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<title>Install Fests - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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<h2>Install Fests: What to Do about the Deal with the Devil</h2>
<p>by Richard Stallman</p>
<blockquote><p>Published for <a href="https://libreplanet.org/2019">
LibrePlanet March 23/24 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Install fests invite users to bring their computers so that experts
can install GNU/Linux on them. This is meant to promote the
<em>idea</em> of free software as well as the <em>use</em> of free
software. In today's circumstances, where nonfree software dominates,
these two goals conflict: users that want to reject nonfree software
entirely need to choose their computers carefully to achieve that goal.</p>
<p>The problem is that most computers can't run with a completely free
GNU/Linux distro. They contain peripherals, or coprocessors, that
won't operate unless the installed system contains some nonfree drivers or
firmware. This happens because hardware manufacturers refuse to tell
us how to use their products, so that the only way to figure out how
is by reverse engineering, which in most cases has not yet been done.</p>
<p>This presents the install fest with a dilemma. If it upholds the
ideals of freedom, by installing only free software from
<a href="/distros/distros.html">100%-free distros</a>, partly-secret
machines won't become entirely functional and the users that bring
them will go away disappointed. However, if the install fest installs
nonfree distros and nonfree software which make machines entirely
function, it will fail to teach users to say no for freedom's sake.
They may learn to like GNU/Linux, but they won't learn what the free
software movement stands for. In effect, the install fest makes a
tacit deal with the devil that
suppresses <a href="/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html">the
free software movement's message about freedom and justice</a>.</p>
<p>The nonfree software means the user sacrifices freedom for
functionality. If users had to wrestle with this choice, they could
draw a moral lesson from it, and maybe get a better computer later.
But when the install fest makes the <a href="/philosophy/compromise.html">
compromise</a> on the user's behalf, it shelters the user from the
moral dimension; the user never sees that something other than
convenience is at stake. In effect, the install fest makes the deal
with the devil, on the user's behalf, behind a curtain so the user
doesn't recognize that it is one.</p>
<p>I propose that the install fest show users exactly what deal they are
making. Let them talk with the devil individually, learn the deal's
bad implications, then make a deal—or refuse!</p>
<p>As always, I call on the install fest itself to install only free
software, taking a strict stance. In this way it can set a clear
moral example of rejecting nonfree software.</p>
<p>My new idea is that the install fest could allow the devil to hang
around, off in a corner of the hall, or the next room. (Actually, a
human being wearing sign saying “The Devil,” and maybe a
toy mask or horns.) The devil would offer to install nonfree drivers
in the user's machine to make more parts of the computer function,
explaining to the user that the cost of this is using a nonfree
(unjust) program.</p>
<p>The install fest would tolerate the devil's presence but not
officially sponsor the devil, or publicize the devil's availability.
Therefore, the users who accept the devil's deal would clearly see
that the devil installed the nonfree drivers, not the install fest.
The install fest would not be morally compromised by the devil's
actions, so it could retain full moral authority when it talks about
the imperative for freedom.</p>
<p>Those users that get nonfree drivers would see what their moral cost
is, and that there are people in the community who refuse to pay that
cost. They would have the chance to reflect afterwards on the
situation that their flawed computers have put them in, and about how
to change that situation, in the small and in the large.</p>
<p>The install fest should offer advice to users that would like to
replace some of the machine's components with alternatives that do
support free software, and recommend commercial and noncommercial
sources of assistance including fsf.org/resources/hw for getting a
computer that works fully without nonfree drivers and blobs.</p>
<p>It should also suggest to these users that they send letters of
criticism to the companies that make or sell the components that
depend on nonfree software to function.</p>
<p>The install-fest devil has nothing to do with the cute BSD demon, and
the install fest should make that very clear. This issue concerns the
difference between various GNU/Linux distros, and is not about BSD.
Indeed, the same approach could be used for installation of BSD.</p>
<p>This devil would be a human being disguised to teach a moral lesson
with a theatrical metaphor, so let's not take the metaphor too far. I
think we would do well not to say that users are “selling their souls”
if they install nonfree software—rather, part of their own freedom
is what they forfeit. We don't need to exaggerate to teach the point
that trading your freedom for convenience (and leading others to do
the same) is
<a href="https://www.fsfla.org/circular/2007-02.en.html#1">
putting yourself in a moral jam</a>.</p>
<p>The devil's work would be something I don't approve of—installing
nonfree software—so I will not get involved in discussing the
practical details. But it is hard to trust a devil to do wrong only
within certain limits. What is to stop the devil from offering to
install a GNU/Linux distro such as Ubuntu, which offers the user other
attractive nonfree programs, not solely the ones needed for the
machine's hardware to function at all? Or even offering to install
Windows? The people who run the install fest should ask some users
what the devil did to their computers.</p>
<p>Isn't it morally better if the install fest doesn't allow the devil?
Certainly! The FSF will not let a devil hang around its events. But
given the fact that most install fests quietly play the role of the
devil, I think that an explicit devil would be less bad. It would
convert the install-fest dilemma from a debilitating contradiction
into a teaching experience. Users would be able to get, if they
insist, the nonfree drivers to make their peripherals run, then use
GNU/Linux knowing that there is <a
href="/philosophy/saying-no-even-once.html">a further step toward
freedom</a> that they should take.</p>
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