taler-merchant-demos

install-fest-devil.html (9996B)

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 <h2>Install Fests: What to Do about the Deal with the Devil</h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by Richard Stallman</address>
 
 <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&mdash;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 &ldquo;The Devil,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;selling their souls&rdquo;
 if they install nonfree software&mdash;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&mdash;installing
 nonfree software&mdash;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>
 
 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary">
 <hr />
 <p>Published for <a href="https://libreplanet.org/2019">
 LibrePlanet March 23/24 2019</a></p>
 </div>
 
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 2019, 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: 2021/09/05 09:34:34 $
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