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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.90 -->
+<title>Linux, GNU, and freedom
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Keywords"
+ content="GNU, FSF, Free Software Foundation, Linux, freedom, software, power, rights, Richard Stallman, rms, SIGLINUX, Joe Barr" />
+<meta http-equiv="Description" content="In this essay, Linux, GNU, and freedom, Richard M. Stallman responds to Joe Barr's account of the FSF's dealings with the Austin Linux users group." />
+<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/linux-gnu-freedom.translist" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>Linux, GNU, and freedom</h2>
+
+<p>
+ by <strong>Richard M. Stallman</strong></p>
+
+<p>
+ Since <a
+ href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190404115541/http://linux.sys-con.com/node/32755">Joe Barr's
+ article</a> criticized my dealings with SIGLINUX, I would like to
+ set the record straight about what actually occurred, and state my
+ reasons.</p>
+<p>
+ When SIGLINUX invited me to speak, it was a &ldquo;Linux User
+ Group&rdquo;; that is, a group for users of the GNU/Linux system
+ which calls the whole system &ldquo;Linux&rdquo;. So I replied
+ politely that if they'd like someone from the GNU Project to give a
+ speech for them, they ought to treat the GNU Project right, and call
+ the system &ldquo;GNU/Linux&rdquo;. The system is a variant of GNU,
+ and the GNU Project is its principal developer, so social convention
+ says to call it by the name we chose. Unless there are powerful
+ reasons for an exception, I usually decline to give speeches for
+ organizations that won't give GNU proper credit in this way. I
+ respect their freedom of speech, but I also have the freedom not to
+ give a speech.</p>
+<p>
+ Subsequently, Jeff Strunk of SIGLINUX tried to change the group's
+ policy, and asked the FSF to list his group in our page of GNU/Linux
+ user groups. Our webmaster told him that we would not list it under
+ the name &ldquo;SIGLINUX&rdquo; because that name implies that the
+ group is about Linux. Strunk proposed to change the name to
+ &ldquo;SIGFREE&rdquo;, and our webmaster agreed that would be fine.
+ (Barr's article said we rejected this proposal.) However, the group
+ ultimately decided to stay with &ldquo;SIGLINUX&rdquo;.</p>
+<p>
+ At that point, the matter came to my attention again, and I
+ suggested they consider other possible names. There are many names
+ they could choose that would not call the system
+ &ldquo;Linux&rdquo;, and I hope they will come up with one they
+ like. There the matter rests as far as I know.</p>
+<p>
+ Is it true, as Barr writes, that some people see these actions as an
+ &ldquo;application of force&rdquo; comparable with Microsoft's
+ monopoly power? Probably so. Declining an invitation is not
+ coercion, but people who are determined to believe that the entire
+ system is &ldquo;Linux&rdquo; sometimes develop amazingly distorted
+ vision. To make that name appear justified, they must see molehills
+ as mountains and mountains as molehills. If you can ignore the
+ facts and believe that Linus Torvalds developed the whole system
+ starting in 1991, or if you can ignore your ordinary principles of
+ fairness and believe that Torvalds should get the sole credit even
+ though he didn't do that, it's a small step to believe that I owe
+ you a speech when you ask.</p>
+<p>
+ Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating
+ system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece.
+ The GNU Project says, &ldquo;Please give our project equal
+ mention,&rdquo; but Linus says, &ldquo;Don't give them a share of
+ the credit; call the whole thing after my name alone!&rdquo; Now
+ envision the mindset of a person who can look at these events and
+ accuse the GNU Project of egotism. It takes strong prejudice to
+ misjudge so drastically.</p>
+<p>
+ A person who is that prejudiced can say all sorts of unfair things
+ about the GNU Project and think them justified; his fellows will
+ support him, because they want each other's support in maintaining
+ their prejudice. Dissenters can be reviled; thus, if I decline to
+ participate in an activity under the rubric of &ldquo;Linux&rdquo;,
+ they may find that inexcusable, and hold me responsible for the ill
+ will they feel afterwards. When so many people want me to call the
+ system &ldquo;Linux&rdquo;, how can I, who merely launched its
+ development, not comply? And forcibly denying them a speech is
+ forcibly making them unhappy. That's coercion, as bad as
+ Microsoft!</p>
+<p>
+ Now, you might wonder why I don't just duck the issue and avoid all
+ this grief. When SIGLINUX invited me to speak, I could simply have
+ said &ldquo;No, sorry&rdquo; and the matter would have ended there.
+ Why didn't I do that? I'm willing to take the risk of being abused
+ personally in order to have a chance of correcting the error that
+ undercuts the GNU Project's efforts.</p>
+<p>
+ Calling this variant of the GNU system &ldquo;Linux&rdquo; plays
+ into the hands of people who choose their software based only on
+ technical advantage, not caring whether it respects their freedom.
+ There are people like Barr, that want their software &ldquo;free
+ from ideology&rdquo; and criticize anyone that says freedom matters.
+ There are people like Torvalds that will pressure our community into
+ use of a non-free program, and challenge anyone who complains to
+ provide a (technically) better program immediately or shut up.
+ There are people who say that technical decisions should not be
+ &ldquo;politicized&rdquo; by consideration of their social
+ consequences.</p>
+<p>
+ In the 70s, computer users lost the freedoms to redistribute and
+ change software because they didn't value their freedom. Computer
+ users regained these freedoms in the 80s and 90s because a group of
+ idealists, the GNU Project, believed that freedom is what makes a
+ program better, and were willing to work for what we believed in.</p>
+<p>
+ We have partial freedom today, but our freedom is not secure. It is
+ threatened by the <abbr title="Consumer Broadband and Digital
+ Television Promotion Act">CBDTPA</abbr>
+ (formerly <abbr title="Security Systems Standards and Certification Act">SSSCA</abbr>),
+ by the Broadcast &ldquo;Protection&rdquo; Discussion Group
+ (see <a href="http://www.eff.org/">http://www.eff.org/</a>) which
+ proposes to prohibit free software to access digital TV broadcasts,
+ by software patents (Europe is now considering whether to have
+ software patents), by Microsoft nondisclosure agreements for vital
+ protocols, and by everyone who tempts us with a non-free program
+ that is &ldquo;better&rdquo; (technically) than available free
+ programs. We can lose our freedom again just as we lost it the
+ first time, if we don't care enough to protect it.</p>
+<p>
+ Will enough of us care? That depends on many things; among them,
+ how much influence the GNU Project has, and how much influence Linus
+ Torvalds has. The GNU Project says, &ldquo;Value your
+ freedom!&rdquo;. Joe Barr says, &ldquo;Choose between non-free and
+ free programs on technical grounds alone!&rdquo;. If people credit
+ Torvalds as the main developer of the GNU/Linux system, that's not
+ just inaccurate, it also makes his message more
+ influential&mdash;and that message says, &ldquo;Non-free software is
+ ok; I use it and develop it myself.&rdquo; If they recognize our
+ role, they will listen to us more, and the message we will give them
+ is, &ldquo;This system exists because of people who care about
+ freedom. Join us, value your freedom, and together we can preserve
+ it.&rdquo;
+ See <a href="/gnu/thegnuproject.html">http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html</a>
+ for the history.</p>
+<p>
+ When I ask people to call the system GNU/Linux, some of them respond
+ with <a href="/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html"> silly excuses and straw men</a>.
+ But we probably haven't lost
+ anything, because they were probably unfriendly to begin with.
+ Meanwhile, other people recognize the reasons I give, and use that
+ name. By doing so, they help make other people aware of why the
+ GNU/Linux system really exists, and that increases our ability to
+ spread the idea that freedom is an important value.</p>
+<p>
+ This is why I keep butting my head against bias, calumny, and grief.
+ They hurt my feelings, but when successful, this effort helps the GNU
+ Project campaign for freedom.</p>
+<p>
+ Since this came up in the context of Linux (the kernel) and Bitkeeper,
+ the non-free version control system that Linus Torvalds now uses, I'd
+ like to address that issue as well.</p>
+
+<h3 id="bitkeeper">Bitkeeper issue</h3>
+<p>
+ (See the <a href="#update">update</a> below.)</p>
+<p>
+ The use of Bitkeeper for the Linux sources has a grave effect on the
+ free software community, because anyone who wants to closely track
+ patches to Linux can only do it by installing that non-free program.
+ There must be dozens or even hundreds of kernel hackers who have done
+ this. Most of them are gradually convincing themselves that it is ok
+ to use non-free software, in order to avoid a sense of cognitive
+ dissonance about the presence of Bitkeeper on their machines. What
+ can be done about this?</p>
+<p>
+ One solution is to set up another repository for the Linux sources,
+ using CVS or another free version control system, and arranging to
+ load new versions into it automatically. This could use Bitkeeper to
+ access the latest revisions, then install the new revisions into CVS.
+ That update process could run automatically and frequently.</p>
+<p>
+ The FSF cannot do this, because we cannot install Bitkeeper on our
+ machines. We have no non-free systems or applications on them now,
+ and our principles say we must keep it that way. Operating this
+ repository would have to be done by someone else who is willing to
+ have Bitkeeper on his machine, unless someone can find or make a way
+ to do it using free software.</p>
+<p>
+ The Linux sources themselves have an even more serious problem with
+ non-free software: they actually contain some. Quite a few device
+ drivers contain series of numbers that represent firmware programs to
+ be installed in the device. These programs are not free software. A
+ few numbers to be deposited into device registers are one thing; a
+ substantial program in binary is another.</p>
+<p>
+ The presence of these binary-only programs in &ldquo;source&rdquo;
+ files of Linux creates a secondary problem: it calls into question
+ whether Linux binaries can legally be redistributed at all. The GPL
+ requires &ldquo;complete corresponding source code,&rdquo; and a
+ sequence of integers is not the source code. By the same token,
+ adding such a binary to the Linux sources violates the GPL.</p>
+<p>
+ The Linux developers have a plan to move these firmware programs
+ into separate files; it will take a few years to mature, but when
+ completed it will solve the secondary problem; we could make a
+ &ldquo;free Linux&rdquo; version that doesn't have the non-free
+ firmware files. That by itself won't do much good if most people
+ use the non-free &ldquo;official&rdquo; version of Linux. That may
+ well occur, because on many platforms the free version won't run
+ without the non-free firmware. The &ldquo;free Linux&rdquo; project
+ will have to figure out what the firmware does and write source code
+ for it, perhaps in assembler language for whatever embedded
+ processor it runs on. It's a daunting job. It would be less
+ daunting if we had done it little by little over the years, rather
+ than letting it mount up. In recruiting people to do this job, we
+ will have to overcome the idea, spread by some Linux developers,
+ that the job is not necessary.</p>
+<p>
+ Linux, the kernel, is often thought of as the flagship of free
+ software, yet its current version is partially non-free. How did
+ this happen? This problem, like the decision to use Bitkeeper,
+ reflects the attitude of the original developer of Linux, a person
+ who thinks that &ldquo;technically better&rdquo; is more important
+ than freedom.</p>
+<p>
+ Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history.
+ &ldquo;Don't bother us with politics,&rdquo; respond those who don't
+ want to learn.</p>
+
+<p id="update">
+ <strong>Update:</strong> Since 2005, BitKeeper
+ is no longer used to manage the Linux kernel source tree. See the
+ article, <a href="/philosophy/mcvoy.html">Thank You, Larry
+ McVoy</a>. The Linux sources still contain non-free firmware blobs,
+ but as of January 2008,
+ a <a href="//directory.fsf.org/project/linux"> free version of
+ Linux</a> is now maintained for use in free GNU/Linux
+ distributions.</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
+ our web pages, see <a
+ href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+ README</a>. -->
+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>
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2002, 2017, 2019 Richard M. Stallman</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/bottom-notes.html" -->
+
+<p class="unprintable">Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2019/12/30 11:28:30 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>