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<title>Pavia Doctoral Address: Innovation Is Secondary When Freedom Is
at Stake - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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<h2>Pavia Doctoral Address: Innovation Is Secondary When Freedom Is at
Stake</h2>

<address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>

<div class="infobox">
<p>On September 24th, 2007, Richard Stallman received an 
<i>honoris causa</i> doctorate in Computer Engineering from the <a 
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111004234138/http://www.unipv.eu/on-line/Home/Ateneo/Organidigoverno/Rettore/articolo1229.html">University of Pavia</a>, Italy. Stallman began by 
criticizing the overvaluing of innovation as a response to previous 
speakers at the same event.</p> 

<p>Here is the speech that he gave at the ceremony, transcribed by 
Alessandro Rubini.</p>
</div>
<hr class="thin" />

<p>Innovation can create riches, and once in a while those riches can
lead to general economic prosperity, especially if you don't have 
neo-liberal economics to impede the result.</p>

<p>But innovation affects things much more important than riches or even
economic prosperity.  Democracy was an innovation, fascism was an
innovation.  Today, in Italy, we see the innovation of placing criminal 
charges against fishermen for saving people from drowning in the 
sea&#8239;<a href="#Note1" id="Note1-rev">[1]</a>. 
Innovations can directly affect our freedom, which is more important than  
anything else.  Innovation can affect social solidarity, for good or for 
ill.</p>

<p>So when we consider technical progress in computers or in software,
the most important question to ask is: How does this affect our freedom?  
How does this affect our social solidarity? Technically speaking, it's 
progress, but is it really progress in social and ethical terms, or is it 
the opposite?</p>

<p>During my career in programming, as computers developed from something 
used by a few specialists and enthusiasts into something that most people 
use, there has been tremendous technical progress and it was accompanied by 
ghastly social and ethical regression.  In fact, nearly everyone who uses 
computers began using them under a social system that can only be described 
as dictatorship.</p>

<p>The developer of the program controls what it does.  If you use it, the 
developer controls what you can do, and what you can't do. And controls 
what it does to you.  So that the software that you think is yours is not 
there to serve you.  It is there to control you. Companies such as 
Microsoft and Apple designed their software specifically to restrict you.</p>

<p>Windows Vista is primarily an advance in how to restrict the user, which 
is why we have the badvista.org campaign.  And when this is over, outside 
the building I will offer you stickers from that campaign, if you wish to 
help teach people why they shouldn't downgrade to Vista.</p>

<p>Apple designs software specifically to restrict the users.  It's known 
as &ldquo;Digital Restrictions Management,&rdquo; or DRM.  We have helped 
protests against Apple just as we helped protests against Microsoft.  See 
the site defectivebydesign.org for more information and for how to 
participate.</p>

<p>Google designs software specifically to restrict the user.  That's the 
nature of the Google Earth client: it is made the way it is specifically to 
restrict the people who use it.  Obviously, it's not free software, because 
free software develops under the democratic control of its users.  With the 
four freedoms&mdash;the freedom to run the program as you wish, to study 
the source code and change it so the program does what you wish, the 
freedom to distribute exact copies to others (which is the freedom to help 
your neighbor), and the freedom to distribute copies of your modified 
version (which is the freedom to contribute to your community)&mdash;with 
these four freedoms the users, individually and collectively, are in 
charge.</p>

<p>And therefore free software cannot be designed to restrict the users.  
To design to restrict the user is only possible when there is a dictator, 
when someone has power to control what the program will do and what it 
won't do.  When the users have the control, when they can control their own 
computing, then nobody has the kind of power that would enable him to 
impose malicious features to restrict users or spy on users or attack 
users.  If you use MacOS or Windows Vista, you are completely at the mercy 
of that system's developer.  Those developers have the power to forcibly 
change your software in any way they like, whenever the machine is 
connected to the network.  The user no longer has even the chance to say 
yes or no.  The system is one big backdoor.</p>

<p>But with free software, <em>you</em> are in charge of what the computer 
will do.  So it will serve you, instead of subjugating you.  The question 
of free software is therefore <em>not</em> a technical question, it's an 
ethical, social and political question.  It's a question of the human 
rights that the users of software ought to have.</p>

<p>Proprietary software developers say, &ldquo;No rights, we are in 
control, we should be in control, we demand total power over what your
computer does; we will implement certain features and let you use them, but 
meanwhile we may spy on you as you use them and we can take them away at 
any time.&rdquo;  But free software developers respect your freedom, and 
this is the ethical obligation of every software developer: to respect the 
freedom of the users of that software. Making proprietary user-subjugating 
software sometimes is profitable, but it is never ethical, and it should 
never happen.</p>

<p>But it will be up to you to make that be true.  I, alone, can say these
things, but I, alone, cannot make them reality.  We must all work together 
to establish freedom and democracy for the users of software. And this 
freedom and democracy is now essential to enjoy freedom and democracy in 
other aspects of life.  Right now, some of the biggest Internet service 
providers in the United States are carrying out political censorship of 
email.  A major organization called <cite>truthout</cite>, whose website 
you may have seen, truthout.org, is being blocked from sending mail to 
their subscribers by Yahoo and Hotmail and WebTV.  And they have done this 
for more than a week, despite the complaints from many of the users of 
those companies.  Apparently they think they have gone beyond the point
where they have to care what anyone says about them.</p>

<p>All the forms of freedom that we hold dear are transformed when we carry 
out the relevant activities through computers.  We must <em>re</em>-found 
these freedoms in such a way that we can depend on them while we use 
digital technology.  An essential part of this re-foundation is insisting 
that the software we use be under our control.</p>

<p>Not everyone wants to be a programmer, not everyone will learn
personally how to study the source code and change it.  But in a world 
where your software is free, you can, if you feel it necessary, hire someone 
else to change it for you.  You can persuade your cousin programmer to 
change it for you if you say it's really important.  You can join together 
with other users and pool your funds to hire a programmer.  And the simple 
fact that there are millions of programmers who can study and change the 
software will mean that if the software is malicious, almost certainly 
somebody else, who has the requisite skills, will find that and correct it, 
and you will get the corrected version without any special effort of your 
own.  So we all benefit, programmers and non-programmers alike, from the 
freedoms that free software grants to us.  The freedom to cooperate and the 
freedom to control our own lives personally.  They go together because both 
of them are the opposite of being under the power of the dictatorial
software developer that unilaterally make decisions that nobody else can 
change.</p>

<p>Free software has a special connection with universities&mdash;and 
indeed all schools of all levels&mdash;because free software supports 
education, proprietary software forbids education.  There is no
compatibility between education and proprietary software, not at the
ethical level.</p>

<p>The source code and the methods of free software are part of human
knowledge.  The mission of every school is to disseminate human knowledge.  
Proprietary software is not part of human knowledge. It's secret, 
restricted knowledge which schools are not allowed to disseminate.  Schools 
that recognize this exclude proprietary software from their grounds.  And 
this is what every school should do.  Not only to save money, which is an 
obvious advantage that will appeal immediately to many school 
administrators, but for ethical reasons as well.  For instance, why do many 
proprietary software developers offer discounts, or even gratis copies of 
their nonfree software to schools and students?</p>

<p>I'm told that Microsoft offered a discount to those who wish to accept 
the shiny new chains of Windows Vista to the employees of this university.  
Why would they do such a thing?  Is it because they wish to contribute to 
education?  Obviously not.  Rather, Microsoft and other similar companies 
wish to convert the university into an instrument for imposing the 
dependency on the user-subjugating software on society as a whole.  They 
figured that if they get their software into schools, then students will 
learn to use it, and become dependent on it.  They will develop a 
dependency.  And thus after they graduate you can be sure that Microsoft 
and these other companies would no longer offer them discounted copies.  
And especially, the companies that these former students go to work for 
will not be offered discounted copies.  So, the software developers push on 
the schools, then push on arresting society and push it deep into a pit.
This is not something schools should do.  This is the opposite of the
mission of the school, which is to build a strong, capable, independent and 
free society.  Schools should teach their students to be citizens of a 
strong, capable, independent and free society.  And this means teaching 
them to use free software, not proprietary software.  So none of the 
classes in this university should teach proprietary software.</p>

<p>For those who will be great programmers, there is another reason why
their schools must teach and use free software.  Because when they get to 
the age of 13 or so, they are fascinated with software and they want to 
learn everything about how their computer and their system are functioning.  
So they will ask the teacher, &ldquo;How does this work?,&rdquo; and if 
this is proprietary software, the teacher has to say, &ldquo;I'm sorry, 
it's a secret, you can't find out.&rdquo;  So there is no room for 
education.  But if it's free software, the teacher can explain the basic 
subject and then say, &ldquo;Here is the source code, read this and you'll 
understand everything.&rdquo;  And those programmers will read the whole 
source code because they are fascinated, and this way they will learn
something very important: how to write software well.  They don't need to 
be taught how to program, because for them programming is obvious, but 
writing good code is a different story.  You have to learn that by reading 
lots of code and writing lots of code.  Only free software provides that 
opportunity.</p>

<p>But there is a particular reason, for the sake of education in good
citizenship.  You see, schools must teach not just facts, not just skills, 
but above all the spirit of good will, the habit of helping your neighbor.  
So every class, at every level, should have this rule: &ldquo;Students, if 
you bring software to class, you may not keep it for yourself, you must 
share copies with the rest of the class.&rdquo;</p>

<p>However, the school has to practice its own rule; it has to set a good
example.  So every school should bring only free software to class, and set 
an example with its software of the practice of disseminating human 
knowledge while building a strong, capable, independent and free society.  
And encouraging the spirit of good will, of helping other people.  Every 
school must migrate to free software, and I call on you, those of you who 
are faculty, or staff, or students of this university, to work together to 
bring about the migration of this university to free software, completely 
to free software, within a few years.  It <em>can</em> be done in a few 
years; it requires taking a substantial step each year.  Other universities 
are doing this or have done it, you can do it too.  You only have to reject 
social inertia as a valid reason for going deeper and deeper into the 
pit.</p>

<p>For those of you who are interested, after we leave this hall and this
ceremony, outside I will have various things from the Free Software
Foundation that you might be interested in.  And you can support the Free 
Software Foundation by going to fsf.org and become an associate member.  
For more information about the free software movement and the GNU operating 
system, and for where to find the entirely free distributions of the 
GNU/Linux operating system please look at gnu.org.</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>
<div class="column-limit"></div>

<h3 class="footnote">Footnote</h3>

<p> <a href="#Note1-rev" id="Note1">[1]</a>
Shortly before Stallman's award ceremony, some Tunisian fishermen who had 
rescued shipwrecked migrants at sea were <a 
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210115214946/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45439513">
arrested in Italy</a> on charges of facilitating illegal immigration.</p>
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<p>Copyright &copy; 2007, 2022 Richard Stallman</p>

<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
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