Freedom or Power?
by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard Stallman08/15/2001
Editor's note: On July 28, 2001, Tim O'Reilly published a weblog titled, My Definition of Freedom Zero, that was inspired by a discussion that had followed the debate between Craig Mundie and Michael Tiemann at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. In that article Tim explained his preferences for BSD-style licenses over the GPL. This article is a response by the Free Software Movement to Tim's statements.
Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom. That is what Tim O'Reilly did in his essay, My Definition of Freedom Zero. He advocated a "basic freedom" which is really a form of power.
Tim O'Reilly says the most fundamental software freedom is: "The freedom to choose any license you want for software you write." Unstated, but clearly implied, is that one person or corporation chooses the rules to impose on everyone else. In the world that O'Reilly proposes, a few make the basic software decisions for everyone. That is power, not freedom. He should call it "powerplay zero" in contrast with our "freedom zero".
We in the Free Software Movement want programmers to have freedom. Most of us are programmers, and we want freedom for ourselves as well as for you. But each of us uses software written by others, and we want freedom when using that software -- not just when using our own code.
Related Links Tim O'Reilly Responds to "Freedom or Power?" Shared Source vs. Open Source: Craig Mundie and Michael Tiemann | |
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In the Free Software Movement, we stand for freedom for all users, whether they program often, occasionally, or not at all. We look at what permits a good way of life, and at how useful programs can foster a community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration. Our criteria for free software specify the freedoms that a program must offer its users so that they can cooperate in a community.
We in the Free Software Movement are not opposed to business. But we have seen what happens when a software business has the "freedom" to impose arbitrary rules on the users of software. Microsoft's conduct illustrates where that power leads.
O'Reilly says that Microsoft has put its past behind it. The courts did not think so. He also says that the problem with Microsoft wasn't the proprietary software, just the monopoly. But a choice of masters is not freedom. Microsoft is an egregious example of how denying users' freedoms can lead to direct harm, but it is not the only example, and monopolistic actions are not the only way proprietary software can harm society.
Proprietary software is an exercise of power -- it harms the users by denying their freedom. When users lack the freedoms that define free software, they can't tell what the software is doing, can't check for back doors, can't monitor possible viruses and worms, and can't find out what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even if they do find out). If it breaks, they can't fix it; they have to wait for the developer to exercise its power to do so. If it simply isn't quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can't help each other improve it.
Discussions of rights and rules for software use have usually concentrated too much on the interests of programmers alone. Few people in the world program regularly, and fewer still are owners of proprietary software businesses. But the entire developed world now needs and uses software, so decisions about software determine what kind of world we have. Software developers now control the way the world lives, does business, communicates, and is entertained. The ethical and political issues cannot be avoided under the slogan of "freedom of choice (for developers only)".
If code is law, as Professor Lessig has stated, then the real question we face is: Who should control the code you use -- you, or an elite few? We believe you are entitled to control the software you use, and giving you that control is the goal of free software.
Current copyright law places us in the position of dictator for our code, whether we like it or not. We cannot escape making decisions for others, so our decision is to proclaim freedom for each user, just as the Bill of Rights exercises government power by guaranteeing each citizen's freedoms. That is what the GNU GPL is for: It puts you in control of your usage of the software, while protecting you from "powerplay zero." This is the ethical choice, in a situation where laws give us and others such power.
Honest people can disagree. We believe, though, that with time, as more and more users realize that code is law, and come to feel that they too deserve freedom, they will see the importance of the freedoms we stand for -- just as more and more users have come to appreciate the practical value of the free software we have developed.
(A complete list of the freedoms we believe are fundamental for software is available in "The Free Software Definition" published by the Free Software Foundation.)
Bradley M. Kuhn advocates, documents, hacks on, and teaches about free software. He works for the Free Software Foundation.
Richard Stallman is the founder of the GNU Project.

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Showing messages 1 through 14 of 14.
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Freedom Zero: Aleph Null
2001-12-29 10:04:52 dunhamb [Reply | View]
Having met RMS at LINUX Lunacy, a Geek Cruise, I have a better understanding of the personality behind the philosophy. I would therefore suggest a new Freedom, Freedom Aleph Null, a reference to Cantor's transfinite number theory: All previous Freedoms are empty if the altruistic motivation for enlightenment is removed from the process of human self actualization.
The purpose for writing code within the context of the Freedoms, and then offering it as free software, in to promote a world vision of harmelessness, to create a world where human activity results in the best possible good. The Four Noble Truths of Free Software should guide our trade craft toward an altruistic motivation for enlightenment, otherwise our work is part of a karmic chain of misguided deeds.
Bernie Dunham, MOUStech.NET, LLC
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comsumers do have the real power
2001-11-23 11:38:16 msouth [Reply | View]
As much as people like to point to Microsoft as the bad guy (and, believe me, I agree that they have unquestionably acted illegally and immorally to the detriment of the industry and the market), the people with the real power in America are consumers. All that is required for Microsoft to disappear is for people to quit buying their products. The only way Microsoft got where they are is by people buying their products. If people had acted responsibly, asked themselves "Is supporting this company the right thing to do?", Microsoft would quite likely have disappeared long ago, or at least faded into normal relevance.
This idea that programmers control the world is overstated--people can choose to ignore a product. Yes, our world probably needs software. But they don't need _your_ software.
The same thing applies to music. All these people arguing with the RIAA (who is, I agree, attacking our fundamental fair use rights, etc--even the artists hate them, that can't be good), but most of them still give their money to support the evil empire. It's easy to argue with your mouth, but the vote that counts is one you cast at the cash register.
Things are the way they are because not enough people care enough to do anything about it. It's a great thing that we can say this--it shows how free we really are in this country. We are free to create and feed monsters, and we are free to ignore the fact that we are doing it. We are equally free to band together and stop feeding the monsters so that they can die off or shrink to a less damaging size.
Linux has gained a tremendous foothold in the world, but it is only there because people cared enough to make it happen. The 800lb gorillaness of Microsoft is likewise there only because people didn't care enough to keep it from happening.
One might also argue that the people that did care didn't do all that great a job recruiting followers, but that's another matter. What is, is, and it is what it is because of what people have chosen.
And don't even get me started about politics...
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There isn't really an argument here
2001-11-23 11:19:31 msouth [Reply | View]
In my skimming of the articles, I don't think there is really a substantive argument between the two points. O'Reilly is saying that we should be able to choose which license we release our code under, and Stallman and Kuhn are saying that we _should_ choose a license like the GPL.
Now, perhaps they believe that it shouldn't be a choice, but they certainly didn't say that. They mentioned the fact that our laws give us dictatorial status over our code, and said what we _should_ do in light of this, but did not argue with the law itself. The law itself is what O'Reilly is arguing--that there should be a law allowing us to choose our license for our work.
Stallman may disagree with that, but he certainly didn't say it.
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Two issues
2001-11-23 04:09:02 paulprescod [Reply | View]
Tim O'Reilly says that freedom 0 is the freedom to choose your own license. Stallman says that "Current copyright law places us in the position of dictator for our code." One could imagine a universe where governments did not impose monopolies on code so that the person who created it had no more control over it than anyone else. Therefore Stallman can argue that O'Reilly's freedom 0 is really a form of state-backed coercion.
On the other hand, in the absence of copyright law, a developer's would be left with the choice of whether to distribute code as source or binary. So the GPL goes somewhat beyond merely negating the effects of copyright law. If we wanted to achieve the equivalent of the GPL in a country without copyright we would have to make a law that it is illegal to distribute code without source. I'm curious whether Stallman actually believes that we should have such a law.
Withholding the source code does leave some power in the hands of the developer but how can this be prevented in a free society? McDonald's withholds the recipe to its secret sauce. That gives them some power over me because it makes it difficult for me to duplicate it. Mutual fund companies presumably have strategies, information and formulae that they withhold from their customers so that their customers are not in a position to run their own funds. Individuals and organizations have a right to secrets, whether that secret be code or chemistry.
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address the points that WERE made
2001-11-22 20:33:15 daevt [Reply | View]
long time listener, first time caller. when i first got into writing software, FSF welcomed me with open arms, by showing me what the world could be. they preached that everybody should share.
then they flex their social responsibility and force certian library maintainers to use a licence not of their choosing (LGPL2.1 v. LGPL2, http://news.linuxprogramming.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-08-16-002-06-LT).
to the people at the "Free Software Movement" (when did they switch to a movement?), i say this:
The sign of a bad argument is when you twist around the other party's words to gain a logical victory. Try addressing the point that were made in the essay, and not the ones that you think you can misinturprite from the actual argument. Trust me, you will in no time be forming arguments that hold water, not be forced to attack people in your opening remarks, and be less universally laughed at if you do. i do believe there is some relavent remark about flies, viniger and honey.
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Zero Power Foundation
2001-10-10 07:07:56 ivo_n [Reply | View]
I'm a bit worried about this idea RMS proposes here. If i understand correctly, programmers in StallmanLand have no power over what happens to their work. Once you code, the work is free. The only choice you have is not to code.
If say, a farmer has no choice who to sell his crops to for what price we'd say he's pretty un-free.
Obviously, in setting software "free" this way, programmers will be very unfree.
Freedom for me is also : i decide how i spend my time and who i give my time to. I build the stuff, i make the rules.
It's not as if there are no alternatives to MS. "The Market" has just decided to ignore most of them.
Ivo
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Both.
2001-08-21 06:00:29 tesseractyl [Reply | View]
The two views presented so far both have merit, in my humble opinion, and are presented with conviction.
However, I'm sure that with some careful thought, a solution can be found that offers the best of both worlds. My perspective on the product / non-product debate is this: Software is neither. I view writing software as a service that can be provided to not just one user, but to many. True, software is an abstract construct which is largely based on the work that has gone before, but this use of existing knowledge is true for almost any product. In fact, the chair you are presumably sitting on is a product of rules of thumb that have been used for thousands of years, design philosophes that age in the hundreds of years, using materials, processes and design techniques that are probably decades old. But no-one I know would deny the designer payment for its design (unless its REALLY uncomfortable).
I think there should be limits on the power of software companies though. Undeniably, software is not a concrete asset which has intrinsic value, and anyhow, companies should not be allowed to hold users to ransom with exclusively rental systems, obstructive market tactics and plain shoddy products. Also, whichever view is adopted by a company, they should be self-consistent: if the software is "product" (that can be sold as such) it should be usable on any system belonging to a private user (I refer to 'original machine' licences here). Also, warranties and refunds for defective or inadequate software should be offered and honored as with any other 'product'. If the software is not a "product", with all the responsibilities that supply of a product entails for the supplier, it should be free, and preferably open-source : if the supplier won't fix problems, the users should be allowed to do so.
As a final thought: What (besides paranoia and critical trade secrets (ie: paranoia) -- NB: piracy is going to happen anyway) is to prevent the release of full or partial source as part of every package, regardless of pricing? -
Both.
2001-11-23 04:35:40 paulprescod [Reply | View]
"I think there should be limits on the power of software companies though. Undeniably, software is not a concrete asset which has intrinsic value, and anyhow, companies should not be allowed to hold users to ransom with exclusively rental systems, obstructive market tactics and plain shoddy products."
When you say "should not be allowed", what do you mean? Should not be allowed by whom? If Levi's jeans wants to move to a rental model from a sale model should they be disallowed by government? If not, why should Microsoft be disallowed? Should Levi's be allowed to sell shoddy jeans? If so, shouldn't Microsoft be similarly allowed?
"As a final thought: What (besides paranoia and critical trade secrets (ie: paranoia) -- NB: piracy is going to happen anyway) is to prevent the release of full or partial source as part of every package, regardless of pricing?"
I'm in favor of wider availability to source code but there are reasons a company might choose otherwise. One is algorithmic secrets (trade secrets is too strong of a word because binary code can be reverse engineered).
Another is embarrasing comments in the code: "this really sucks...fix it later." Another is indications of future product directions. Another is security through obscurity (which is sometimes better than nothing). A company may also wish for their customers to think that their product is more complicated than it is (especially if it was developed in a high level language or uses some other similar advantage).
Finally, a company may want to have exclusive power over upgrades and fixes. You could imagine a situation where a competitor to Microsoft Word starts out as a series of patches TO Word. Over time it grows into a genuine competitor.
If the advantages of source to the user are strong enough then vendors may one day be forced to give up these benefits of closed source in order to satisfy customer demand. But customers seem not to care much.
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RMS - You are wrong
2001-08-19 18:03:32 s_cropp [Reply | View]
Mr Stallman, you have completely missed the whole point of what Tim O'Reilly has said. What you are instead suggesting is just as bad and just as restrictive as any proprietry license.
If I write a piece of software, it is my effort and time that went in to creating that project and seeing it through. If I then decide I'd rather receive some form or remuneration (not just money), and release the package under a license that requires that the user pays me a fee and agrees to not distribute the package to others, then that is my choice.
If, by the same token, I feel that the package is something I'd like to share and get proactive feedback on, get others to help build and allow them to fit it into their environment exactly, then I'd be more likely to use a BSD-style license.
GPL destroys the rights of the individual developer or developer house to write software the way they want to right it and do with that software as they want to. Under the GPL, all software becomes the property of everyone and no one has a claim to that software.
The DMCA is one extreme, the GPL is the opposite extreme. Thats how I've grown to see it over the past 2 or 3 years that I've actually bothered taking notice of what I'm using.
I use GPL software because the license says I can. I write software under the BSD-style license because I'm able to keep the project as mine, and not give up all my rights to the over-reaching RMS.
RMS, you have gradually been over extending your reach into the Opensource and Free software worlds. You have been given honorary place amoung the community because for a long time, you did good. You were a great spokesman and that will never be forgotten. However, your actions lately have led me to ignore you and no longer respect you. You force projects to follow your vision and threaten them. For that reason, I will never submit any of my works to the GNU projects, or donate towards the FSF.
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Software is not a product
2001-08-17 06:34:53 oreillyora [Reply | View]
Because you can hold a CD in your hand, there is an obvious analogy at hand (pardon the pun) to think of software as a product. But once you move beyond the purchase of one packaged version for one fee and into the real world of using software, the role of software as a product breaks down. There are versions and patches in the real world, and these things give us a peek at the continuous development which is the real activity of making software.
Software is an ongoing practice, a recital between the computer and the mind. It begins in the developing brain with a child's apprehension of logic and continues from technique to innovation to tradition. No software anywhere is a work on its own, and most software is an amalgam of library techniques, usually written by other people based, in turn, on work by their predecessors.
From this perspective, it's audacious, even hubristic, to charge money for software as if it were your own produce.
However, we arrived at the information age by way of the industrial age, and the most successful organizational technique of the industrial age was capitalism. It has many flaws, not the least of which is an audacious, even hubristic tendency to take the resources of the world which rightfully belong to generations yet unborn and turn them into portable stereos, colonial baronies, and piles of waste debris.
But capitalism is very good at producing goods from scratch. It is natural, then, that when software emerged as an industry, it would follow a capitalist model. Software, like any product, would be produced by incorporated venture capitalists.
But, I stress, software is not a product but an intellectual activity, and that fact is eventually going to overcome the product analogy. What the pure software companies are doing is to start the big schools of thought which will get the ball rolling (and incidentally make some people a pile of cash).
In the end, however, they will have to give back the programmer's heritage by bringing the material back into the public purview. If they don't, they will not be crushed, bought out, or any other capitalist/industrial model, but simply be reverse-engineered or extended by the open software community. This is not by virtue of the programmers being better or more virtuous on the open side, but simply because software is an intellectual activity and there is nothing more persistent than a geek on caffeine without a date.
The most efficient way to make good software is simply to write, share, freely modify, and let it evolve. Eventually a way of doing this and still feeding the programmers will be found. Since such a miracle probably can only be performed in an academic setting or via funding for the public good, I doubt it will ever compete in the industrial/capitalist arena. Nor should it.
I believe it is a safe prognostication to say that the market will eventually favor a company which enhances its real products (computers, devices) with its software which it allows the user to improve. The consumer is happiest when he/she has some control over the product and is not simply a somewhat unwilling participant in a process determined by marketing, not by a market.
The pure software company is an anachronism and should be allowed to go the way of the dinosaur. The GPL is simply the best way to protect software for what it is in a world full of software companies and their legal divisions. In contrast, the BSD license only allows a flawed "software as a product" analogy continue at the expense of the general populace. It is a good tool for a company with software interests to eventually phase them out without burning the investor, but let's be honest: In a world where an acceptable business model has been to use venture capital to pay yourself a good salary before the company folds, the investor is lucky to even be given that consideration.
Better not to get them involved in the big lie of "software as a product" in the first place. -
Software is not a product
2001-11-23 04:21:21 paulprescod [Reply | View]
"""Because you can hold a CD in your hand, there is an obvious analogy at hand (pardon the pun) to think of software as a product. But once you move beyond the purchase of one packaged version for one fee and into the real world of using software, the role of software as a product breaks down. There are versions and patches in the real world, and these things give us a peek at the continuous development which is the real activity of making software."""
The product-ness of software is not really relevant. Software is part of our capitalist system whether you call it a product or a service. The fundamental basis of the capitalist system is voluntary contracts. Tim O'Reilly says that I should be able to enter into a contract with you that disallows you from redistributing my code. Stallman says no, that should be disallowed. Tim O'Reilly says I should have the choice of giving you as little or as much of the useful information as I like: all of the source or just the binary. Richard Stallman says no, I should be forced to give away the source code. None of these issues change if you think of software as a product, a service, a recital, a practice or a religion.
"it's audacious, even hubristic, to charge money for software as if it were your own produce."
The question is whether it is ethical and whether it should be illegal. If I write a five-line script that solves someone's problem and is based upon thousands of person-years of operating system, what's wrong with me charging for my five-line script? How is it different than a book author writing an annotated version of Shakespeare that obviously depends heavily on the original Shakespeare?