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diff --git a/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/lessig-fsfs-intro.html b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/lessig-fsfs-intro.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80a8ee4 --- /dev/null +++ b/talermerchantdemos/blog/articles/en/lessig-fsfs-intro.html @@ -0,0 +1,278 @@ +<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> +<!-- Parent-Version: 1.86 --> +<title>Introduction to Free Software, Free Society +- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> + +<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/lessig-fsfs-intro.translist" --> +<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> + +<h2>Introduction +to <a href="http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><i>Free +Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard +M. Stallman</i></a></h2> + +<p> +by Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School +</p> + +<p> +Every generation has its philosopher — a writer or an artist who +captures the imagination of a time. Sometimes these philosophers are +recognized as such; often it takes generations before the connection +is made real. But recognized or not, a time gets marked by the people +who speak its ideals, whether in the whisper of a poem, or the blast +of a political movement. +</p> +<p> +Our generation has a philosopher. He is not an artist, or a +professional writer. He is a programmer. Richard Stallman began his +work in the labs of <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</abbr>, +as a programmer and architect building operating system software. He +has built his career on a stage of public life, as a programmer and an +architect founding a movement for freedom in a world increasingly +defined by “code.” +</p> +<p> +“Code” is the technology that makes computers run. Whether +inscribed in software or burned in hardware, it is the collection of +instructions, first written in words, that directs the functionality +of machines. These machines — computers — increasingly +define and control our life. They determine how phones connect, and +what runs on TV. They decide whether video can be streamed across a +broadband link to a computer. They control what a computer reports +back to its manufacturer. These machines run us. Code runs these +machines. +</p> +<p> +What control should we have over this code? What understanding? What +freedom should there be to match the control it enables? What power? +</p> +<p> +These questions have been the challenge of Stallman's life. Through +his works and his words, he has pushed us to see the importance of +keeping code “free.” Not free in the sense that code +writers don't get paid, but free in the sense that the control coders +build be transparent to all, and that anyone have the right to take +that control, and modify it as he or she sees fit. This is “free +software”; “free software” is one answer to a world +built in code. +</p> +<p> +“Free.” Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own +term. There's nothing to lament. Puzzles force people to think, and +this term “free” does this puzzling work quite well. To +modern American ears, “free software” sounds utopian, +impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most +important words running the most critical machines running the world +be “free”? How could a sane society aspire to such an +ideal? +</p> +<p> +Yet the odd clink of the word “free” is a function of us, +not of the term. “Free” has different senses, only one of +which refers to “price.” A much more fundamental sense of +“free” is the “free,” Stallman says, in the +term “free speech,” or perhaps better in the term +“free labor.” Not free as in costless, but free as in +limited in its control by others. Free software is control that is +transparent, and open to change, just as free laws, or the laws of a +“free society,” are free when they make their control +knowable, and open to change. The aim of Stallman's “free +software movement” is to make as much code as it can +transparent, and subject to change, by rendering it +“free.” +</p> +<p> +The mechanism of this rendering is an extraordinarily clever device +called “copyleft” implemented through a license called +GPL. Using the power of copyright law, “free software” not +only assures that it remains open, and subject to change, but that +other software that takes and uses “free software” (and +that technically counts as a “derivative work”) must also +itself be free. If you use and adapt a free software program, and +then release that adapted version to the public, the released version +must be as free as the version it was adapted from. It must, or the +law of copyright will be violated. +</p> +<p> +“Free software,” like free societies, has its +enemies. Microsoft has waged a war against the GPL, warning whoever +will listen that the GPL is a “dangerous” license. The +dangers it names, however, are largely illusory. Others object to the +“coercion” in GPL's insistence that modified versions are +also free. But a condition is not coercion. If it is not coercion for +Microsoft to refuse to permit users to distribute modified versions of +its product Office without paying it (presumably) millions, then it is +not coercion when the GPL insists that modified versions of free +software be free too. +</p> +<p> +And then there are those who call Stallman's message too extreme. But +extreme it is not. Indeed, in an obvious sense, Stallman's work is a +simple translation of the freedoms that our tradition crafted in the +world before code. “Free software” would assure that the +world governed by code is as “free” as our tradition that +built the world before code. +</p> +<p> +For example: A “free society” is regulated by law. But +there are limits that any free society places on this regulation +through law: No society that kept its laws secret could ever be called +free. No government that hid its regulations from the regulated could +ever stand in our tradition. Law controls. But it does so justly only +when visibly. And law is visible only when its terms are knowable and +controllable by those it regulates, or by the agents of those it +regulates (lawyers, legislatures). +</p> +<p> +This condition on law extends beyond the work of a legislature. Think +about the practice of law in American courts. Lawyers are hired by +their clients to advance their clients' interests. Sometimes that +interest is advanced through litigation. In the course of this +litigation, lawyers write briefs. These briefs in turn affect opinions +written by judges. These opinions decide who wins a particular case, +or whether a certain law can stand consistently with a constitution. +</p> +<p> +All the material in this process is free in the sense that Stallman +means. Legal briefs are open and free for others to use. The +arguments are transparent (which is different from saying they are +good) and the reasoning can be taken without the permission of the +original lawyers. The opinions they produce can be quoted in later +briefs. They can be copied and integrated into another brief or +opinion. The “source code” for American law is by design, +and by principle, open and free for anyone to take. And take lawyers +do — for it is a measure of a great brief that it achieves its +creativity through the reuse of what happened before. The source is +free; creativity and an economy is built upon it. +</p> +<p> +This economy of free code (and here I mean free legal code) doesn't +starve lawyers. Law firms have enough incentive to produce great +briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by +anyone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is +public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public +doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy +flourishes, with later work added to the earlier. +</p> +<p> +We could imagine a legal practice that was different — briefs +and arguments that were kept secret; rulings that announced a result +but not the reasoning. Laws that were kept by the police but +published to no one else. Regulation that operated without explaining +its rule. +</p> +<p> +We could imagine this society, but we could not imagine calling it +“free.” Whether or not the incentives in such a society +would be better or more efficiently allocated, such a society could +not be known as free. The ideals of freedom, of life within a free +society, demand more than efficient application. Instead, openness +and transparency are the constraints within which a legal system gets +built, not options to be added if convenient to the leaders. Life +governed by software code should be no less. +</p> +<p> +Code writing is not litigation. It is better, richer, more +productive. But the law is an obvious instance of how creativity and +incentives do not depend upon perfect control over the products +created. Like jazz, or novels, or architecture, the law gets built +upon the work that went before. This adding and changing is what +creativity always is. And a free society is one that assures that its +most important resources remain free in just this sense. +</p> +<p> +For the first time, this book collects the writing and lectures of +Richard Stallman in a manner that will make their subtlety and power +clear. The essays span a wide range, from copyright to the history of +the free software movement. They include many arguments not well +known, and among these, an especially insightful account of the +changed circumstances that render copyright in the digital world +suspect. They will serve as a resource for those who seek to +understand the thought of this most powerful man — powerful in +his ideas, his passion, and his integrity, even if powerless in every +other way. They will inspire others who would take these ideas, and +build upon them. +</p> +<p> +I don't know Stallman well. I know him well enough to know he is a +hard man to like. He is driven, often impatient. His anger can flare +at friend as easily as foe. He is uncompromising and persistent; +patient in both. +</p> +<p> +Yet when our world finally comes to understand the power and danger of +code — when it finally sees that code, like laws, or like +government, must be transparent to be free — then we will look +back at this uncompromising and persistent programmer and recognize +the vision he has fought to make real: the vision of a world where +freedom and knowledge survives the compiler. And we will come to see +that no man, through his deeds or words, has done as much to make +possible the freedom that this next society could have. +</p> +<p> +We have not earned that freedom yet. We may well fail in securing +it. But whether we succeed or fail, in these essays is a picture of +what that freedom could be. And in the life that produced these words +and works, there is inspiration for anyone who would, like Stallman, +fight to create this freedom. +</p> + +<p> +<strong>Lawrence Lessig</strong><br /> +<strong>Professor of Law, Stanford Law School.</strong> +</p> + +<hr /> +<blockquote id="fsfs"><p class="big">Learn more about +<a href="http://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Free +Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard +M. Stallman</cite></a>.</p></blockquote> + +</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 & GNU inquiries to +<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. +There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> +the FSF. 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