 0 5 frustrating for all the years we kept using it. 0 3 But paradoxically it was very good for me, 0 4 because it taught me an important lesson. 2 6 Important because most programmers avoid learning it. 0 7 You see, he had promised to refuse to cooperate 0 4 with us at MIT if we needed his cooperation, 0 6 but not just us. He also promised not to cooperate with you, 1 5 and I think he also promised not to cooperate with you, 0 5 and chances are he promised not to cooperate with you either. 0 6 In fact, he probably promised to refuse his cooperation 0 3 to just about everybody in this room, 0 5 except maybe a few of you who weren't born yet in 1980, 3 4 because he had promised to refuse his cooperation 0 4 to just about everybody in the world at the time. 0 5 You see, he had signed a non-disclosure agreement. 1 5 A promise that no matter who might have a need for 0 3 this source code, he would refuse to help that person. 3 3 Now this was my first direct encounter 0 3 with a non-disclosure agreement, 0 3 although of course I'd heard about them, 1 2 I was the victim. 1 4 I and my whole lab were the victims, 0 3 and the lesson it taught me was 0 4 that non-disclosure agreements have victims, 2 3 a lesson most programmers don't learn. 1 3 You see, most programmers first encounter a 0 3 non-disclosure agreement when they are invited to sign one, 0 3 and there's always some goodie that you're 0 3 going to get if you sign, some temptation. 0 5 So, they make up excuses to shut up 0 4 their consciences: they say, 0 3 "They're never going to get this anyway, 0 3 so why shouldn't I help deprive them?" 0 3 They say, "This is the way it's done, 0 3 who am I to try to change things?" 0 5 They say, "If I don't do this, somebody else will". 2 3 The usual excuses for doing something 0 5 that you know is wrong, plus a few special ones. 0 4 But when somebody asked me after that 0 3 to sign a non-disclosure agreement, 1 4 I remembered how angry I had been 0 3 when I was the victim of one, 0 4 when I and my whole lab were the victims of one, 0 4 and I couldn't turn around and do the same thing to somebody else. 1 4 I recognized that a non-disclosure agreement 0 5 is a promise "I refuse to cooperate with 'blank'", 0 4 and the blank is filled in later by circumstances, 0 5 maybe with a stranger, maybe with your best friend. 0 3 You don't know who you're betraying when you sign a 0 6 non-disclosure agreement: It's like a blank check for betrayal. 2 6 So... so I said, thank you very much 0 3 for offering me this nice software package, 0 3 but I can't in good conscience 0 3 accept it on the terms you are asking for, 0 5 so I'm going to do with out it, thank you very much. 0 3 And so, I have never knowingly signed 0 3 a non-disclosure agreement for 0 3 generally useful technical information, 0 3 the information that is the stuff 0 3 of science and engineering. 0 3 Now there are other kinds of information, 0 3 for which the ethical issues are different. 0 3 For example, if you want to talk 0 3 with me about what was happening between you 0 3 and your girlfriend, then 0 4 - and you asked me not to tell anybody else well, I could agree 0 4 to that 'cause that's not generally useful technical information. 4 4 Well, actually, it's possible that if you 0 4 told me about some marvelous new sexual technique 1 4 that I might feel a moral duty 0 4 to disclose it to the public, so that 0 4 'cause maybe some people might be able to make use of it. 1 3 But if you wanted to talk with me about, 0 3 you know, what you were arguing about and so on, 0 4 and how, what your brother in law 0 3 did and so on and this 0 3 things like that, there's no benefit to the world from knowing 0 3 all those things, so it's OK if I keep them a secret for you. 0 4 But when we're talking about technical information, 0 4 information about how to do things 0 4 the purpose of science and engineering is to 0 3 develop this information for humanity. 0 3 If we behold it from humanity, 0 3 we're betraying the mission of the field. 1 4 And this is what I decided I would not do. 0 4 But shortly after that decision, 0 5 changes made it much more difficult to carry out, 0 5 because a series of calamities fell 0 4 on my community and ended up destroying it. 0 4 Perhaps the final calamity was 0 5 when Digital discontinued the PDP-10 computer. 0 4 That was our main computer 0 3 for which all of our software was written. 0 3 The Incompatible Timesharing System 0 3 was developed starting in the 1960's, 0 2 so of course it was written in 0 3 assembler language for the PDP-10. 1 3 And so when the PDP-10 was discontinued, 1 4 almost all of our software was completely useless. 2 3 It might as well never have been written. 1 3 All of our work just sort of 0 3 turned to dust and blew away, 0 4 and the only way you could get a modern computer, 0 3 then in 1983 or so, 0 5 was to obtain a proprietary operating system 0 5 for which you would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. 0 4 So the only way to continue working 0 4 in my field was to do exactly what I felt was wrong. 2 3 It was a moral dilemma. 2 3 So what could I do? I couldn't 0 3 continue doing my work as before. 0 5 The obvious choice was to accept the change, 0 3 to start using proprietary software, 0 3 signing non-disclosure agreements and, 0 5 probably MIT would have had me develop proprietary 0 5 software as well, because MIT had already done that. 2 4 But I thought about that and I realized 0 4 that by doing that I could have fun coding, 0 3 and I could make money, specially if I did it elsewhere 0 5 than in MIT, but at the end of my career 0 2 I'd have to look back and say, 0 4 "I have spent my life building walls to divide people". 1 3 I'd have to feel ashamed of all my work, 1 4 and I didn't want to have to feel that way. 1 3 So I looked for another alternative, 0 3 and there was an obvious alternative: 0 3 I could leave the computer field. 0 4 Now, many programmers don't seem to notice 0 3 this alternative: they tell me, 0 3 "The people who hire programmers demand this, this and 0 3 this, if I don't do these things, I'll starve" 0 3 - literally they say "starve". 0 5 Well, even in the United States, 0 3 even today, there are millions of people who make a 0 3 living not in the software industry. 3 3 Now, I have no other special, 0 3 know-worthy skills, but I'm sure I could have 0 5 become a waiter - not at a fine restaurant, 0 3 perhaps, but I could have been a waiter somewhere. 0 5 Now, being a waiter, you're not doing anything unethical, 0 3 and there's no danger of starving. 6 4 But, I realized that being a waiter would be no 0 5 fun for me and also, it would be wasting my skills 0 5 It would avoid abusing my skills, but it would waste them. 0 3 So I decided to look for another alternative 0 4 - was there someway I could use my skills, as an 0 2 operating system developer, 0 3 to make the situation better for people? 1 3 What could an operating system developer 0 3 do that would improve the situation? 0 3 Well, the dilemma was caused by the fact 0 4 that all the available operating systems were proprietary. 1 4 If operating system developers 0 3 got together and wrote a new operating system, 0 4 and made it free, encouraged everyone to share it, 0 4 we would give everybody a way out of the dilemma. 1 3 And I was exactly the right man for the job, 0 3 I was an operating system developer. 1 3 So I decided that I would 0 5 start developing a free operating system. 1 3 I didn't know if it would be possible to 0 3 finish such a big job, but at least 0 3 it was something worth trying to do. 0 3 The next question was, 0 3 what should the design of the system be? 1 4 Well, I had just seen one operating system 0 5 become worthless because it was written for 0 3 a specific computer, which was discontinued. 0 3 I didn't want that to happen again, 0 4 so this system had to be portable. 1 4 Now, at the time, I knew of just one 0 4 operating system which was portable and was actually a 0 6 success on different kinds of computers, and that was UNIX. 0 5 In addition, UNIX had some advanced ideas, 0 3 by the standards of its time: 0 6 pipes, I/O redirection, shell programming, 0 4 the simple fork and exec system calls 0 4 - all thos things, all those things 0 5 were unusual in systems then. 0 4 So I decided that we should follow the design of UNIX. 1 5 UNIX consists of many small components, 0 3 or medium-sized components, which communicate 0 5 using interfaces that were more or less documented, 1 4 so following the design of UNIX 0 4 means you replace each of these components one by one. 0 5 In addition, I decided to make the system 0 4 compatible with UNIX, upwards compatible 0 3 - it's OK to add new features. 0 5 The reason is, I recognized, that 0 3 switching to an incompatible system is 0 4 a lot of work, and many users would refuse to do it. 0 3 So, if I took the best ideas from all 0 5 the systems I had helped to write, or used, 0 4 or read about, and put them together with my own ideas, 0 4 I could have designed my dream operating system, 0 4 but it would have been incompa- tible with all the others, 0 3 and then when I offered it to the users, 0 2 they would have said, 0 4 "Well this is nice, but we've already written our 0 4 programs to run on UNIX, and it would be too much work to 0 3 change them, so we're not going to use it". 0 5 Well, my goal was to create a community 0 3 where there would actually be users, 0 2 enjoying the benefits of liberty. 0 4 I didn't just want an excuse, 0 4 you know, it's not enough just to say, "Well, I offered them an 0 3 opportunity and they didn't take it, so now it's their fault", 0 3 that's not really solving the problem. 0 3 So I recognized compatibility with UNIX 0 3 would be tremendously important in practice, 0 3 for the success of the system. 0 3 Well, once you've decided to make the system 0 3 compatible with UNIX, that means you have to 0 3 have the same set of components with the same interfaces, 0 4 and that means all the basic design 0 3 decisions are already made. 2 3 The remaining design decisions 0 3 are internal to one component, 0 4 and you can let whoever writes that component make those 0 3 decisions: they don't have to be made at the beginning. 0 4 So, that meant we were almost ready 0 5 to start work, but first, I needed a name. 0 5 Now, we hackers, when we write programs, 0 5 we like to use funny names, or even naughty names: 0 4 that's half the fun of writing the program. 0 5 And, there's a hacker tradition that when you're 0 4 writing a program, a new program, which is similar to some 0 3 existing program, you can give the new one a name 0 5 which is a recursive acronym, which says, 0 4 "This one is not that one". 0 4 For example, in the 60's and 70's, 0 4 there were many TECO text editors, 0 3 and most of them were called 0 3 "this" TECO or "that" TECO or 0 5 "whatever-it-is" TECO, but one clever hacker 0 3 called his version TINT, 0 4 for TINT Is Not TECO: 2 3 the first recursive acronym. 2 6 Then, in 1975, I developed the first EMACS text editor 0 5 and there were many imitations of EMACS, 0 3 often called "this" EMACS or "that" EMACS 0 8 or "whosywhat's" EMACS, but one of them was called FINE, 0 7 for FINE Is Not EMACS, and there was SINE, 0 6 for SINE Is Not EMACS, and then there was EINE, 0 4 for EINE Is Not EMACS, 0 3 and then EINE was almost completely rewritten, 0 3 and the new version was called SWEI, 0 4 for SWEI Was EINE Initially. 6 4 So I looked for a recursive acronym way 0 3 to say that something is not UNIX, 0 4 but all the obvious four-letter possibilities 0 3 were no good because none of them is a word, 0 3 and without a second meaning, it's not funny. 1 7 Well, I tried other ways to make a recursive acronym, 0 4 I tried a contraction, that way I could use three letter words, 0 3 and I discovered that the word gnu, 0 3 which is one of the funniest words in the English 0 4 language, would serve, 0 5 if I contracted it into GNU's Not UNIX. 1 4 Now, I should explain why this word GNU 0 3 is used for so much humor: 0 4 it's because the dictionary says that 0 3 the 'G' is silent. It says the word is pronounced 0 5 "new", and so there are constant jokes 0 4 about using G-N-U instead of N-E-W. 3 5 I should also explain why the dictionary says that: 0 5 this word is the name of an animal that lives in Africa. 0 4 When the British colonized the area 0 5 - oh, and the original name has a click sound in it - 0 5 when the British colonized the area, they 0 3 didn't bother learning to make this click sound. 0 5 They just pronounced it "new" and they wrote it with a 'G', 0 3 meaning "we're not really pronouncing this right", 0 6 and then somebody else British was writing a dictionary 0 4 and said, "British people pronounce it this way 0 5 and spell it this way, so these are the correct ways, 0 3 and anything else is wrong". 1 5 Well, when it is the name of the GNU operating system, 0 5 please pronounce a hard 'G'. Please pronounce it GNU. 0 6 In English, at least, if you speak of the "new" operating system, 0 5 you will get people very confused, because it's not 0 5 -we've been working on it 16 years now, it's not so new anymore. 1 5 But it still is and it always will be GNU, 0 6 even if some people call it Linux by mistake. 8 6 So, in January 1984, 0 5 I quit my job to begin working on GNU. 4 4 I had to quit my job, because MIT 0 4 had already been known to take the software 0 3 that staff people had developed and turn it into 0 5 proprietary software products, licensed to companies. 1 5 Since my goal was to give people freedom, 0 4 I didn't want to let that happen, 0 2 and the only way I could make 0 3 sure to stop it was to quit. 0 4 So, I walked into professor Winston's 0 3 office and he said, 0 4 "Do you still wanna quit?" - "Yes" 0 3 - "Do you want to keep your key?" 1 2 - "OK?!" 1 3 So I began using a UNIX 0 3 machine at MIT to develop GNU. 0 5 This was the first time I ever used UNIX. 0 5 I was not a UNIX wizard the way many other people were. 0 4 Fortunately when I started seeing UNIX up-close, 0 5 thwarts and all, I found the problems 0 3 were not too bad, and it was still a reasonable choice 0 2 to imitate UNIX. 4 3 Now, at the time, I assumed that 0 3 a bunch of hackers would get together, 0 3 and we would write these components one by one 0 3 until we had the whole system running, and then 0 3 we would say to everybody, "come and get it". 0 4 But that's not what happened. 1 6 In September 1984, I started working on GNU EMACS, 0 5 my second implementation of the EMACS 0 5 text editor, and by early 1985, 0 4 it was working well enough that I could use 0 5 it for all my editing, which was nice because 0 3 it meant I could do all my editing on UNIX 0 5 - you see, I had no intention of learning to edit with VI. 0 4 So, until that time, 0 3 I did my editing on other machines, 0 3 and saved the files through the network. 1 4 Well, when it was good enough for my editing, 0 3 it was good enough for other people's editing too, 0 3 so people started asking me for copies, 0 3 and that meant I had to work out 0 3 the details of how to distribute it. 0 5 Of course, I put a copy in the anonymous FTP directory. 0 4 That was good for people who were on the net. 2 4 Back then, even in the US, 0 4 most programmers were not on the net, and they asked 0 3 me for copies, so the question was, 0 2 "What I should say to them?" 0 4 Why is everybody passing notes?! 0 4 Read those notes out loud! 13 4 So the question was, what I should say to 0 4 people who asked for copies but were not on the net? 0 3 Well, I could have said to them, 0 4 "I want to spend my time writing software for GNU, 0 5 not writing tapes, so please find a friend 0 3 who is on the net who is willing to download 0 2 it and write it on a tape for you". 0 3 And I'm sure that the people 0 3 who really wanted copies would have got them, 0 3 but I had no job - 0 5 in fact I'd never had a job since I quit MIT 0 4 at the beginning of the GNU project, 0 2 so I was looking for someway 0 3 I could make money from working on Free Software. 2 3 I should explain, by the way, 0 3 that it's not really true that my goal 0 3 was that people shouldn't pay for software. 0 3 Actually, I think there's nothing 0 3 at all wrong with a programmer 0 4 getting paid for software: money is a secondary issue here. 0 3 This issue is about freedom and community. 0 5 You see, while I'm glad to be paid for writing software, 0 4 I feel it is immoral to put everybody 0 4 under my control to make them pay me, 0 2 so that I will not do. 0 4 But I was looking for someway I could make some money 0 4 in an ethical fashion, and so I announced, 0 3 "Send me 150 dollars, 0 4 and I will mail you a tape of EMACS". 1 3 And orders began dribbling in, 0 5 and by the middle of the year, they were trickling in - 0 4 I was getting some eight to ten orders a month - 0 3 which was actually enough money - 0 3 barely enough money for me to live on. 1 3 This is because I've always lived cheaply, 0 3 at least by American standards. 0 4 Most Americans, when they start making some money, 0 3 they immediately look for some way 0 3 where they can spend it all, plus more. 2 5 So they start buying houses, and cars, 0 5 and boats, and adventure travel, 0 2 and rare stamps - 0 5 they find some expensive habit they 0 4 can get addicted to, or stuck with, 0 4 so that they need to make even more money. 1 3 Oh, children! That's another common one. 3 3 But, I figured, 0 3 "if I don't pick up these expensive habits, 0 3 I will never have to struggle to make money, 0 3 because I'll have enough", and that way, 0 4 money does not control my life - 0 3 you see, I can choose what I want to do, and 0 3 I can spend just a tinny little part of the time 0 3 making money: that's the way I like it. 0 3 Most of the time I'm doing what I think is important, 0 2 or what I think is fun. 2 5 So... but people used to say to me, 0 3 and remember I was mainly speaking to Americans, 0 4 and I was saying "free software" in English, 0 3 they used to say to me, 0 4 "What do you mean it's free, if it costs 150 dollars?" 2 5 Well, the word free in English is ambiguous: 0 5 one meaning has to do with price, 0 3 and another meaning has to do with freedom, 0 3 and it took me a while 0 4 to get the confusion straightened out myself, 0 4 but Free Software is really a matter of freedom, 0 4 not price, so think of 0 3 free speech, not free beer. 2 4 Of course, in languages like Portuguese, 0 3 you can be unambiguous. Most 0 3 languages have a way to distinguish these two 0 4 meanings: English is missing one. 2 5 So, some people got their copies of EMACS 0 4 from me over the network and did not pay me anything, 0 4 other people paid me and I mailed them tapes, 0 3 and other people got their 0 3 copies through re-distributors, 0 3 had no contact with me, 0 2 and they did not pay me - 0 5 maybe they payed somebody else, but all of these people, 0 3 no matter how they got their copy, they all had freedom, 0 5 which was the reason for making it Free Software. 0 4 So let me now explain 0 4 the specific freedoms that define Free Software, 0 2 and why they are important, 0 5 because it's really not useful to just say, 0 4 "I'm in favor of freedom!", in a very vague way, 0 3 because really the hard questions of politics are, 0 3 "Which freedoms are important? 0 3 And which freedoms are secondary and must 0 3 give way to the important ones?" 1 4 So, I will now give the definition of 0 2 Free Software. 0 3 A program is Free Software for you, 0 2 a specific user, 0 3 if you have the following freedoms: 0 5 freedom zero, is the freedom to run the program for any purpose; 0 5 freedom one, is the freedom to help yourself, 0 4 by modifying the program to suit your needs; 0 5 freedom two, is the freedom to help your neighbor 0 3 by distributing copies; 0 5 freedom three, is the freedom to help build your community, 0 3 by publishing an improved version 0 3 so other people can benefit from your work. 0 4 If you have all of these freedoms, 0 3 the program is Free Software for you. 1 5 Now, freedom zero is actually normal - 0 3 most programs give you freedom zero, 0 4 so the freedoms that distinguish Free Software 0 3 from typical software are freedoms one, 0 2 two and three, 0 4 so those are the ones I'll explain in more detail. 0 6 Freedom one is the freedom to help yourself, 0 3 by changing the program to suit your needs. 0 4 This could mean fixing bugs, this could mean adding features, 0 4 this could mean making it run on a different computer, 0 4 this could mean translating the messages into Portuguese - 0 4 there are all sorts of reasons you might want to change the 0 4 program: freedom one applies to all of them. 0 4 Freedom one is obviously useful 0 3 directly to you if you were a programmer. 0 5 It's also of tremendous value to you if you 0 4 were a business. Any business that uses software, 0 3 from time to time finds that software 0 4 isn't quite right, and they want it changed. 0 2 Well, if it's Free Software, 0 4 then you can go to a programming company 0 3 and say, "Please change this for me, what would you charge?" 0 4 With proprietary software, you can't do that. 0 5 It's like if you want to change the walls 0 3 in your building or put in a new bathroom, 0 4 or maybe your company doesn't do those things, 0 4 but you can go to a carpenter or a plumber, similarly with 0 4 Free Software, you can go to a programmer. 2 5 Now, another reason why free software - 0 4 this particular freedom - is important to users, 0 5 is for the sake of security and privacy. 0 4 You see, if a program is proprietary, 0 3 nobody can see what's inside it, except the owner. 0 3 So, when the owner says, 0 5 "This program respects your security and your privacy", 0 4 you just have to take it on blind faith. 0 4 With Free Software, you can check, 0 5 and in fact, you can expect that the whole community is checking, 0 3 so you don't really have to check it yourself, 0 3 because the owner knows that other people are 0 2 going to be checking it, 0 4 and so they wouldn't dare to deliberately putting 0 3 any kind of back door or Trojan horse. 0 3 And what about accidental mistakes, 0 2 that everybody makes? 0 3 Well, at least the community is going to be checking for 0 5 them and they might find them, and when they find the bugs, 0 3 they can write a simple fix, they can say, 0 4 "Change these lines of the program and it will fix the bug", 0 4 and then, if you care, you can install that fix the same day 0 3 that it's announced, so Free Software is 0 3 essential to have good security, 0 4 and to have privacy, specially on a computer 0 3 that's on the network some of the time. 0 4 And finally, Free Software is useful 0 4 for any thinking person, who might perhaps someday 0 5 want to learn something about what's going on inside that box. 0 5 See, there are some people who say to the public, 0 4 "You better leave these things to us specialists. 0 3 Don't try to understand any of this: 0 3 just trust us to do the right thing". 0 4 This is known as the priesthood of technology. 0 3 The Free Software movement 0 3 rejects the priesthood of technology. 0 4 We say that you may not choose 0 4 to learn something about the inside of your software, 0 2 but if you want to, you can. 0 4 And you know, you don't have to study to be an expert programmer 0 3 to get some benefit from this. 0 3 Sometimes, you can learn a little bit 0 3 and make some changes you want to make. 0 5 With Free Software, it's your choice to learn 0 3 nothing, or a little, or a lot. 0 5 If you don't have freedom number one, 0 3 this causes practical material harm: 0 3 you become a prisoner of your software - 0 3 I already explained what this is like, 0 3 regarding the Xerox laser printer. 0 5 I should explain that, 0 4 practically speaking, to have freedom number one 0 3 you must have access to the source code of the program. 0 4 This is the form of the program that programmers can understand. 0 4 If you don't have the source code, 0 4 if all you have is a binary executable - a sequence of 0 3 numbers, it's very hard to make any changes. 0 3 Even the most trivial changes, 0 4 like using four digits instead of two digits 0 3 for the year can be excruciatingly hard. 0 5 So, one of the requirements for Free Software is, 0 3 you must be able to get the source code. 2 3 So, not having this freedom causes 0 4 practical material harm but, 0 4 it also causes psycho-social harm, 0 4 which affects people's enthusiasm for their work. 0 4 If people are really excited about getting their work done, 0 3 the way we were at MIT, 0 3 and then they come to work and discover that somebody 0 3 is deliberately making it difficult, 0 2 that causes frustration, 0 3 and to protect yourself from frustration, 0 5 you have to stop caring about the job, 0 4 so you end up with people saying, 0 3 "Well, I showed up for work today. 0 4 I brought a book - that's all I have to do. 0 4 If I can't get the work done, because my tools are locked up 0 4 or whatever, you know, I'll just read my book and get paid for 0 4 that", and this is not good, even for society 0 3 or for the individuals that happens to. 0 3 That's freedom number one. 0 4 Freedom two, is the freedom to help your neighbor, 0 4 by distributing copies of the program to other people. 1 4 For people who can think and know, 0 5 sharing knowledge is a fundamental act of friendship. 0 4 When these beings use computers, 0 5 that act of friendship takes the form of sharing software. 4 6 If a program has an owner 0 5 who succeeds, by any method - the details don't matter - 0 4 in setting up a situation 0 4 where each user must pay to use the program, 0 6 this creates a financial disincentive, 0 6 discouraging people from using the program, 0 5 and that causes the program to be partly wasted, 0 3 because some users will say, 0 2 "All right, I'll pay", 0 5 and others will say, "It's too much, never mind", 0 3 and every time somebody says, 0 5 "It's too much, never mind", the program is going to waste, 0 5 but the work it takes to develop the program 0 4 to any given level of power and reliability 0 4 is the same, regardless of the number of users, 0 3 so the same work is done, 0 3 but only part of the use is made. 0 4 That is deliberately inflicted waste, 0 4 which is practical material harm. 0 5 But along with this practical harm, 0 3 because it is deliberately inflicted, 0 4 there is psycho-social harm, 0 3 which affects the spirit of good will, 0 5 which is society's most important resource: 0 3 the willingness to help your neighbor - 0 3 the habit of helping your neighbor. 0 4 This makes the difference between a society - 0 5 a livable society - and a doggy-dog jungle. 3 6 I call this, a psycho-social resource of society, 0 4 because it's what society needs, in order to function well. 0 4 So, you can compare the Free Software movement 0 3 with the environmental movement, 0 3 except that the resource 0 5 we don't want to see poisoned is not a physical resource like 0 4 air o water, but a social resource. 0 6 Because, what does it mean - 0 2 what does it do - when you tell people, 0 4 that they're forbidden to share with thir neighbor? 0 3 That sharing with your neighbor is wrong? 0 3 That sharing with your neighbor means you are a pirate? 0 5 What does that do to society? 0 5 And how much fear is it going to take 0 4 to actually make people stop sharing with their neighbors? 0 4 How many people will have to be put in prison for sharing? 0 3 Do you want your society to be 0 3 pervaded by this level of fear? 0 3 I don't. 0 4 When you look at the methods 0 5 that are used to stop people 0 3 from sharing software with their neighbors, 0 6 you find that they resemble something else. 0 4 You see, there was another country that tried 0 5 to stop people from - to try to stamp out unauthorized copying. 0 3 That was the Soviet Union, 0 3 and the unauthorized copying was called 0 5 samizdat, and to stamp this out, 0 3 they used five different methods. 0 6 First: guards on all copying equipment, 0 3 to watch what was being copied. 0 3 Second: harsh punishments for anyone 0 3 caught making unauthorized copies. 0 4 Third: to catch people, they asked for informers. 0 4 Everyone was supposed to rap on their coworkers 0 4 and their neighbors, and also to help catch people, 0 3 collective responsibility, 0 3 "You, you are going to watch that group! 0 3 If I catch any of them with unauthorized copies, 0 3 you are going to prison, so watch them hard". 3 5 And finally, propaganda starting in childhood, 0 4 telling people that only monsters 0 3 would ever do this unauthorized copying. 0 4 All five of these methods are 0 3 now being used in the United States. 0 5 First, guards on copiers. 0 3 Well, in the US they don't use human guards, 0 3 that's too expensive, they use robot guards. 0 3 There's software that goes into your computer 0 3 to stop you from copying things, 0 3 and it's a crime to bypass that. 0 4 Second, harsh punishments. 0 4 Five years ago, if you made a few copies of 0 3 something for your friends, just as a favor, 0 4 that was not a crime in the US. 0 3 Now, you can go to prison a couple of years 0 4 for this, so it is being treated as really serious. 0 4 You know, it's a very bad thing to do, 0 3 to share with your neighbor. 0 5 And informing. 0 3 Well, in the past years, 0 3 there were advertisements on television 0 4 and in the subways in Boston, 0 4 asking people to rap on their coworkers to the 0 4 information police, also known as the 0 2 Software Publishers' Association. 2 3 And collective responsibility. 0 3 There, the Internet service providers are 0 3 being used. They have been made legally responsible 0 3 of what their customers put up unless 0 3 they have a policy of always taking 0 3 everything down at the first complaint. 0 5 Copyright has now become in the United States 0 3 a method of censorship: 0 3 anything that is somehow questionable, 0 4 any evidence of sleazy conduct that was 0 3 leaked from a company can now be suppressed, by 0 4 telling the Internet service provider to take it down. 1 5 And in fact, I read somebody obtained leaked documents 0 4 from Ford Motor Company showing 0 3 that they knew of dangerous defects in certain cars 0 3 and did not tell the public, 0 4 and this was put up on the net and then it was suppressed 0 3 because Ford said, "This is a copyright violation", 0 3 and the ISP had to take it down. 4 5 So finally, propaganda starting in childhood; 0 3 the way the US government puts this, 0 3 teachers are supposed to teach children 0 4 to quote, "say yes to licensing", unquote. 0 4 Now, when I was a kid and I went to school, 0 3 the teachers were trying to teach us to share, 0 3 because this good will, the habit, 0 3 of sharing with your neighbor is so important. 0 2 So they said if you brought candy 0 2 to school you couldn't just eat it all 0 3 yourself; you had to share it with the other kids. 0 4 Now they say, or they're supposed to say, 0 3 "You brought software! Oh, don't share it. 0 4 No, no! Sharing is wrong, sharing means you are a pirate". 0 3 Sharing with your neighbor is the 0 3 moral equivalent of attacking a ship 0 3 on the seas and kidnapping the passengers. 2 4 They are not joking when they say that. 0 3 They really expect people to believe that, 0 4 which shows how perverted their system is. 0 4 Now this, I believe, is the most 0 2 important reason for Free Software, 0 3 that the system of proprietary software 0 5 divides and then shackles the users. 0 3 It's a fundamentally immoral system 0 4 and each user who voluntarily participates 0 5 is upholding the immorality of the system 0 3 so, it is imperative 0 3 that we rescue people 0 4 from this state of being divided and 0 5 subjugated with - by giving people Free Software 0 4 we are enabling people to live an upright life, 0 5 enabling people to once again follow their inclination 0 3 to help their neighbor without having 0 3 to be afraid of the information police. 1 3 That's freedom two, 0 3 the freedom to help your neighbor. 0 3 Freedom three is the freedom to help 0 3 build your community, by publishing an improved version 0 3 of the program so other people can benefit from your work. 0 3 Now, people used to tell me, 0 4 "If the program is free, that means..." - 0 3 oh, remember by the way the ambiguity of 'free' in English - 0 3 they said, "that means nobody would 0 3 be paid to work on it, so nobody will work on it". 0 3 Well, that was the theory. 0 3 Today, we can compare it with empirical fact: 0 4 I'm told that there are over twenty thousand 0 4 registered developers on the Source-forge site, 0 4 which doesn't sound like nobody. 0 4 In fact, we found that there are actually 0 4 a number of ways to get paid to write Free Software, 0 3 and there are probably by now a few hundred people at least 0 3 getting paid to write Free Software, 0 4 and I said, thousands who do it without pay, 0 5 for various reasons, which may include, 0 3 in my case and some other people, 0 5 political idealism, for some people it's a matter of ego - 0 3 pride - you know, you release a good free program 0 3 and you see thousands of people using it and 0 2 they appreciate you, it feels great. 0 3 Another reason might be to help your friends: 0 3 you feel you're part of a community and the right 0 4 thing to do is to share with the community as it shared with you. 0 4 Another reason is, maybe you needed 0 2 the program yourself so you wrote it 0 3 and then once it was done, you shared it. 0 6 And, it can be a combination of reasons, 0 3 but in any case, we found that a lot of people 0 3 do contribute to improving Free Software. 0 5 In fact, when I first released GNU EMACS, 0 3 and other people started using it, 0 3 they also started posting changes, 0 6 and so I got in the mail a bug report, 0 3 sometimes maybe with a fix too, 0 4 and a new file which added a new feature, 0 4 and another bug fix! And another new feature! 0 2 And another, and another and another! 0 3 Until they were pouring in on me so fast I could hardly 0 3 even make use of all the help I was getting - 0 3 I could hardly keep up... 1 3 Microsoft doesn't have this problem. 12 6 So, this phenomenon has now been noted 0 4 that often when a free program becomes popular, 0 3 you get a bunch of people, or a lot 0 3 of people joining in to improve it, 0 4 to make it powerful and reliable and so, 0 3 because of community development, 0 2 people are starting to - 0 4 Free Software is starting to get a reputation 0 3 for being powerful and reliable software. 0 3 There's even a group of people who advocate 0 3 the freedoms I've just been describing to you 0 3 specifically because, they say, 0 3 "this is the best way to develop good 0 4 technology, powerful and reliable software". 0 4 That group calls itself the Open Source Movement 0 4 and they advocate conduct more or less similar 0 4 to what we in the Free Software movement 0 4 advocate but, for very different reasons, 0 4 because they never speak about freedom, 0 4 about ethics, about principles, 0 5 about the importance of helping your neighbor. 0 4 They don't talk about it as an ethical issue at all. 0 4 They cite only the practical benefits 0 6 and by omission, effectively 0 3 they imply that nothing but 0 3 practical benefits matter. 0 4 Well, imagine if you were discussing 0 3 the question of censorship of the press 0 3 and somebody said, "Well, 0 2 it really depends which way is more profitable, 0 3 whether a free press or a censored press, 0 3 is more profitable. That's how we should decide". 0 3 It would be obvious that this person 0 3 fails to understand the idea of freedom 0 4 of the press as a political social issue, 0 5 and likewise, by failing to mention 0 5 what would be an overriding concern, they effectively, 0 3 in the Open Source movement, deny it. 0 5 So that is where the Free Software movement 0 3 and the Open Source movement disagree with each other. 0 5 What the Open Source movement says, 0 4 we agree with, as far as it goes, 0 3 but the omission they make is so important, 0 3 that there we disagree with them. 0 3 And that is why I am not a member 0 3 of the Open Source movement. 0 4 I hope that when you describe 0 3 the work of the GNU project, for example, 0 4 the GNU operating system, that you'll talk about it as 0 4 Free Software, because that expresses the connection 0 3 with the Free Software movement that we are a part of - 0 4 Open Source is the slogan of the other movement. 0 3 Of course, each of you can decide which, 0 4 if any, of these movements you support 0 4 and you could even support them both 0 4 if you choose to be friends with every one - that's possible. 0 3 I hope that you will decide to stand 0 4 with us for freedom and community and join 0 4 the Free Software movement, and say Free Software as 0 3 a way of expressing that you stand with us. 1 6 So, if you don't have freedom number three, 0 3 that causes practical material harm, 0 4 which is, this phenomenon of community 0 2 improvement can't happen. 0 5 But it also causes psycho-social harm, 0 4 which affects the spirit of scientific cooperation, 0 3 the idea that we're working together 0 2 to advance human knowledge. 1 3 This spirit was once so strong 0 3 that scientists would sometimes cooperate, 0 3 even when their countries were at war. 0 6 I read that US troops 0 4 landing on an island in the Pacific during World War II 0 4 found a building with a note on it. 0 4 The note was addressed to them. 0 4 It said, "To the American troops, 0 4 this is a marine biology lab. 0 5 We have arranged our notes and our specimens 0 3 so that American scientists can 0 3 pick up our work where we left off". 0 3 It was written by Japanese 0 3 biologists who had fled. 1 4 They wanted to make sure that their work 0 3 would contribute to humanity's knowledge, 0 4 never mind which country would continue it. 0 5 But today it seems that each little group 0 4 of scientists and engineers is at war with 0 2 each other little group, 0 4 it's like gang warfare between these little gangs, 0 3 each gang being typically a company. 0 5 And why we allow this kind of 0 4 conflict to go on within our countries, 0 2 I cannot understand. 0 4 So those are the three freedoms that 0 4 distinguish Free Software, and the reasons why they are important. 0 3 If a program gives you a particular user 0 4 all these freedoms, then it's Free Software for you. 0 4 Now, why do I define it this way, 0 4 with respect to a particular arbitrary user? 0 4 The reason is that sometimes the same software 0 5 is free for some people and non-free for other people. 0 5 Now, that might sound like a paradox, 0 3 so let me give an example to explain how it works. 0 3 The biggest example of this problem 0 3 was the X-Windows system, 0 4 developed at MIT, and released under 0 3 a license that gave you all these freedoms, 0 3 if you got the program from MIT. 0 4 So if you got the program from MIT, 0 4 it was Free Software but, 0 3 among those who got the program from MIT 0 2 were various computer manufacturers 0 3 who distributed UNIX systems, 0 4 so they took X-Windows, they made the 0 4 comparatively small changes to make it run 0 3 on their machines and they added it to their UNIX system, 0 4 and they released only the binaries under the same 0 3 non-disclosure agreement as UNIX, 0 3 and then hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people, 0 4 got copies in this way, and for all of them, 0 2 they did not have these freedoms. 0 4 For them, X was not Free Software. 0 4 So this created a paradoxical situation: 0 3 if you asked the question, 0 3 "Is X-Windows Free Software or not?", 0 3 the answer depended on where you measured. 0 3 If you measured coming out of the development group at MIT, 0 2 you'd say, "Yes, I observe all 0 3 these freedoms, it's Free Software". 0 3 If you made the measurement by averaging over 0 4 the users, you'd say, "Most of them do not have 0 3 these freedoms, it's not Free Software". 0 4 Well, the people who developed X 0 3 were looking for a big professional success, 0 3 and they got one, so they were happy, 0 4 but we in the GNU project had a different goal. 0 3 Our goal was to give people freedom and 0 3 at the beginning we realized that if this 0 5 kind of thing could happen, we could offer people 0 3 freedom but it wouldn't reach most of the users: 0 3 we would fail. 1 3 So I developed a technique to prevent this; 0 3 the technique is called Copyleft. 2 4 You can think of Copyleft as 0 4 taking copyright and flipping it over. 0 4 Here's how it works: 4 3 ...I wonder how you translate that... 4 5 First we say, "This program is copyrighted", 0 3 which means by default that it's forbidden 0 3 to copy or change it, but then we say, 0 3 "You have permission to change this and add to it; 0 3 you have permission to distribute copies; 0 4 you have permission to distribute the modified and extended copies - 0 3 but, there is a condition: 0 4 the condition is that whenever you distribute 0 3 anything which contains even a piece of this, 0 3 that whole program 0 3 must be distributed 0 3 under the same conditions as these, 0 3 so whoever gets it from you 0 4 also gets the same freedoms that you got from me", 0 3 and in this way, 0 3 every time the program is passed on, 0 3 the freedom is passed on as well. 0 3 Everywhere the software goes, the freedom goes with it, 0 4 and every user of the software 0 4 gets the freedom to share and change it. 0 4 So, with copyleft we go beyond simply 0 3 letting other users have these freedoms, 0 3 we actively defend these freedoms. 0 4 We use copyright law which was designed to 0 5 take away these freedoms for the exact opposite of that purpose. 2 6 So, copyright was designed for a right-wing purpose. 0 4 It's used by right-wing people for the right-wing purpose 0 5 of stopping people from helping each other and taking their money. 0 6 Copyleft is used by left-wing people for a left-wing purpose, 0 6 which is to encourage freedom, cooperation, equality 0 4 and the community of all the people. 1 6 The specific implementation of Copyleft 0 4 that we use most often... 7 3 The specific implementation of Copyleft 0 3 that we use for most GNU software 0 4 is the GNU General Public License 0 4 or GNU GPL, 0 4 sometimes further shortened to just GPL. 0 4 We also have a couple of other kinds 0 3 of Copyleft that we use for a few special programs 0 3 and we have another license 0 5 for free documentation, free manuals, 0 4 called the GNU Free Documentation License. 0 4 This is a form of Copyleft that I 0 4 published two months ago specifically 0 3 for manuals about Free Software, 0 3 but it can be used for any kind of written work 0 3 which you would like people always 0 2 to be free to share and change. 0 5 And I heard that people are using it 0 3 also for stories that are going to be used in games, 0 4 I recommend it also for text books. 0 3 I think it would be great to publish a 0 3 complete set of school text books, all of which are free, 0 4 so that people can improve them and 0 3 share them and you don't have to 0 3 be at the mercy of text book companies. 1 5 And one of the ideas in the 0 4 GNU Free Documentation License is, we are trying to 0 3 enlist the help of commercial publishers. 0 5 The idea is that it has certain previsions 0 4 that help the original publisher 0 4 sell more copies of a book without 0 3 prohibiting other people from selling copies 0 4 of say, improved versions, or identical versions. 0 2 It's trying to sort of 0 3 come to a way of serving both goals: 0 4 on one hand, everybody has the freedom to republish 0 4 it with changes or without, but at the same time, 0 4 people know that the original publisher 0 4 really pays the author and that will help 0 3 encourage people to buy from the original publisher, 0 4 and there are important publishers either 0 4 preparing to use or planning to use this license. 0 3 I hope this will help solve 0 3 a major problem we have today, 0 3 which is an insufficiency of free manuals. 0 3 Now, I notice some manuals on sale. 0 4 I suggest, if you think of buying them, 0 3 that you take a look at them, and make sure 0 3 that the manuals themselves give you permission 0 3 to copy and distribute. If they don't, 0 4 they are not really a contribution to our community. 0 6 So, there is copylefted Free Software, 0 3 and there is non-copylefted Free Software - 0 5 both of them are free, both of them respect your freedom 0 3 and both of them are legitimate parts 0 4 of the Free Software community. The disagreement is about 0 4 strategy, and I think that the non-copylefters 0 3 are using a worse strategy, 0 4 but it's still morally legitimate. 2 6 So, I've worked out the idea of Copyleft 0 3 and written a Copyleft license for GNU EMACS 0 4 and people started getting copies, 0 4 and liked it, and at that point I felt, 0 3 "Now it's time to make an effort to raise funds", 0 4 so we started the Free Software Foundation 0 3 in October 1985. 0 3 The purpose of the Free Software Foundation 0 4 is to develop Free Software and promote 0 4 Free Software, promote users' freedom 0 3 to copy and change software. 0 4 The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity, 0 3 which means that people who donate to us 0 3 can deduct that on their tax returns, 0 3 at least in the US. 1 4 And so the foundation asked for donations 0 3 but it took over from me the business of selling 0 5 copies of GNU EMACS, and surprisingly, 0 5 the foundation started getting more money from sales, 0 3 than from donations, and ever since then, 0 4 we've got more money from sales than from donations - 0 4 really strange, especially since some people 0 3 have said to me that this is impossible, 0 4 because of the laws of economics. People tell me, 0 4 that if the software is free, you can only sell one copy. 2 3 They tell me, 0 3 whoever buys the first copy will turn around 0 4 and sell other copies cheaper, and everybody will buy 0 3 from them, nobody will ever buy from you again, 0 3 so you sell one copy. 0 5 Well, let's compare this theory with empirical fact: 0 5 other people have obtained copies from us, 0 3 and most of them don't sell copies, 0 3 but some of them do, and they normally charge 0 4 less than we do, because we aim to be the highest-priced 0 5 distributor, and most people buy from them, 0 3 but some people keep buying from us, 0 3 and we sell copy after copy and we have a steady stream 0 4 of CD-ROMS and manuals 0 3 and t-shirts being sold, 0 3 and we pay our staff that way, 0 4 and we have done this for fifteen years. 1 4 Well, I just love refuting the laws of economics. 0 4 Well, what's really going on here is... 8 4 What's really going on here is that that theory is just 0 4 approximately true. You know, maybe 0 5 99.99 percent of the users don't buy from us, 0 4 but it only takes a small fraction to keep us going. 0 5 The tremendous efficiency of providing of software 0 4 packages to the world is so great, that it overcomes 0 3 even that factor of ten thousandth 0 3 or a hundred thousandth or whatever it is. 3 4 Anyway, during the 1980's, 0 3 we in the GNU project were developing one piece 0 4 after another of the overall GNU system, which was our target. 0 3 Some of these programs were developed 0 3 by staff of the Free Software Foundation, 0 3 many were developed by volunteers. 0 4 I for example, am a full-time volunteer 0 4 because I don't get paid by the Free Software Foundation. 0 4 Actually, I get paid for speeches - 0 3 I'm not getting paid for this speech, 0 3 although they're being very nice to me here 0 3 and I get a trip to Brazil, which is nice. 0 4 But, in most places I get paid 0 4 for my speeches so I can be a volunteer 0 3 full time for the GNU project, and there are many other 0 4 full-time volunteers too, people who are getting paid 0 3 by some company or some university 0 3 to develop Free Software. 0 3 There are also hundreds of, 0 3 or maybe even thousands, 0 4 of part-time GNU volunteers. 0 4 The twenty thousand or so volunteers, 0 2 people contributing on Sourceforge, 0 3 they are not all working on GNU software, 0 2 they may be working on other Free Software - 0 3 I can't count them all for this. 0 5 So, we have a lot of people helping to develop GNU. 0 4 Also sometimes we found a piece of software 0 3 that had been developed by another group for their own reasons 0 3 but which we discovered would be useful in GNU, 0 2 so we adopted it. 0 5 For example, the text formatter TeX, 0 5 the X-Window system, you know, it's not copylefted, 0 3 but it is Free Software, it was popular, 0 3 it did the job, so I said, 0 3 "Let's use X, we won't develop a GNU windows system", 0 3 after all, when your task is so big 0 3 that people tell you you can't possibly finish it, 0 2 you have to look up for shortcuts. 0 3 So, every time other people developed 0 3 a program, and it could be used in GNU, 0 2 and would do a good job, 0 2 I said, "OK, let's use it". 0 3 But you see, that happenned only by luck - 0 3 it happenned sometimes, and other times it didn't. 0 4 And when that didn't happen, we had to write the program. 0 3 So that was our mission - 0 5 get each of these components replaced 0 2 with Free Software somehow. 0 3 And at certain point, it seemed useful to make a 0 4 list of what was missing, so I sat down with a 0 4 UNIX wizard, and we made a list of the pieces 0 3 that we didn't have, and that became the 0 4 GNU Task List, initially a list of pieces of UNIX, 0 3 to which I added various other nice 0 3 pieces of software, even including games, 0 3 that I thought a real complete 0 2 operating system should have. 0 4 UNIX came with some games, 0 3 and I wanted to have free replacements for them 0 3 but also other free games - Gnuchess 0 4 was one of the early pieces of GNU software. 3 5 So, in this way, by 1991, 0 4 we had almost all of the pieces of the system. 0 4 There was one major essential component 0 3 that was still missing, and that was the kernel. 0 3 Now, when you need to have all these components, 0 2 you can do them in any order, really. 0 3 I put off the kernel, 0 3 hoping that somebody would do it for us, 0 2 and eventually somebody did do 0 3 the hard part of it: Carnegie Mellon 0 3 developed a program called Mach, 0 3 which is a micro-kernel, that is it's the bottom 0 3 part of the kernel. On top of that, you 0 3 implement user programs to do the rest of the kernel job, 0 3 and in 1990, that's what we started doing. 0 3 But in 1991 it wasn't working yet, 0 4 and at that point, 0 3 Linus Torvalds developed, on his own, 0 5 a kernel, and released it as Free Software 0 2 under the name Linux. 2 4 Now, we didn't know about Linux at first 0 3 because he never contacted us to tell us about it, 0 4 but he announced it elsewhere on the net, 0 2 and people who knew about it 0 2 were interested in, you know, they looked around 0 3 to see what other programs could they put 0 3 together with Linux to make a complete system. 0 2 So they looked around, 0 3 and low and behold, everything they needed, 0 3 was already available, 0 3 "What good fortune!", they thought. 2 3 But there was no coincidence about this, 0 3 what they had found was all the various 0 3 pieces of software waiting to be put 0 4 into the GNU system, put together to be the GNU system, 0 3 as soon as we had a kernel to put them together with. 0 5 So in fact, they were fitting Linux 0 3 into the gap in the GNU system, 0 5 making a sort of Linux-based GNU system, 0 4 which we can call GNU-slash-Linux 0 4 or GNU-plus-Linux for short. 0 3 But they didn't know that, so 0 3 they thought they were starting with Linux 0 3 and putting all the other pieces on to it, 0 4 so they called the result a Linux system, 0 4 and this is how some twenty million people 0 3 are using a version of the GNU system today, 0 2 and most of them don't know it. 2 4 The development of Linux was a tremendous 0 3 step forward for Free Software, 0 4 because it meant that a complete free operating 0 3 system was possible. That combination of 0 4 GNU and Linux was the first modern 0 2 free operating system, but when people 0 3 started calling the whole thing Linux, 0 3 that was a disaster for the GNU project, 0 5 because it separated our software from our philosophy. 0 3 I've been telling you the philosophy of GNU, 0 3 until 1991 or 92, 0 4 there was the GNU software and the GNU philosophy, 0 3 and they each helped to spread the other. 0 3 When people used the GNU software, they would get 0 3 information about the GNU philosophy, and so, 0 3 they would be encouraged to take a look at it 0 3 and think about it, and since they usually were 0 3 very enthusiastic about the GNU software, 0 3 they would at least pay attention to the philosophy, 0 3 so some of them would decide they agreed, 0 3 and then that would tell them to write more GNU software, 0 4 and so each one contributed to the other. 0 4 But when people started calling the GNU system 0 4 Linux, this link was broken, 0 3 and instead of leading people to the GNU 0 3 idealistic philosophy I've been telling you today, 0 3 people who used the software and liked it 0 3 were led to the apolitical 0 4 philosophy of Linus Torvalds. 2 3 Now, I wish Linus Torvalds agreed 0 3 with the philosophy I've been telling you today, 0 2 but he doesn't. 0 5 Linus Torvalds says that the author of 0 4 a program can make absolutely any license whatever 0 3 and nobody else has a right to complain. 0 5 Now, I think that a decision which affects 0 5 many people should not be one persons' whim, 0 4 and it should not be exempt 0 3 from criticism on ethical grounds. 0 4 But Linus Torvalds in this area does, 0 5 and instead of aiming to give users freedom, 0 3 his goal is success for the system, 0 5 which he describes in jugular 0 3 terms as "world domination soon". 0 4 Well, I agree that popularity for 0 3 the GNU and Linux system is a good thing, 0 3 but it's not the ultimate goal, 0 5 and unfortunately when people adopted as an end in itself, 0 6 that leads, that tends to divert the community 0 3 away from moving forward towards freedom. 2 3 For example, 0 4 the CEO of Caldera, 0 4 a couple of weeks ago, gave a speech, 0 3 of course he was talking about Open Source, 0 3 not Free Software, and he was calling the system 0 3 Linux, not GNU and Linux, 0 3 he said that people shouldn't 0 3 insist on freedom 0 3 because that might marginalize the system. 0 5 So he is asking the people to sacrifice freedom 0 4 for the sake of the popularity of the system, 0 3 and a lot of the users agree with him, 0 5 because they've never heard any other idea expressed. 2 4 Nowadays, calling the system Linux 0 4 and speaking of Open Source are so wide spread, 0 4 that we now have 20 million users and 0 3 most of them have never been exposed 0 2 to another way of thinking. 0 4 If you look for example at the companies 0 4 that distribute versions of 0 3 the GNU/Linux system, 0 4 you'll find that all of them add some non-free 0 5 components to the system as a bonus, they say. 0 4 So, you know, it's possible today 0 4 to get and use a complete free operating system, 0 2 but it's not easy to find one. 0 4 You can go to the store, and find versions 0 4 of the GNU-slash-Linux system, typically called Linux, 0 2 but it's not easy to find one 0 2 that's entirely Free Software. 0 3 You have to really make an effort and 0 2 know what you are doing to do that. 0 5 And most of the users don't care because 0 2 they've never even thought about it. 0 3 After all, these companies are giving them this thing 0 4 with this non-free software and telling them that's a good thing. 0 4 I once asked SuSE, you know, 0 3 I said to them, "I don't like your distribution 0 4 because it doesn't even divide the free from the non-free", 0 3 and they said, "You know, we don't want to call 0 3 people's attention to this difference because we 0 3 want them to be glad they're getting all this non-free software". 0 3 In other words, SuSE 0 3 is spreading a message 0 2 which is the exact opposite of the message 0 3 that Free Software makes you free. 0 4 And then look at the magazines 0 4 about the GNU/Linux system. 0 3 Most of these magazines of course call 0 3 the system Linux, and in addition, 0 3 they're usually filled with 0 3 advertisements for non-free software. 0 3 If they're some available out there, 0 2 go thumb through them and see. 0 3 Now, those advertisements are for different programs, 0 4 various programs but there's one message that 0 3 they all have in common, they say, 0 2 "Non-free software is good for you", 0 4 so good for you, you might even pay to get it! 2 4 And they call these packages "value-added packages", 0 4 which makes a statement about their value: 0 5 they value convenience, getting jobs done, 0 4 not freedom and community. 0 3 And every one of those advertisements 0 3 encourages you to adopt those values. 0 3 I have different values, so I call 0 4 those things "freedom- subtracted packages". 0 4 Because if you have just... 0 4 if you have just... 6 4 if you have just installed a free operating system 0 3 and you now have the freedom that we have worked 0 2 for sixteen years to give you, 0 4 those packages give you the opportunity 0 2 to buckle on a chain somewhere, 0 4 to give up part of that freedom. 0 3 And then, what about the users groups 0 5 for the GNU-slash-Linux operating system? 0 3 Of course, they usually call themselves 0 3 Linux user groups, and most of them 0 4 are so far away from championing freedom 0 4 that they actually have meetings where salesmen 0 4 come in to talk about non-free programs 0 3 that could enhance the system for you. 1 3 So all the institutions in the community, 0 4 well, almost all of them, 0 4 are encouraging people not to care about freedom, 0 3 to just treat this like any other program, 0 3 and use it only if it's technically superior. 0 6 Well, if we don't care about freedom, 0 4 we're likely to give it up, sooner or later: 0 2 history shows us that - 0 3 the foolish, practical man and 0 3 his freedom, are soon parted. 0 5 Because there are so many people 0 3 who want to offer you the chance to 0 3 get some practical benefit if only you would 0 3 give up some freedom, and people who don't 0 4 value the freedom will accept this deal - why not? 0 3 So, I fear for the future of 0 4 our community if we don't start caring 0 3 more about freedom than what we have done so far. 0 5 And that's why I ask people, 0 4 and it sometimes looks foolish when I do, 0 4 please call the system GNU-slash-Linux, 0 3 please don't call the whole system Linux, 0 3 because when you call the system Linux, 0 4 you lead people towards that apolitical 0 4 philosophy that values only the practical benefits. 0 3 If you call the system GNU, 0 4 or GNU-slash-Linux to share the credit 0 4 with Linus Torvalds, then you are encouraging people 0 3 to take a look at what we have to say, 0 3 and think about these issues and 0 3 then they'll make up their minds 0 2 and take whatever position they take, 0 3 but at least they'll have the chance to think about the issue. 0 4 Now sometimes people say to me, 0 4 "Why create all this unnecessary 0 4 conflict about the name? 0 3 Why worry about getting credit? Isn't the 0 3 important thing that the job has been done?" 0 3 Well, I agree: 0 4 getting credit is not the important thing 0 3 in its own right, and if the job really were done, 0 3 then it wouldn't make sense, 0 5 it wouldn't be worthwhile or good to make this fuzz. 0 3 But the job is not done, 0 5 we've just begun the job of winning and keeping our freedom. 0 3 The important thing 0 3 is not that we have a 0 3 free operating system today. 0 3 It's whether we will have a free operating system 0 4 five years from now, ten years from now, 0 4 and on, and for that, what we value 0 3 is the most important factor 0 4 because we will tend to get what we value, 0 3 and not get other things, 0 4 so the most important thing for our community to 0 3 do is to think about freedom, 0 3 focus on the goal of keeping our freedom 0 3 and that way we can do the 0 4 various necessary jobs to reach that goal. 0 3 So let me talk about the challenges our community faces. 0 4 First of all, 0 3 you can get a free operating system 0 3 to run on a modern computer today. 0 3 Will that still be true in five years? 0 3 Hardware doesn't stand still. 0 3 Old products are being discontinued, 0 3 new ones developed, and very often, 0 4 those new products do not come with specifications. 0 2 They'll sell you the hardware, 0 3 but they won't tell you how to use it. 0 4 Instead, they will give you a binary-only, 0 3 non-free program and say, 0 2 "This driver runs our hardware, 0 3 install it into your [quote] Linux 0 3 [unquote] system, and then it will work". 0 5 Fine if you don't mind non-free software. 0 4 Well, what can we do about this problem? 0 3 There are two things we can do. 0 3 One is, we can... 0 4 a hard job that a few people need to do, 0 3 and that is to reverse- engineer the software 0 4 to figure out 0 3 how to run the hardware 0 4 and then write Free Software to do the job. 0 4 Well, this is a hard work. 0 3 To figure out the 0 3 meaning of a binary program, 0 4 imagine if somebody took a novel, 0 3 and each distinct word in that novel 0 3 was replaced by a nonsense string, so every 0 4 time the word "house" appears, it's replaced 0 4 by "XAB", and every time "man" 0 4 appears, or its Portuguese equivalent, 0 3 whatever, it's replaced by "QVLM", 0 3 and likewise for each different noun, verb, 0 4 adjective, adverb and the whole thing, 0 3 and all you see are the articles 0 4 and prepositions and conjunctions, 0 3 and you've got to figure out what the whole thing means. 0 3 It's gonna be hard. 0 4 So, will people bother to do this job? 0 2 Well, it depends how much they care. 0 3 If programmers think this binary 0 3 driver is good enough, why would they bother? 0 3 If their value is convenience, 0 3 why accepting such a big inconvenience 0 2 to get it? That would be irrational. 0 4 So our future depends on what we value. 0 4 Meanwhile, while a few people are 0 3 doing this very hard job, there's something easy 0 3 that all the rest of us can do: apply market pressure, 0 3 don't buy the hardware 0 2 whose specifications are secret, 0 3 buy alternate hardware instead, 0 2 even if it costs a little more 0 3 or doesn't run quite as fast or whatever 0 2 disadvantage it might have, 0 4 be willing to undergo a slight hardship, 0 3 for the sake of your freedom. 0 3 With twenty million of us, we can employ a 0 4 lot of market pressure if we care to, 0 3 but most of the twenty million of us 0 2 have never thought about this issue. 0 3 Most of the people think that the system is good 0 2 because it's cool, 0 4 and it's powerful and reliable and you can get it cheap. 0 2 They're not thinking about freedom, 0 3 so why would they use the power that they have? 0 5 You see, we can win this battle on 0 4 market pressure if we spread the word about the issue, 0 5 so the future of our community depends on what we value. 0 4 Now, another issue is documentation. 0 3 We have a serious problem, that most 0 3 Free Software doesn't have free documentation. 0 3 Many Free Software developers have written 0 3 non-free manuals and thought that was good enough. 0 4 They never thought about the issue of why 0 4 the documentation should be there in the software 0 3 package so that people who redistribute the program 0 3 can redistribute the manual along with it. 0 2 And what if you changed the program? 0 3 Maybe that means the original version of the manual 0 4 was wrong now. If you are conscientious, 0 4 you are going to fix the manual to make it accurate 0 3 for your version or maybe you just see a way 0 3 to improve the manual, 0 3 but if the manual says you are not allowed, 0 3 then you can't do that, so the manual for Free Software has 0 3 to be free in the same way as the software. 0 3 So what are we going to do? 0 3 Well, we need to spread the word through the community 0 3 about why free manuals are important. 0 4 I've been focusing on this for about three years now, 0 3 and that's why developed the GNU Free Documentation License. 0 4 I hope that as publishers start being willing to 0 4 commercially publish and pay authors to write 0 3 free documentation, that this will help with the 0 3 problem, but it will certainly also help 0 3 if the people in the community are aware of the issue. 1 3 And then, what about the problem of 0 3 non-free software added to the system? 0 3 What are we going to do about that? 0 3 Well, as long as the users mostly think that 0 4 this is an improvement, it's going to be hard for us to do anything 0 4 about it, and the tendency is to add various 0 3 non-free software packages, and the end result 0 4 is a system that is very powerful, but not free any more. 0 3 The biggest problem happens when the 0 4 non-free package is a library used for developing 0 4 Free Software because then other people develop 0 4 their Free Software using this library, and in effect the 0 3 library is a trap for their software. 0 3 Because the software may be free itself, 0 3 but it won't run on a free operating system. 0 3 We who insist on using a free operating system 0 4 can't run those programs 'cause we don't have the library. 0 5 This is the problem that happenned with Motif. 0 5 Eleven years ago or so, Motif was distributed, 0 3 and it was made available gratis 0 3 to a lot of people, but not free. 0 3 Well, the people who didn't think about 0 4 this issue started using it, and the result was a lot of 0 3 Free Software we couldn't run, and we're still 0 4 having problems with this. For many years people 0 3 have been developing a free replacement for Motif: 0 3 that was the only way we could solve the problem. 0 4 This program is called Lesstif, 0 4 and now it basically works, but there are still a few 0 3 bugs, and lately I've been trying to persuade 0 3 some Free Software developers, 0 4 "please don't tell the users to use Motif, 0 3 'cause you see, we can't recommend their software that way". 0 3 If we were recommending indirectly the use 0 4 of Motif, we'd be going against our own principles - we'd be hypocrites. 0 4 So, I've been begging them, 0 4 "Please change your websites, please don't 0 3 be distributing these binaries linked with Motif; 0 3 we can't refer to your site if you do that". 0 6 And they say, "But Lesstif still has a few bugs, 0 3 it's better for the users if they give up their 0 2 freedom and they run it with Motif". 0 3 You see, what happens on our community 0 2 depends on what we value. 0 4 Well, in the case of Motif, we've 0 3 almost finished solving the problem, 0 3 but a few years ago, another similar problem 0 4 arose with QT, another graphics toolkit - 0 3 GUI toolkit library, 0 3 graphical interface toolkit - 0 4 because again, it was not Free Software, 0 3 but it was available gratis, and lots of people 0 3 started using it. In fact, there was a project to develop 0 3 a very important body of software, 0 4 all using QT, and when I saw this I thought, 0 3 "This is a disaster because this is a bunch of 0 3 people all caught on a trap all saying 0 4 'Hey everybody, come down here and join us in this pit!'", 3 3 and every week, more people were jumping into the pit 0 4 and being trapped there - it was like a cancer, growing. 0 4 So, I organized two projects to 0 3 try to fight back against this. 0 4 One of this projects was an alternate desktop, 0 4 because the project that was in a trap 0 3 was a desktop project - a collection of 0 3 user-friendly graphical interfaces, which is a very, 0 3 very important thing, so to have it 0 3 be sequestered by QT was a disaster. 0 4 So, we started two different projects to solve the problem. 0 3 One is GNOME, the GNU desktop project, 0 4 an alternative desktop project that didn't use QT, 0 5 and the other solution was a free replacement for QT. 0 5 So, the reason we started two projects was, 0 3 this problem was so bad we needed redundant 0 3 solutions going on, because every 0 3 software project might fail, you can never be 0 3 sure if it will really get the job done. 0 4 Well, as it turns out, this free desktop 0 5 GNOME has become a success, but 0 5 the free replacement for QT is not working yet - 0 3 some parts of it are working, but it isn't usable. 2 3 Meanwhile, a little later, 0 3 Sun developed Java, and released 0 3 non-free software, but again 0 4 available gratis, that would run on free systems 0 4 to support Java, and again a lot of programmers thought, 0 3 "Oh, Java is so sexy, so wonderful! 0 3 I've got to use this". They didn't bother thinking, 0 3 "But is the implementation is Free Software?", they just said, 0 3 "Well, I can get it gratis", 0 3 and so since then people have been working very hard 0 3 to develop free replacements for 0 2 Sun's Java implementation. 0 3 After a few years of work, we finally have them. 2 3 There is Kaffe, the interpreter, 0 4 and there is Kiev, the compiler. 0 3 With those, you can run Java's 0 3 programs on a free operating system, 0 4 but they don't have all the features of Sun's software, 0 4 so if you are using Sun's system as your development 0 3 platform, you might easily, without even noticing it, 0 3 use features that the free implementation doesn't 0 4 have and then your program won't run on a free operating system. 0 3 So if you are developing Java software, do your 0 3 development on a free platform, and make 0 4 sure therefore it will run on the free platform. 2 3 So, obviously, this problem is going to happen 0 3 over and over, as long as our community remains 0 3 mostly oblivious, the problem is going to keep hapenning, 0 3 and it's much easier to stay out of the trap, 0 4 than to escape, or rescue people, from the trap. 0 3 So by spreading the word about this issue, 0 3 the need for the whole system to be free, 0 3 we can save ourselves a lot of work. 0 3 You know, if the community had refused to 0 4 accept Java saying, "We want you to release us 0 3 Free Software before we are going to accept it", 0 2 I think Sun would have been forced 0 2 to release it as Free Software. 1 3 After GNOME got to be successful, 0 3 the people who developed Qt 0 3 released it again under a new license 0 2 which does make it Free Software. 0 5 So, the problem has been partly solved. 0 3 I say partly because this new license 0 3 is very inconvenient: it just barely 0 2 qualifies as Free Software. 0 2 I am convinced that they did this 0 3 in response to our counter-attacks, 0 3 and that if we had not counter-attacked vigourusly 0 4 against this threat to our community, 0 2 they would have been perfectly content 0 4 to keep Qt non- free for ever. 3 3 So, in this way too, 0 3 the future of our community depends on what we value, 0 3 and the biggest threat, though, the most 0 3 dangerous threat comes from government 0 3 restrictions that prohibit Free Software. 0 4 For example, in the US, many features and 0 4 algorythms are patented, which means it's ilegal 0 3 for anybody else to implement them. 0 3 So what do we do, when the features users 0 4 want can't be implemented in Free Software because of patents? 0 3 We're going to have to provide Free Software 0 3 which is somewhat less convenient. 0 4 Will people use it or will they give up their 0 3 freedom for that added convenience? 0 4 If we want our community to survive, 0 4 we must spread the idea of the importance of freedom. 0 3 And what about other countries? 0 2 The US government is going to be trying to 0 4 pressure other countries into enacting a similar, 0 2 stupid system of software patents, 0 7 basicly subjugating their own information activities 0 5 to a few companies mainly in the US and Europe. 0 5 Obviously it would be a stupid policy 0 3 to do this, but the governments need to 0 3 understand why it is a stupid policy, they need to 0 3 recognize that they must keep the hability to 0 2 develop software and use it, 0 3 and in order to explain this to them, 0 3 we need to spread the word in the various countries 0 4 that use software, including Brazil. 0 3 It will take political activity, and once again 0 4 this depends on citizens being aware of the issue, 0 2 so the future of our community 0 2 depends on what we value. 2 4 By talking about Free Software and about the 0 4 GNU-slash-Linux operating system, 0 2 you'll help spread the word, 0 3 specially since people will sometimes say, 0 3 "Oh, you mean Linux?", and then you'll have an 0 2 opportunity to explain to them why 0 4 that's not really the right name and how this 0 3 operating system exists because of people who 0 4 were willing to campaign for freedom, 0 4 and that can help you explain to people 0 2 what the freedom is all about, 0 3 and this is what has to be done. 0 4 So, at this point, 0 2 I'm sure you're all impatient, 0 4 so let me introduce my alter ego, 0 3 Saint Ignucious. 52 3 I am Saint Ignucious of the church of EMACS. 3 4 I bless your computer, my child. 2 3 I should explain that EMACS 0 3 was initially a text editor which 0 3 became a way of life for many people 0 2 and then, even a religion. 1 3 We even have a gracism, 2 3 and we also have saints. 0 3 Fortunately, no gods. 3 3 The church of EMACS is better than some other 0 4 churches because to be a saint 0 3 in the church of EMACS does not require celibacy. 18 3 So, I should ask, by the way, if you're taking 0 3 pictures for a news paper, it's probably a 0 3 good idea not to publish the picture of Saint 0 4 Ignucious in the news paper, 0 4 and here's why: after some two hours or so 0 4 of hearing the serious issues of Free Software, 0 3 you understand that this is just a joke - 0 3 this is not the whole thing. 0 3 People who see this in a news paper, 0 2 they won't realize that: 1 3 they haven't had the chance to learn the 0 3 serious issues - but let me continue with my comedy routine. 3 4 So, because we don't require celibacy, 0 3 if you're searching for a church to be holien, 0 4 you might want to consider ours. 3 4 But, sainthood in the church of EMACS 0 4 does require that you make a moral commitment 0 2 to live a life of purity: 3 3 you must exorsize the evil, proprietary 0 3 operating system 12 3 from all your computers. 1 3 You know, nobody ever said that sainthood was 0 5 supposed to be easy or comfortable, 0 4 or involve no sacrifices. 0 4 You must exorsize the evil, proprietary operating system, 0 4 and install a holy free operating system, 0 5 and both meanings of 'holy' apply here, 6 4 and then only install Free Software on top of that. 2 3 If you make this commitment, and live by it, 0 4 then you too are a saint in the church of EMACS 0 4 and you too, may eventually have a halo. 1 10 http://www.msg.com.mx/~arturo/