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why-programs-should-be-shared.html (5919B)

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 <title>Why Programs Should be Shared
 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
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 <h2>Why Programs Should be Shared</h2>
 
 <address class="byline">by <a href="https://www.stallman.org/">Richard
 Stallman</a></address>
 
 <div class="introduction">
     <p>Editor's note: This text was found in a file dated May
       1983, though it is not clear whether it was written then or earlier.
       In May 1983 Richard Stallman was privately considering plans to develop a
       free operating system, but he may not yet have decided to make it a
       Unix-like system rather than something like the MIT Lisp Machine.</p>
 
     <p>He had not yet conceptually distinguished the two meanings of
       &ldquo;free&rdquo;; this message is formulated in terms of gratis 
       copies, but take for granted that this means users also have freedom.</p>
 </div>
 <hr class="no-display" />
 
 <p>Five years ago one could take for granted that any useful program
 written at SAIL, MIT, CMU, etc. would be shared.  Since then, these
 universities have started acting just like software houses&mdash;everything
 useful will be sold for an arm and a leg (usually after being written
 at gov't expense).</p>
 
 <p>People find all sorts of excuses why it's harmful to give away
 software.  These supposed problems never bothered us back when we
 <em>wanted</em> to share, and haven't affected EMACS, so I suspect they are
 bogus.</p>
 
 <p>For example, people say that companies will &ldquo;steal&rdquo; it
 and sell it.  If so, that would be no worse than Stanford selling it!
 At least people would have the choice of getting a free copy.  Users
 want to buy maintained software?  Then let people sell service
 contracts&mdash;but give the software itself free.</p>
 
 <p>I think I can dispose of any reasons you may think exist
 for not sharing software.  But more important is the reason
 why we <em>should</em> share:</p>
 
 <p>We would get more done with the same amount of work, if
 artificial obstacles were removed.  And we would feel
 more in harmony with everyone else.</p>
 
 <p>Sharing software is the form that scientific cooperation
 takes in the field of computer science.  Universities used
 to defend the principle of scientific cooperation.
 Is it right for them to throw it over for profit?</p>
 
 <p>Should we let them?</p>
 
 <p>Right now graduate students here are working on programming
 projects that are specifically intended for sale.  But if
 we create a climate of opinion like that of five years ago,
 the university wouldn't dare to do this.  And if you start
 sharing, other people might start sharing with you.</p>
 
 <p>So let's start sharing again.</p>
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 <p>Copyright &copy; 1983, 2015, 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</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: 2021/11/28 07:45:37 $
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