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<title>Free Software and Sustainable Development - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation</title>
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<h2>Free Software and Sustainable Development</h2>
<p>by <strong>Richard Stallman</strong></p>
<p><em>First published on <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060721162054/http://www.insnet.org/ins_headlines.rxml?cust=212&id=967">
insnet.org</a> in 2005.</em></p>
<p>Many organizations that aim to promote development by spreading the
use of computers make a fundamental mistake: they promote the use of
proprietary (nonfree) software. Using proprietary software is not
development; it makes society dependent, not strong.</p>
<p>Proprietary software such as MS Windows and the Macintosh system is
distributed in a scheme to keep the users divided and helpless. The
users are divided because each user is forbidden to share the program
with anyone else; they are helpless because the “plans” of the
software, the source code, are secret. Users can't feasibly change
the program, or even verify that it does what the developer says (and
not anything else that the developer didn't say).</p>
<p>The way to avoid being divided and helpless is to use free software.
Free software respects users' freedom. Specifically, free software
means users have four essential freedoms: they are free to run the
software, free to study its source code and change it to do what they
want, free to redistribute copies, and free to publish modified
versions. Free software is part of human knowledge.</p>
<p>Increasing the use of free software makes society more capable. Free
software can be freely used, understood, maintained and adapted by
local people anywhere in the world. This is true development.</p>
<p>By contrast, increasing use of proprietary software means deepening
society's dependency on a few corporations in rich countries.
Proprietary software is secret technology, which local people are
forbidden to understand, forbidden to maintain, forbidden to adapt,
and forbidden to extend. It can be used only under the direct control
of a single corporation, or else illegally. Dependence on proprietary
software is not development, it is electronic colonization.</p>
<p>For more information on free software and the popular GNU/Linux
operating system, see www.gnu.org.</p>
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<p>Copyright © 2005, 2017, 2018, 2019 Richard 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>
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<p class="unprintable">Updated:
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$Date: 2019/12/30 11:28:30 $
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