free software is the first battle in the
liberation of cyberspace
who controls your computer
is it you or is it some
big company that's really controlling it
well what is a computer a computer is a
universal machine it will do any
computation you wanted to because you
give it a program that says what the
computation is that you want so the
computer only knows how to get out and
instruction and do it and get add
another instruction and do it
the program has the instructions it says
what to do and so you by writing the
right program you can make it do
anything well almost anything
um so who gives the instructions to your
computer you might think it's obeying
your instructions when really it's
obeying somebody else first and you only
as much as that company wants it too
will let it listen to you with software
there are two possibilities either the
users control the program or the program
controls the users it's inevitably one
or the other
so in order for the users to control the
program they need the four essential
freedoms and that's the definition of
free software free software respects the
users freedom and community now we often
call it libra using the french or
spanish word pronounce it as you like
the point is that's what we mean we
don't mean it's gratis we're not talking
about price we're concerned with your
freedom and we sometimes say free /
libre to show that so freedom zeros the
freedom to run the program as you wish
for whatever purpose freedom one is the
freedom to study the source code of the
program and change it so it does the
computing you wanted to do but what is
the source code well every program
typically will have to
forms there's the form that you can read
and you can understand if you know the
programming language that's the source
that's what programmers write and change
then there's the executable which is a
bunch of numbers which even a programmer
can figure out if all you get is the
executable it's a horrible pain in the
neck to figure out what it does and even
harder to change it so to give you the
real possibility to study and change it
they've got to give you the source code
that's a requirement well with those two
freedoms each user separately can make a
copy and start changing it and make it
do what she wants
that's individual control but what if
you're not a programmer you look at the
source code and you don't understand it
individual control isn't enough
we also need collective control which
means any group of users are free to
work together to adapt the program to
what they want of course in the group
some of them are programmers they're the
ones who actually write the changes but
they're doing it as part of the group
for what the group wants course the
group doesn't have to be everybody so
others can use it some other way they're
all free to do that so collective
control requires two more essential
freedoms freedom to is the freedom to
redistribute exact copies to make the
copies and then give them away or sell
them when you wish and freedom three is
similar but it's for your modified
versions you're free to make copies and
then give them or sell them when you
wish
so we do have these freedoms that it's
free software the users control the
program but if any of those freedoms is
missing then the users don't control the
program instead the program controls the
users and the developer controls the
program so that means this program is an
instrument of unjust power for its
developer / the users that means the
users don't have freedom that's non-free
proprietary software which we got to get
rid of
well when you've got proprietary
software what happens sometimes
program snoops on the user sometimes it
tracks the user sometimes it restricts
the user and stop users from doing what
they want to do you can see that the
blu-ray is your enemy
um sometimes the software remotely
deletes books as Amazon did with 1984
but sometimes the developer compels
users to install a harmful upgrade by
threatening to take away other
functionality if it's not installed as
Sony did and sometimes they can even
forcibly change the software at a
distance as Microsoft can with windows
through the universal back door
I'm so sometimes they even sabotage
users as Microsoft does when it tells
the NSA about bugs in windows so it can
use them to attack people's computers
well what you get is basically with
proprietary software the owner has power
over the users and takes advantage of
this power putting in those various
malicious functionalities to hurt the
users of course they don't do this
because they're Satanist they're doing
it just for money for greed they have
various ways that they can profit from
having this power over users which does
not make it even the tiniest bit less
evil but they have no shame about it
they have conferences where they talk
about the latest ways they can take
advantage of users through the power
they have basically proprietary software
which in is now from almost all the
users of proprietary software they're
using proprietary malware its software
for suckers
so how do us how do you stop being the
victim formerly you have to stop using
computers but not anymore
now you can come join us in the free
world that we've built but in 1983 i can
announce i would develop a completely
free software up
rating system called GNU in 1992 we had
almost finished but one piece was
missing the Kernel Linux or vaults in
that year
freed his Kernel Linux which filled the
last gap and gave us the first complete
system you could run on a pc GNU plus
Linux so unfortunately having freedom at
one more point doesn't guarantee you'll
keep it there are over a thousand
different variants of GNU/Linux called
distributions a few of them are entirely
free software most of them have non-free
software added because they are
maintained by people who aren't
concerned about freedom they rather and
convenience but at the cost of freedom
so you have to check which is a free
distro to keep your freedom sometimes
requires a sacrifice sometimes a big
sacrifice as at Lexington sometimes but
but in our campaign they tend to be
little sacrifices anybody with a little
bit of maturity can make these
sacrifices for instance you want
applications but some of them are
non-free if you want freedom you got it do without them
so there may be some inconvenience is
you have to suffer for your freedom sake
then many websites send non-free
programs written in JavaScript to the
users browser if you don't want to run
non-free programs you should install
libre jas which blocks keeps out
non-free javascript and sometimes
servers will offer to do your computing
they say send us all your data obviously
for suckers
then the server does the computing and
sends you back the results but you're
not supposed to think about what's
happening because it's a cloud and you
don't see what's going on
well you should look it's
software-as-a-service as a software
substitute and it takes away control of
your computing so a large fraction of
the world's web servers are running do /
lanoxin other free software but i think the
most important computers
to put freedom in our your computer's
not company's web servers they deserve
freedom also but above all its people
that deserve freedom so we need to
advance and to do that we have to cross
obstacles one of them is there are big
companies that make a lot of money by
having control over users and they don't
want to let us advance we have to
overcome their opposition
another is that the mainstream media
don't talk about free software they have
a term that they use to bury these
ethical issues they say open source
instead now
it talks about more or less the same
programs but with different ideas where
free software activists say this is a
matter of right and wrong users deserve
freedom we demand freedom the people say
open source data once say that
so instead they say let the users change
the software and redistribute it and
they'll make the code better they'll fix
some bugs
it may be true but it's a less important issue if
we want to keep our freedom
we've got to talk about freedom so say
free software and you're helping us
every time another obstacle is that lots
of schools teach non-free software which
is basically like teaching the kids to
smoke tobacco it's implanting dependence
which is the opposite of what school
should do a school should prepare
citizens to live in a strong capable
independent cooperating and free society
which means teaching free software in
the school but there's another reason to
do that for education some kids want to
become programmers they're curious they
wantto know how the programs work well
the one who's studying a free software
can understand it the one who's studying
a non-free program can't learn anything
because the knowledge in the non-free
program is withheld denied to the
students so to uphold the spirit of
Education the school should make sure
its programs are free but there's an
even more important reason schools
should teach the spirit of goodwill
the habit of helping other people so the
class should say if you bring a program
to class just as if you bring cookies to
class
you've got to share it with everyone
else can't keep it to yourself you gotta
share the source code so other people
can learn so don't bring any proprietary
software to this class
the school has to set a good example by
following its own rule should bring only
free software to class except as a
reverse engineering exercise another
obstacle is there's hardware we don't
know how to write free software for
because they won't tell us how to use
the hardware that shocking they want to
sell you the product and they won't tell
you how to use it
they say here's a non-free program you
can use run it and shut up
don't bother us well how do we find out
how to run that hardware with reverse
engineering you gotta study all those
zeroes and ones to figure out what they
really do and write down how to use that
hardware so someone else can write the
free program to do it it's hard work but
it can be done if you want to make a big
technical contribution that's what you
should do each new area activity of life
can bring with it new human rights that
are necessary and the human rights
depend on each other if you lose one it
becomes harder to maintain the others so
nowadays computing is so important in
society that the freedoms of free
software are among the human rights that
society must establish and protect us
how to help
well you can write free software you can
organize groups to campaign and persuade
schools and governments to move to free
software you can help other people when
they have trouble using free software or
help them install it you can say free
software and spread the philosophical
ideas moving to free software is the
first step in the liberation of cyberspace
but of course we also use the internet
we need other freedoms they're like
network neutrality and
putting an end to surveillance of people
in general