my_doom.html (7554B)
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="essays upholding action" --> 5 <!--#set var="DISABLE_TOP_ADDENDUM" value="yes" --> 6 <title>MyDoom and You 7 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title> 8 <!--#include virtual="/philosophy/po/my_doom.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!--GNUN: OUT-OF-DATE NOTICE--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>MyDoom and You</h2> 15 16 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard 17 Stallman</a></address> 18 19 <p> 20 I grew up in a community whose other members sometimes committed crimes as 21 serious as murder. The city of New York, with its 8 million 22 inhabitants, had hundreds of murders each year, mostly committed by 23 people who lived in the city. Violent assaults and robberies were 24 even more common.</p> 25 <p> 26 Other evils involving information rather than physical violence were 27 common also. For instance, some New York police regularly lied on the 28 witness stand, and even made up a word for it: instead of 29 “testifying,” they described court appearances as 30 “testilying.” Some New York programmers fell into the 31 lawful but socially destructive practice of proprietary software: they 32 offered other people attractive software packages without source code, 33 and exacted a promise not to share them with anyone else.</p> 34 <p> 35 Despite these prevalent evils, never in my life have I seen anyone try 36 to condemn all New Yorkers on the basis of the wrongs that only some 37 have committed. I have not seen anyone assume that all the citizens of 38 New York are guilty of murder, violence, robbery, perjury, or writing 39 proprietary software. People are aware that the mere fact that some 40 New Yorkers were known to have done these things is no justification 41 for treating all of us as guilty. That would be “guilt by 42 association,” and people know that is unjust.</p> 43 <p> 44 I now live in the 45 smaller city of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Murder and robbery occur 46 here, too; I do not know if Cambridge police regularly lie in court, 47 but proprietary software is rife. Nonetheless, I have never seen 48 anyone try to condemn the whole city of Cambridge for this. Here, too, 49 people recognize that guilt by association is an injustice.</p> 50 <p> 51 However, people don't always remember to apply the principle. My 52 virtual community, the free software community which I have helped to 53 build since 1984 by developing the GNU operating system, is 54 now the victim of a campaign of guilt by association. A number of 55 articles—I have seen some—have tried to hold our entire 56 community guilty for the development of the MyDoom virus.</p> 57 <p> 58 We can be pretty sure that some New Yorkers have committed murder, 59 because they have been tried and convicted for it. We do not know 60 whether anyone in the free software community participated in the 61 development of MyDoom. The developers have not been identified; they 62 know who they are, but you and I can only speculate. We could 63 speculate that users of GNU/Linux developed the virus to attack SCO. 64 We could speculate that Microsoft developed the virus so it would be 65 blamed on us. We could speculate that disgruntled former SCO 66 employees developed the virus to get even. But there is no evidence 67 for any of these speculations.</p> 68 <p> 69 If some day we find out that those who developed the virus were free 70 software users, then my virtual community will be in the same 71 situation as New York City and Cambridge: proved to have had some 72 members who acted destructively.</p> 73 <p> 74 This should not surprise anyone. The free software community numbers 75 in the tens of millions, larger than New York or even Shanghai. It is 76 hardly to be expected that so many people would all be ethical. Our 77 community is self-selected for at least partial rejection of one 78 unethical practice, proprietary software, but even that doesn't 79 guarantee perfection. The presence of a few wrongdoers among many 80 millions is no surprise—and no excuse for guilt by 81 association.</p> 82 <p> 83 I am confident that nearly all readers of this article have nothing to 84 do with developing the MyDoom virus. So if someone is accusing you, 85 don't act defensive. You have no more to do with the virus than 86 your accuser, so stand tall and say so.</p> 87 <p> 88 If anyone has knowledge or evidence about who developed the virus, I 89 hope he or she will come forth and make an accusation against specific 90 people based on specific proof. But nobody should make accusations 91 without proof, and there is no excuse for guilt by association. 92 Not in New York, not in Cambridge, and not in the Free World.</p> 93 </div> 94 95 </div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above --> 96 <!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" --> 97 <div id="footer" role="contentinfo"> 98 <div class="unprintable"> 99 100 <p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to <a 101 href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>. There are also <a 102 href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a> the FSF. 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