lessig-fsfs-intro.html (14228B)
1 <!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" --> 2 <!-- Parent-Version: 1.96 --> 3 <!-- This page is derived from /server/standards/boilerplate.html --> 4 <!--#set var="TAGS" value="thirdparty" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>Introduction to Free Software, Free Society 7 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/lessig-fsfs-intro.translist" --> 9 <!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" --> 10 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/ph-breadcrumb.html" --> 11 <!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--> 12 <!--#include virtual="/server/top-addendum.html" --> 13 <div class="article reduced-width"> 14 <h2>Introduction to 15 <cite>Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of 16 Richard M. Stallman</cite></h2> 17 18 <address class="byline"> 19 by Lawrence Lessig <a href="#lessig"><sup>[*]</sup></a> 20 </address> 21 22 <p> 23 Every generation has its philosopher—a writer or an artist who 24 captures the imagination of a time. Sometimes these philosophers are 25 recognized as such; often it takes generations before the connection 26 is made real. But recognized or not, a time gets marked by the people 27 who speak its ideals, whether in the whisper of a poem, or the blast 28 of a political movement. 29 </p> 30 <p> 31 Our generation has a philosopher. He is not an artist, or a 32 professional writer. He is a programmer. Richard Stallman began his 33 work in the labs of <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</abbr>, 34 as a programmer and architect building operating system software. He 35 has built his career on a stage of public life, as a programmer and an 36 architect founding a movement for freedom in a world increasingly 37 defined by “code.” 38 </p> 39 <p> 40 “Code” is the technology that makes computers run. Whether 41 inscribed in software or burned in hardware, it is the collection of 42 instructions, first written in words, that directs the functionality 43 of machines. These machines—computers—increasingly 44 define and control our life. They determine how phones connect, and 45 what runs on TV. They decide whether video can be streamed across a 46 broadband link to a computer. They control what a computer reports 47 back to its manufacturer. These machines run us. Code runs these 48 machines. 49 </p> 50 <p> 51 What control should we have over this code? What understanding? What 52 freedom should there be to match the control it enables? What power? 53 </p> 54 <p> 55 These questions have been the challenge of Stallman's life. Through 56 his works and his words, he has pushed us to see the importance of 57 keeping code “free.” Not free in the sense that code 58 writers don't get paid, but free in the sense that the control coders 59 build be transparent to all, and that anyone have the right to take 60 that control, and modify it as he or she sees fit. This is “free 61 software”; “free software” is one answer to a world 62 built in code. 63 </p> 64 <p> 65 “Free.” Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own 66 term. There's nothing to lament. Puzzles force people to think, and 67 this term “free” does this puzzling work quite well. To 68 modern American ears, “free software” sounds utopian, 69 impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most 70 important words running the most critical machines running the world 71 be “free”? How could a sane society aspire to such an 72 ideal? 73 </p> 74 <p> 75 Yet the odd clink of the word “free” is a function of us, 76 not of the term. “Free” has different senses, only one of 77 which refers to “price.” A much more fundamental sense of 78 “free” is the “free,” Stallman says, in the 79 term “free speech,” or perhaps better in the term 80 “free labor.” Not free as in costless, but free as in 81 limited in its control by others. Free software is control that is 82 transparent, and open to change, just as free laws, or the laws of a 83 “free society,” are free when they make their control 84 knowable, and open to change. The aim of Stallman's “free 85 software movement” is to make as much code as it can 86 transparent, and subject to change, by rendering it 87 “free.” 88 </p> 89 <p> 90 The mechanism of this rendering is an extraordinarily clever device 91 called “copyleft” implemented through a license called 92 GPL. Using the power of copyright law, “free software” not 93 only assures that it remains open, and subject to change, but that 94 other software that takes and uses “free software” (and 95 that technically counts as a “derivative work”) must also 96 itself be free. If you use and adapt a free software program, and 97 then release that adapted version to the public, the released version 98 must be as free as the version it was adapted from. It must, or the 99 law of copyright will be violated. 100 </p> 101 <p> 102 “Free software,” like free societies, has its 103 enemies. Microsoft has waged a war against the GPL, warning whoever 104 will listen that the GPL is a “dangerous” license. The 105 dangers it names, however, are largely illusory. Others object to the 106 “coercion” in GPL's insistence that modified versions are 107 also free. But a condition is not coercion. If it is not coercion for 108 Microsoft to refuse to permit users to distribute modified versions of 109 its product Office without paying it (presumably) millions, then it is 110 not coercion when the GPL insists that modified versions of free 111 software be free too. 112 </p> 113 <p> 114 And then there are those who call Stallman's message too extreme. But 115 extreme it is not. Indeed, in an obvious sense, Stallman's work is a 116 simple translation of the freedoms that our tradition crafted in the 117 world before code. “Free software” would assure that the 118 world governed by code is as “free” as our tradition that 119 built the world before code. 120 </p> 121 <p> 122 For example: A “free society” is regulated by law. But 123 there are limits that any free society places on this regulation 124 through law: No society that kept its laws secret could ever be called 125 free. No government that hid its regulations from the regulated could 126 ever stand in our tradition. Law controls. But it does so justly only 127 when visibly. And law is visible only when its terms are knowable and 128 controllable by those it regulates, or by the agents of those it 129 regulates (lawyers, legislatures). 130 </p> 131 <p> 132 This condition on law extends beyond the work of a legislature. Think 133 about the practice of law in American courts. Lawyers are hired by 134 their clients to advance their clients' interests. Sometimes that 135 interest is advanced through litigation. In the course of this 136 litigation, lawyers write briefs. These briefs in turn affect opinions 137 written by judges. These opinions decide who wins a particular case, 138 or whether a certain law can stand consistently with a constitution. 139 </p> 140 <p> 141 All the material in this process is free in the sense that Stallman 142 means. Legal briefs are open and free for others to use. The 143 arguments are transparent (which is different from saying they are 144 good) and the reasoning can be taken without the permission of the 145 original lawyers. The opinions they produce can be quoted in later 146 briefs. They can be copied and integrated into another brief or 147 opinion. The “source code” for American law is by design, 148 and by principle, open and free for anyone to take. And take lawyers 149 do—for it is a measure of a great brief that it achieves its 150 creativity through the reuse of what happened before. The source is 151 free; creativity and an economy is built upon it. 152 </p> 153 <p> 154 This economy of free code (and here I mean free legal code) doesn't 155 starve lawyers. Law firms have enough incentive to produce great 156 briefs even though the stuff they build can be taken and copied by 157 anyone else. The lawyer is a craftsman; his or her product is 158 public. Yet the crafting is not charity. Lawyers get paid; the public 159 doesn't demand such work without price. Instead this economy 160 flourishes, with later work added to the earlier. 161 </p> 162 <p> 163 We could imagine a legal practice that was different—briefs 164 and arguments that were kept secret; rulings that announced a result 165 but not the reasoning. Laws that were kept by the police but 166 published to no one else. Regulation that operated without explaining 167 its rule. 168 </p> 169 <p> 170 We could imagine this society, but we could not imagine calling it 171 “free.” Whether or not the incentives in such a society 172 would be better or more efficiently allocated, such a society could 173 not be known as free. The ideals of freedom, of life within a free 174 society, demand more than efficient application. Instead, openness 175 and transparency are the constraints within which a legal system gets 176 built, not options to be added if convenient to the leaders. Life 177 governed by software code should be no less. 178 </p> 179 <p> 180 Code writing is not litigation. It is better, richer, more 181 productive. But the law is an obvious instance of how creativity and 182 incentives do not depend upon perfect control over the products 183 created. Like jazz, or novels, or architecture, the law gets built 184 upon the work that went before. This adding and changing is what 185 creativity always is. And a free society is one that assures that its 186 most important resources remain free in just this sense. 187 </p> 188 <p> 189 For the first time, this book collects the writing and lectures of 190 Richard Stallman in a manner that will make their subtlety and power 191 clear. The essays span a wide range, from copyright to the history of 192 the free software movement. They include many arguments not well 193 known, and among these, an especially insightful account of the 194 changed circumstances that render copyright in the digital world 195 suspect. They will serve as a resource for those who seek to 196 understand the thought of this most powerful man—powerful in 197 his ideas, his passion, and his integrity, even if powerless in every 198 other way. They will inspire others who would take these ideas, and 199 build upon them. 200 </p> 201 <p> 202 I don't know Stallman well. I know him well enough to know he is a 203 hard man to like. He is driven, often impatient. His anger can flare 204 at friend as easily as foe. He is uncompromising and persistent; 205 patient in both. 206 </p> 207 <p> 208 Yet when our world finally comes to understand the power and danger of 209 code—when it finally sees that code, like laws, or like 210 government, must be transparent to be free—then we will look 211 back at this uncompromising and persistent programmer and recognize 212 the vision he has fought to make real: the vision of a world where 213 freedom and knowledge survives the compiler. And we will come to see 214 that no man, through his deeds or words, has done as much to make 215 possible the freedom that this next society could have. 216 </p> 217 <p> 218 We have not earned that freedom yet. We may well fail in securing 219 it. But whether we succeed or fail, in these essays is a picture of 220 what that freedom could be. And in the life that produced these words 221 and works, there is inspiration for anyone who would, like Stallman, 222 fight to create this freedom. 223 </p> 224 225 <div class="infobox extra" role="complementary"> 226 <hr /> 227 <p id="lessig"> 228 [*] Lawrence Lessig was then Professor of Law at Stanford Law 229 School.</p> 230 </div> 231 232 <div class="edu-note c"><p id="fsfs">Learn more about 233 <a href="https://shop.fsf.org/product/free-software-free-society/"><cite>Free 234 Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard 235 M. Stallman</cite></a>.</p></div> 236 </div> 237 238 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 239 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 240 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 241 <div class="unprintable"> 242 243 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to 244 <a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. 245 There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> 246 the FSF. 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