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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 -->
+<title>Shaping Collaborative ICT Development and Initiatives for
+Global Prosperity - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/ICT-for-prosperity.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+
+<h2>Shaping Collaborative ICT Development and Initiatives for Global
+Prosperity</h2>
+
+<p>
+by <strong>Robert J. Chassell</strong>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+[From a presentation given at the <!-- <br />
+<a href="http://www.globalknowledge.org.my/"> broken link, 1apr11 -->
+Second Global Knowledge Conference<br />
+in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 7 March 2000.]
+</p>
+<!-- <p>
+[For a more extended discussion, see my<br />
+<a href="http://www.teak.cc/Access-speech.html">
+Free Software: Access and Empowerment</a>.
+</p> -->
+
+<p>
+The title of this presentation is &lsquo;Shaping
+Collaborative ICT Development and Initiatives for Global
+Prosperity&rsquo; and the themes of this conference are
+&lsquo;access&rsquo;, &lsquo;empowerment&rsquo; and
+&lsquo;governance&rsquo;.
+</p>
+<p>
+What I want to do today is take one specific technology and talk about
+the way we have shaped that technology to make it accessible and
+empowering, how we have placed it in an economic and institutional
+framework that encourages people to work collaboratively, and how to
+use the technology for better governance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The technology is software. The shaping has to do with copyright
+licensing terms &mdash; its legal and institutional framework.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a founder of the Free Software Foundation, I have been working for
+16 years with the legal and institutional framework in which we use
+and develop software. GNU/Linux, a complete software system, is
+the outcome of these efforts.
+</p>
+<p>
+ICT, the information and communications technologies, are
+made up of hardware and software components. I am speaking here only
+of software. However, I hope we can extend our experience from this
+to other technologies.
+</p>
+<p>
+When I speak of software, I am speaking both about the programs that
+run the computer, that is to say, the operating system,
+and about applications, such as electronic mail and other
+communications, spreadsheets, electronic commerce, writing tools,
+sending and receiving FAXes, Web site creation, engineering, research,
+mathematical computations, modeling, image manipulation, and
+networking.
+</p>
+<p>
+Over the last few years, the prices of computer and telecommunications
+hardware have dropped to the point that many more people are using
+them. Indeed, our conference organizers estimate that as many as one
+out of every thirty people in the world have computer-based, online
+telecommunications access.
+</p>
+<p>
+While one out of thirty is still a small portion of the world's
+population, this technology is popular, growing, and becoming more
+important in our daily lives. In addition, we expect that
+computer and telecommunications prices will continue to drop for at
+least another generation, so many who currently lack resources will
+eventually benefit.
+</p>
+<p>
+As with any technology, software can be employed well or badly.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the moment we see both. On the bad side, we see machines that
+crash unnecessarily, email messages that waste their recipients money,
+systems that are vulnerable to simple viruses, and programs that do
+only part of what you want.
+</p>
+<p>
+The key to good use of software is to ensure freedom. In software,
+this leads to collaboration, lower prices, reliability, efficiency,
+security, and fewer barriers to entry and use.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a good use of software technology, people must have the legal
+right to copy, study, modify, and redistribute it. All else flows
+from this.
+</p>
+<p>
+GNU/Linux software gives people these rights. Programmers benefit,
+and more importantly, people who are not programmers benefit.
+</p>
+<p>
+For example, people in an area with lousy or no telephone service can
+use a rugged package called UUCP for communications. I recently read of
+an Oxfam group that did this.
+</p>
+<p>
+People with older machines, even with the very old 80386 chips, can
+run efficient programs that do as much as programs that require a
+modern Pentium chip and expensive memory. And they can use these
+machines as servers for Web pages and as routers &mdash; for
+communications' infrastructure.
+</p>
+<p>
+People with just one computer can attach one or two additional
+terminals to it, and provide two or three seats in place of one, for
+very little extra cost. I have done this: a friend visited and we
+both wanted to work on my computer at the same time. Email, Web
+browsing, writing, remote system administration: we did all these at
+the same time.
+</p>
+<p>
+A community group, or business, can set up its own mailing lists or
+news groups, private or public. The groupware is there. Two or more
+people can work on the same document at the same time, even if they
+are in different countries. The last time I did that, I was working
+with a fellow on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
+</p>
+<p>
+What script do you want to write in? Hindi, Chinese, Thai? All these
+are possible, and in the same window as English or Cyrillic.
+</p>
+<p>
+Individuals or groups can set up their own Web sites. A publisher can
+typeset his own books. An accountant can analyze a budget. Blind
+people can listen to text read out loud to them by the computer.
+</p>
+<p>
+You can enjoy choosing among several graphic user interfaces, a fancy
+one, another that looks and behaves rather like Microsoft Windows, or
+a third, that is simple and practical.
+</p>
+<p>
+Except for the blind person's speech generation, which requires audio
+that I never installed in my machine, every application I have just
+mentioned runs on my home computer. And people I know have installed
+audio and listen to it.
+</p>
+<p>
+All these applications came on a CD-ROM that was, as it happens, given
+me at no charge. I have also paid for CDs with a different version of
+the software &mdash; sometimes it is more convenient just to buy. And
+if you have a fast Internet connection, you can readily download the
+software, paying only your connection costs.
+</p>
+<p>
+This wealth of software is available and can be used anywhere in the
+world.
+</p>
+<p>
+To return to the question of how this technology was shaped: the key,
+as I said, is freedom, the legal right to copy, study, modify, and
+redistribute the software.
+</p>
+<p>
+The specific legal tool we used to create these freedoms and the
+resulting benefits is a specially drafted copyright license, the GNU
+General Public License.
+</p>
+<p>
+This license gives you more rights than plain copyright does, and more
+rights than many other kinds of software license. In essence, it
+forbids you to forbid. It permits you to do everything else.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let me go through this list of rights: copy, study, modify, and
+redistribute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+First, the right to copy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Not many people own a factory that would enable them to copy a car.
+Indeed, to copy a car is so difficult that we use a different word, we
+speak of &lsquo;manufacturing&rsquo; a car. And there are not many
+car manufacturers in the world. Far fewer than one in thirty people
+own or have ready access to a car factory.
+</p>
+<p>
+But everyone with a computer owns a software factory, a device for
+manufacturing software, that is to say, for making new copies.
+Because copying software is so easy, we don't use the word
+&lsquo;manufacturing&rsquo;; we usually do not even think of it as a
+kind of manufacturing, but it is.
+</p>
+<p>
+The right to copy software is the right to use your own means of
+production (if you will pardon my use of an expression that has gone
+out of fashion). Millions of people, a few percent of the world's
+population, own this means of production.
+</p>
+<p>
+Naturally, there have been efforts to take away your rights to use
+your own property as a factory that you own.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Second, the right to study. This right is of little direct interest to
+people who are not programmers. It is like the right of a lawyer to
+read legal text books. Unless you are a lawyer, you probably wish to
+avoid such books.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, this right to study has several implications, both for those
+who program and for everyone else.
+</p>
+<p>
+The right to study means that people in places like Mexico, or India,
+or Malaysia can study the same code that people in Europe or the
+United States use. It means that these people are not kept from
+learning how others succeeded.
+</p>
+<p>
+Bear in mind that many programmers work under restrictions that forbid
+them from seeing others' code. Rather than sit on the shoulders of
+those who went before, which is the best way to see ahead and to
+advance, they are thrown into the mud. The right to study is the
+right to look ahead, to advance, by sitting on the shoulders of
+giants.
+</p>
+<p>
+Moreover, the right to study means that the software itself must be made
+available in a manner that humans can read.
+</p>
+<p>
+Software comes in two forms, one readable only by computers and the
+other readable by people. The form that a computer can read is what
+the computer runs. This form is called a binary or executable. The
+form that a human can read is called source code. It is what a human
+programmer creates, and is translated by another computer program into
+the binary or executable form.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next right, the right to modify, is the right to fix a problem or
+enhance a program. For most people, this means your right or your
+organization's right to hire someone to do the job for you, in
+much the same way you hire an auto mechanic to fix your car or a
+carpenter to extend your home.
+</p>
+<p>
+Modification is helpful. Application developers cannot think of all
+the ways others will use their software. Developers cannot foresee the
+new burdens that will be put on their code. They cannot anticipate
+all the local conditions, whether someone in Malaysia will use a
+program first written in Finland.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finally, of these legal rights, comes the right to redistribute.
+</p>
+<p>
+This means that you, who own a computer, a software factory, have the
+right to make copies of a program and redistribute it. You can charge
+for these copies, or give them away. Others may do the same.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course, several existing, large software manufacturers want to
+forbid you from using your own property. They cannot win in a free
+market, so they attack in other ways. In the United States, for
+example, we see newly proposed laws to take away your freedom.
+</p>
+<p>
+The right to redistribute, so long as it is defended and upheld, means
+that software is sold in a competitive, free market. This has several
+consequences. Low price is a consequence. This helps consumers.
+</p>
+<p>
+But first and foremost, these legal and economic rights lead to
+collaboration, one of themes of this conference.
+</p>
+<p>
+This outcome is contrary to many people's expectations. Few expect
+that in a competitive, free market, every producer will become more
+collaborative and that there will be no visible or felt competition
+among competing businessmen.
+</p>
+<p>
+The more competitive a market, the more cooperation you see.
+This apparently counter-intuitive implication is both observed and
+inferred.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is because people are not harmed by doing what they want to do.
+People like to help their neighbors.
+</p>
+<p>
+Consider a small farmer, one among a million. My friend George, back
+in the United States, is one such.
+</p>
+<p>
+His harvest is so small, that there is nothing he can do to effect the
+world price. His neighbor is in a similar situation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Consequently, if George helps his neighbor, his neighbor benefits, and
+George himself loses nothing on the price he receives for his harvest.
+</p>
+<p>
+Since George will not hurt himself, he has every other reason to help
+his neighbor. Not only is George kindly, he also recognizes that when
+he helps his neighbor, his neighbor is likely to return the favor.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is what you see in a competitive free market: cooperation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Visible competition indicates that the market is not fully free and
+competitive. Visible competition means that at most you have a
+semi-free market.
+</p>
+<p>
+Moreover, and this benefits people who are not programmers, if
+software is sold in a free market, competition among vendors will lead
+to a lower price.
+</p>
+<p>
+Put another way, the price of software is determined primarily by
+legal considerations: by the degree to which customers enjoy freedom.
+If customers are forbidden to buy a product except at a high price,
+and that prohibition is successfully enforced, the product will be
+expensive. This is what occurs with much proprietary software today.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand, if software is sold in a free market, competition
+among vendors will lead to a lower price.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed, in some circumstances the cost will be so low that companies
+or other organizations will give away CD-ROMs containing the software;
+others will make copies for their friends; and yet others will provide
+downloads over the Internet at no charge.
+</p>
+<p>
+This means that software itself, a necessary supporting part of a
+business or community project, will be both inexpensive and legal.
+</p>
+<p>
+Think of this from the point of view of a small business or community
+supported group. The organization can use restricted-distribution,
+proprietary software, and either pay a lot of money it does not have,
+or break the law and steal it.
+</p>
+<p>
+On the other hand, free software is inexpensive and legal. It is more
+accessible. It is also customizable in ways that restricted software
+often is not. This is empowering.
+</p>
+<p>
+We shape the development of this technology, we create collaboration,
+through the use of a legal tool, a license, that gives you more rights
+than you would have otherwise, that forbids you to forbid, that in
+this case, gives you the right to copy, study, modify, and
+redistribute the software.
+</p>
+<p>
+Because of the freedoms associated with it, this software is called
+&lsquo;free software.&rsquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+While I am speaking of this phrase, let me clear up a verbal issue
+that sometimes confuses English speakers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The low price of free software leads some English speakers to think
+that the word &lsquo;free&rsquo; in the phrase &lsquo;free
+software&rsquo; means they can obtain it without cost. This is not
+the definition, which is about
+<a href="/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html">freedom</a>, but
+it is an easy misunderstanding. After all, I have been talking of
+frugal use of resources, software that is inexpensive.
+</p>
+<p>
+The English word &lsquo;free&rsquo; has several meanings. As a
+Mexican friend of mine &mdash; and leader, by the way, of a major free
+software project &mdash; once said to me,
+</p>
+<blockquote><p>
+English is broken; it does not distinguish between &lsquo;free
+beer&rsquo; and &lsquo;free speech&rsquo;.
+</p></blockquote>
+<p>
+Spanish, on the other hand, distinguishes between &lsquo;gratis&rsquo;
+and &lsquo;libre&rsquo;. Free software is &lsquo;libre&rsquo;
+software.
+</p>
+<p>
+Likewise, the language of our hosts, Bahasa Melayu, distinguishes
+between &lsquo;pecuma&rsquo; and &lsquo;kebebasa&rsquo;. Free
+software is &lsquo;kebebasa&rsquo; software.
+</p>
+<p>
+Incidentally, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens invented the phrase
+&lsquo;open source&rsquo; a few years ago as a synonym &lsquo;free
+software&rsquo;. They wanted to work around the dislike many
+companies have of free markets. The phrase is popular; Eric and Bruce
+succeeded in their purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+However, I prefer the term &lsquo;free software&rsquo; since it better
+conveys the goal of freedom; the proposition that every man and woman,
+even a person who lives in a third world country, has the right to do
+first rate work, and must not be forbidden from doing so.
+</p>
+<p>
+I mentioned that a business or community can use software that is
+inexpensive and legal.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now let me turn to the software industry itself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Because competition in a competitive market forces down the price of
+free software, no one enters the software industry to sell software as
+such. Instead, and this is often not understood, a business enters
+the industry to make money in other ways.
+</p>
+<p>
+Companies and people in the &lsquo;software industry&rsquo; do not
+sell software itself, but services associated with software or
+hardware or other solutions.
+</p>
+<p>
+This is what happens in the medical and legal professions. Both
+medical knowledge and law are freely redistributable. Physicians and
+lawyers sell their services to solve problems.
+</p>
+<p>
+What services do I mean? Most directly, help in using a computer, or,
+to take more specific examples, help in setting up a packet radio
+network where there is no telephone, or help in creating and nurturing
+a warehouse data base.
+</p>
+<p>
+Less directly, and increasingly, hardware companies that sell
+telephones or desalinization plants, add software to their products to
+make them more attractive to buyers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Incidentally, programmers themselves write software for four main
+reasons: first, because they are hired to solve a problem, just as a
+lawyer is hired to draw up a contract. Second, as part of another
+project. Third, because it enhances their reputation. And fourth,
+because they want to.
+</p>
+<p>
+I have spoken about shaping this technology for collaboration. The
+key is freedom, and creating the legal framework that supports
+freedom.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now let me talk about initiatives that lead to prosperity.
+</p>
+<p>
+One issue with development is resources, or rather, the lack thereof.
+</p>
+<p>
+As I said earlier, free software reduces barriers to entry, both in
+the software industry itself and in other industries and activities.
+</p>
+<p>
+Free software, and the culture and ways people tend to think when they
+collaborate, reduces operational costs.
+</p>
+<p>
+Let me take an example that comes directly from this conference.
+First I should tell you that I have correspondents all over the world.
+They are not all in rich countries. They or their supporting
+institutions are not always rich.
+</p>
+<p>
+The first messages about this conference that I received took up more
+than four and a half times the resources needed to convey the
+information. The messages were sent in a bloated form.
+</p>
+<p>
+Next time you budget for a project, consider paying four and a half
+times its cost. Then consider whether you would fund it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Next time you pay at a restaurant, take out four and a half times the
+money&hellip;
+</p>
+<p>
+For me the resource use was not an issue because I don't pay by the
+minute for telecommunications, as many do. But I know that my
+correspondents around the world prefer that I take care in my
+communications that I do not waste their money or that of their
+supporting institutions.
+</p>
+<p>
+A notable feature of free software is that many applications run well
+on older, less capable machines, as I mentioned earlier. For example,
+a couple of months ago I ran a window manager, graphical Web browser,
+and an image manipulation program on my sister's old 486 machine.
+These worked fine.
+</p>
+<p>
+Text editors, electronic mail, and spreadsheets require even fewer
+resources.
+</p>
+<p>
+This frugality means that people can use older equipment that has been
+tossed out by first world companies. Such equipment is inexpensive and
+often donated. The computers need to be transported. Sometimes
+you need to start a local project to refurbish the hardware and load
+it with inexpensive, customized, free software. These machines
+cost the end user less than new machines.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the same time, manufacturers are building modern, low end
+computers that do as much as the older ones, and are not too
+expensive.
+</p>
+<p>
+There is no need to acquire expensive, new hardware to run your
+software.
+</p>
+<p>
+In conclusion &mdash;
+</p>
+<p>
+I was asked to speak on
+</p>
+<p>
+&lsquo;Shaping Collaborative ICT Development and
+Initiatives for Global Prosperity&rsquo;
+</p>
+<p>
+Over the past 16 years, I have worked with people who shaped software
+through a legal tool that gives you many freedoms: the freedoms to
+copy, study, modify, and redistribute the software.
+</p>
+<p>
+This tool shapes software technology to make it more accessible and
+more empowering; it encourages people to work collaboratively,
+and provides a technology for better governance.
+</p>
+<p>
+This legal tool means that companies in the ICT industry compete not
+to sell software itself, but to sell services associated with it, or
+to sell hardware, or other solutions.
+</p>
+<p>
+This legal framework means that companies will provide more reliable
+and efficient services.
+</p>
+<p>
+Freedom, ensured by a proper license, means that people who use
+computers and telecommunications as tools can enter their industry
+more easily.
+</p>
+<p>
+It means that all users can reduce their entry and operational costs.
+It means that people in poorer countries are not shipping off their
+money to a rich country, but are keeping their money in the local
+economy.
+</p>
+<p>
+Moreover, as I said above, restricted-distribution software licenses
+often force people to choose between violating the law and paying
+money they may not have.
+</p>
+<p>
+As a matter of good governance, a country should not force people who
+are trying to do a decent job into making such decisions. Too often
+an otherwise law-abiding person who lacks resources will choose to
+violate the law.
+</p>
+<p>
+Instead, a country should arrange matters such that acting in a
+law abiding manner is without doubt the best action, for legal,
+moral, and practical reasons. People always hope their neighbors
+will be law abiding and honest; free software encourages that.
+</p>
+<p>
+Free software empowers people who previously were kept out.
+</p>
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+<div class="unprintable">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org">&lt;gnu@gnu.org&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
+to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org">&lt;webmasters@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- TRANSLATORS: Ignore the original text in this paragraph,
+ replace it with the translation of these two:
+
+ We work hard and do our best to provide accurate, good quality
+ translations. However, we are not exempt from imperfection.
+ Please send your comments and general suggestions in this regard
+ to <a href="mailto:web-translators@gnu.org">
+ &lt;web-translators@gnu.org&gt;</a>.</p>
+
+ <p>For information on coordinating and submitting translations of
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+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
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+Please see the <a
+href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting translations
+of this article.</p>
+</div>
+
+<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
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+
+ If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
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+ year, i.e., a year in which the document was published (including
+ being publicly visible on the web or in a revision control system).
+
+ There is more detail about copyright years in the GNU Maintainers
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+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 1996, 1997, 1998, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 Free
+Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2014/04/12 12:39:57 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>