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fs-and-sustainable-development.html (5665B)

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 <h2>Free Software and Sustainable Development</h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
 
 <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 &ldquo;plans&rdquo; 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>
 
 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary">
 <hr />
 <p>First published on <a
 href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060623003714/http://www.insnet.org/ins_headlines.rxml?cust=212&amp;id=967">
 insnet.org</a> in 2005.</p>
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 2005, 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:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
 $Date: 2021/09/09 20:25:34 $
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