1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
|
<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
<!-- Parent-Version: 1.77 -->
<title>It's not the Gates, it's the bars
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
<!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/gates.translist" -->
<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
<h2> It's not the Gates, it's the bars</h2>
<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/"><strong>Richard
Stallman</strong></a><br />
Founder, Free Software Foundation
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>(This article was <a
href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7487060.stm">published by
BBC News in 2008</a>.)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>To pay so much attention to Bill Gates' retirement is
missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor
Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that
Microsoft—like many other software companies—imposes on its
customers.</p>
<p>That statement may surprise you, since most people interested in
computers have strong feelings about Microsoft. Businessmen and their
tame politicians admire its success in building an empire over so many
computer users. Many outside the computer field credit Microsoft for
advances which it only took advantage of, such as making computers
cheap and fast, and convenient graphical user interfaces.</p>
<p>Gates' philanthropy for health care for poor countries has won
some people's good opinion. The LA Times reported that his
foundation spends five to 10% of its money annually and invests
the rest, sometimes in companies it suggests cause environmental
degradation and illness in the same poor countries.
(2010 update: The Gates Foundation is supporting a project with
agribusiness giant Cargill on a <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/29/gates-foundation-gm-monsanto">project
that could involve pushing genetically modified crops in Africa</a>.)</p>
<p>Many computerists specially hate Gates and Microsoft. They have
plenty of reasons. Microsoft persistently engages in anti-competitive
behaviour, and has been convicted three times. (Bush, who let
Microsoft off the hook for the second US conviction, was invited to
Microsoft headquarters to solicit funds for the 2000 election. In the
UK, Microsoft established a major office in Gordon Brown's
constituency. Both lawful, both potentially corrupting.)</p>
<p>Many users hate the “Microsoft tax”, the retail
contracts that make you pay for Windows on your computer even if you
won't use it. (In some countries you can get a refund, but the effort
required is daunting.) There's also the Digital Restrictions
Management: software features designed to “stop” you from
accessing your files freely. (Increased restriction of users seems to
be the main advance of Vista.)</p>
<p>Then there are the gratuitous incompatibilities and obstacles to
interoperation with other software. (This is why the EU required
Microsoft to publish interface specifications.) This year Microsoft
packed standards committees with its supporters to procure ISO
approval of its unwieldy, unimplementable and patented “open
standard” for documents. (The EU is now investigating this.)</p>
<p>These actions are intolerable, of course, but they are not
isolated events. They are systematic symptoms of a deeper wrong
which most people don't recognize: proprietary software.</p>
<p>Microsoft's software is distributed under licenses that keep
users divided and helpless. The users are divided because they
are forbidden to share copies with anyone else. The users are
helpless because they don't have the source code that programmers
can read and change.</p>
<p>If you're a programmer and you want to change the software, for
yourself or for someone else, you can't. If you're a business and you
want to pay a programmer to make the software suit your needs better,
you can't. If you copy it to share with your friend, which is simple
good-neighbourliness, they call you a “pirate”.
Microsoft would have us believe that helping your neighbour is the
moral equivalent of attacking a ship.</p>
<p>The most important thing that Microsoft has done is to promote this
unjust social system. Gates is personally identified with it, due to
his infamous open letter which rebuked microcomputer users for sharing
copies of his software. It said, in effect, “If you don't let me
keep you divided and helpless, I won't write the software and you
won't have any. Surrender to me, or you're lost!”</p>
<p>But Gates didn't invent proprietary software, and thousands of
other companies do the same thing. It's wrong—no matter who does
it. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and the rest, offer you software that
gives them power over you. A change in executives or companies is not
important. What we need to change is this system.</p>
<p>That's what the free software movement is all
about. “Free” refers to freedom: we write and publish
software that users are free to share and modify. We do this
systematically, for freedom's sake; some of us paid, many as
volunteers. We already have complete free operating systems, including
GNU/Linux. Our aim is to deliver a complete range of useful free
software, so that no computer user will be tempted to cede her freedom
to get software.</p>
<p>In 1984, when I started the free software movement, I was hardly
aware of Gates' letter. But I'd heard similar demands from others,
and I had a response: “If your software would keep us divided
and helpless, please don't write it. We are better off without
it. We will find other ways to use our computers, and preserve our
freedom.”</p>
<p>In 1992, when the GNU operating system was completed by the
kernel, Linux, you had to be a wizard to run it. Today GNU/Linux
is user-friendly: in parts of Spain and India, it's standard in
schools. Tens of millions use it, around the world. You can use
it too.</p>
<p>Gates may be gone, but the walls and bars of proprietary software
he helped create remain—for now. Dismantling them is up to
us.</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 & 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. Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></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">
<web-translators@gnu.org></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>
<!-- Regarding copyright, in general, standalone pages (as opposed to
files generated as part of manuals) on the GNU web server should
be under CC BY-ND 3.0 US. Please do NOT change or remove this
without talking with the webmasters or licensing team first.
Please make sure the copyright date is consistent with the
document. For web pages, it is ok to list just the latest year the
document was modified, or published.
If you wish to list earlier years, that is ok too.
Either "2001, 2002, 2003" or "2001-2003" are ok for specifying
years, as long as each year in the range is in fact a copyrightable
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
Information document, www.gnu.org/prep/maintain. -->
<p>Copyright © 2008 Richard Stallman</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 12:40:08 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|
