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free-software-rocket.html (9935B)

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 <title>Should Rockets Have Only Free Software? Free Software and Appliances
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Should Rockets Have Only Free Software? Free Software and Appliances
 </h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
 
 <p>Could there be a rocket that is totally free software?  Should we
 demand that SpaceX liberate the software in its satellite launching
 rockets?  I don't think the person who asked me this was serious, but
 answering that question may illuminate similar issues about the sorts
 of products people really buy today.</p>
 
 <p>As far as I know, software as such is not capable of generating
 thrust.  A rocket is necessarily principally a physical device, so it
 can't literally <em>be</em> free software.  But it may include
 computerized control and telemetry systems, and thus software.</p>
 
 <p>If someone offered to sell me a rocket, I would treat it like any
 other appliance.  Consider, for instance, a thermostat.  If it
 contains software to be modified, all the software in it needs to be
 free, and I alone should have the authority to decide whether to
 install some change.  If, however, the software in it is not meant
 ever to be altered, and it communicates <em>only</em> through some
 limited interface, such as buttons on the control panel, a TV remote
 control, or a USB interface with a fixed set of commands, I would not
 consider it crucial to know what is inside the thermostat: whether it
 contains a special-purpose chip, or a processor running code, makes no
 direct difference to me as user.  If it does contain code, it might as
 well have a special chip instead, so I don't need to care which it
 is.</p>
 
 <p>I would object if that thermostat sent someone data about my
 activities, regardless of how that was implemented.  Once again,
 special chip or special code makes no direct difference.  Free
 software in it could give me a way to turn off the surveillance, but
 that is not the only way.  Another is by disconnecting its digital
 communication antennas, or switching them off.</p>
 
 <p>If the rocket contains software, releasing that as free software can
 be a contribution to the community, and we should appreciate that
 contribution&mdash;but that is a different issue.  Such release also
 makes it possible for people who have bought the rockets to work on
 improving the software in them, though the irreversible nature of many
 rocket failures may discourage tinkering.</p>
 
 <p>Readers have pointed out that SpaceX has
 received <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/18/18683455/nasa-space-angels-contracts-government-investment-spacex-air-force">important
 financial support from the US government</a> to develop its rockets.
 By rights, accepting this support should require SpaceX to release the
 rocket software under a free license, even if it uses that software
 only inside its own rockets.</p>
 
 <p>Given the experience of Tesla cars, which are full of surveillance and
 tracking malware that Tesla can change but the owner can't, I suppose
 SpaceX rockets have that too.  If someday rockets are sold like today's
 cars and tractors, <a 
 href="/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html">software in
 them would be unjust</a>, and it would <a
 href="/proprietary/proprietary.html">probably be malware</a>.  If the
 manufacturer could install modified software in it but the owner could
 not, that too would be unjust.  People are starting to recognize this:
 look at the right-to-repair movement, which demands only the beginning
 of these freedoms (much less than freeing the car's software) and
 nonetheless faces a hard fight.</p>
 
 <p>However, I don't think SpaceX sells rockets; I think it provides the
 service of launching payloads in its own rockets.  That makes the
 issue totally different: if you are a customer, you're not operating
 the rocket; SpaceX is doing that.</p>
 
 <p>The rocket that SpaceX uses is not like your own car or van, or even a
 car or van leased to you.  Rather, it's comparable to a moving
 company's van that is, for the moment, transporting your books and
 furniture to your specified destination.  It is the moving company
 that deserves control over the software in that van&mdash;not the
 customer of the moment.</p>
 
 <p>It makes sense to treat the job of transporting your things to Outer
 Mongolia, or to outer space, as a service because the job is mostly
 self-contained and mostly independent of the customer (&ldquo;mostly&rdquo;
 does not mean &ldquo;absolutely&rdquo; or &ldquo;100%&rdquo;),
 so the instructions for the job are simple (take these boxes to address
 A by date D).</p>
 
 <p>If SpaceX has released the rocket software under a free license,
 that would give you the right to make, use and distribute modified
 versions, but would not give you the right to modify the code running
 in SpaceX's rocket.</p>
 
 <p>But there is a kind of activity which a hypothetical future
 spaceship might do, which should never be treated as a service: private
 computational activity.  That's because a private computational
 activity is exactly what you could do on your own computer in freedom,
 given suitable free software.</p>
 
 <p>When a program's task is to do computing for you, you are entitled to
 demand control over what it does and how, not just that it obey your
 orders as it interprets them.  You are entitled, in other words, to
 use your own copy of a free program, running on a computer you
 control.</p>
 
 <p>No wonder there are companies that would like you to cede control over
 your computing activities to them, by labeling those activities as
 &ldquo;services&rdquo; to be done on their servers with programs that they
 control.  Even things as minutely directed by the user as text
 editing!  This is a scheme to get you to substitute their power for
 your freedom.  We call that &ldquo;Service as a Software
 Substitute,&rdquo; SaaSS for short (see
 &ldquo;<a href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">Who
 does that server really serve?</a>&rdquo;), and we reject it.</p>
 
 <p>For instance, imagine a hypothetical SpaceX Smart Spaceship, which as
 a &ldquo;service&rdquo; wants to know all about your business so SpaceX servers
 can decide for you what cargoes to buy and sell on which planets.
 That planning service would be SaaSS&mdash;therefore a dis-service.
 Instead of using that dis-service, you should do that planning with
 your copy of free software on your own computer.</p>
 
 <p>SpaceX and others could then legitimately offer you the
 non-computational service of transporting cargoes, and you could use
 it sometimes; or you could choose some other method, perhaps to buy a
 spaceship and operate it yourself.</p>
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 2020, 2021 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: 2021/09/14 16:25:47 $
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