Freedom or Power?

mpawlo writes: "As reported by Gnuheter, a new essay published by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard M. Stallman carries the title "Freedom or Power?". The authors state something that we might have suspected from essays from Kuhn and Stallman before, but now is a little more clear, if still ambiguous: "However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom." The essay is interesting in the light of an earlier essay published by Eric S Raymond. ... Tim O'Reilly started the debate with his weblog of July 28, 2001: My definition of freedom zero." Ed. note - FWIW, Stallman and Kuhn are right. Not necessarily in their advocacy of the GPL, but certainly in their description of whether licensing is freedom for the developer or power over others. All licensing stems from copyright law, a completely man-made creation whose sole purpose is to give the writer of creative works artificial power over what others do with those works. If you take the canonical description of freedom ("Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins") and apply it to software, it's pretty clear that true freedom would not let one person control what another does with software.

Comments

The freedom to swing your fist

[perdida]

ends where my face begins.

The fundamental problem with anarchism lies in this statement. Open Source's GPL itself requires a heirarchy to maintain it, although it was designed to fight a heirarchy.

You need a body of people who act similarly to the RIAA or whomever, investigating people's GPL licenses and behaviors with Open Source software and its derivatives.

Of course, the "GPL police" would wind up chasing large corporations or developers who wish to appropriate GPL'd tech in closed source projects. This would make them rather ineffective, due to the financial disparities between the OSS movement and corporations.

So, OSS is going to have to do what M$ does, and that is buy into the government through a lobbying system.

Re:The freedom to swing your fist

[Deskpoet]

So, OSS is going to have to do what M$ does, and that is buy into the government through a lobbying system.

One reason some anarchists revile Noam Chomsky is because he advocates such activities to achieve the ultimate goal of a hierarchal-less society: in effect, working from within the system to change it, which is inherently contradictory to the very concept of autonomous free zones, etc. (I don't follow this line of thinking myself, but the idea is out there.)

Your characterization of anarchism is unfounded; it is not about defining freedoms, it is about the expectation that human beings are not children to be sheparded through their lives by external conventions or traditional modes of living, thinking and feeling. Anarchism, as a mode of thought, simply expects people to be grown-ups. Most people who have anything to say about the subject--which is to say, most people who are not in any shape or form an anarchist--fail to notice this component of it in their mad rush to disavow any possibility that human beings can live this way.

If you're really seeking to understand "anarchy" from a workable economic perspective, go to parecon.org for more information.

Strange distinction.

[dinotrac]

I don't understand RMS's obsession with powerless freedom.

Any freedom that means something is, in some way, an expression of power.

The freedom to own my own home and house my family is meaningless unless I can exercise the power to keep others out.

The freedom to speak out against the government is empty unless there is power to prevent government censorship.

The GPL's guarantees of freedom to take, use, modify and distribute source code are meaningless without the power to enforce them.

Freedom without power is no freedom at all.

Re:Strange distinction.

[Pathos78]

Any freedom that means something is, in some way, an expression of power.

This is an oversimplification of the slave (user) view of power. As a master (developer), with power over others, granting freedom is a dissolution of power. As far as I can tell, the Tao De Ching, RMS and The Holy Reverend Polyfather feel this is the only justifiable use of power: giving it to others.

MS's use of power is the reverse: the concatenation of power, into larger pools controlled by smaller numbers of people. This reinforces the master/slave relationship, which ultimately devalues everyone involved.

The GPL is a powerful tool for creating freedom. Not everthing falls into a simple top-down heirarchy.

Plus your analogy to home defense is FUD. Is anyone brutally reverse engineering your code to rob you? If they are, is your EULA going to do a damn thing about it? How will you ever know for certain?

Freedom/Power

[the eric conspiracy]

Who appointed Stallman God? In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates, for they are both trying to dictate the terms under which we can distribute the software we write, or use the software we use that has been written by others.

I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.

When I use software from others I have to make a choice about what license provisions I will agree to. These days I have a lot of choices. I like it that way.

I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions in this regard - and I cannot stomach the idea of others trying to make them for me.

Re:Freedom/Power

[Uruk]

Who appointed Stallman God?

Nobody, of course you're free to ignore him.

In his own way he is just as bad as Bill Gates, for they are both trying to dictate the terms under which we can distribute the software we write, or use the software we use that has been written by others

The only thing he attempts to prevent people from doing is taking freedom away from other people.

I reject both of them for trying to control what I do with the code I write. When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.

One of the underlying assumptions that GNU has, (which I happen to agree with) is that programs are generally useful technical information, just like mathematical formulas or cooking recipies. If you invented a new way of doing math, would you think that you have the right come hell or high water to keep people from using it if you wanted to? Most people don't think so because they realize that math is something too important and too useful to let one person have a chokehold over. Same goes with programs.

So you reject someone dictating terms to you about how you distribute your program. I reject your bullshit laws that throw me in prison for helping a friend out by copying software, and your nonsense regulations telling me I can't use a common sense algorithm in my programs, that instead I am mandated by law to go around my elbow to get to my ass.

Re:Freedom/Power

[wfrp01]

When I write something, _I_ should have control under the provisions it is licensed under.

The question isn't really so much whether you should control the terms of the license, as whether being able to 'license' software has any validity, period. The question is whether society should reserve the right for developers to control how members of that society use the software they write and distribute. And yes, this 'right' to which you lay claim is not a law of nature, but a social construct.

It's very easy to understand why developers might prefer to retain control. What is not clear is whether and why society should prefer this arrangement. If society should give you this right, what does society gain in return?

Or is social progress irrelevant? Is there some legal precept paramount to the greater social good?

Offending the moderates

[banky]

I think RMS and the FSF are going to start losing ground, because they're going to fall into the trap of many politicians who want to change the world: they're going to offend the moderates.

I'm speaking as a USian, of course. As everyone knows, despite the media's obsession with polarized (right and left) politics, the US population is really a vast pool of people with relatively moderate views. Sure, some of them are sharply polarized about *issues* (abortion rights, the economy, whatever), but by and large, they're in the middle of the political spectrum. The first thing a candidate does is hit up his support of the issues while trying to not appear too far to one side, lest he offend the moderates.

There are a lot of people who like the GPL, because it prevents proprietary lock-in and helps create a sense of empowerment and community. The problem, I feel, is that once you put the GPL in your code, you're putting it (and yourself) into the "camp" of the FSF. You're now essentially signing on to the RMS/FSF game plan, even if all you wanted was to see your code not get folded into a proprietary product, and let as many people as possible play with things.

MS kept saying, once you start down the path of the GPL, there's no going back. I hate to say it, but maybe they're right. For all their talk about a software "ecosystem", contrasted against stuff like this, it makes me think they (MS) might have been right after all.

Re:Offending the moderates

[mangu]

MS kept saying, once you start down the path of the GPL, there's no going back.

But, wait, doesn't the copyright owner have the power to put the work in the public domain? Or under another licence?

Is there anything in the GPL that says I can't give my work to Peter under the GPL and to Paul under the BSD licence? (And to Bill under the MS-EULA, of course... :)

Re:By your silly definition, Mr. Editor,

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't be thrown in jail for murdering a bus full of kids.

It depends on how you murder the bus. If you put the bus inside a compactor then yes, the kids will die and you should go to jail. If you just climb on the bus, hit the floor with your fists a dozen times, and proclaim "the bus is dead now", you will hardly be thrown in jail for making the kids laugh.

Re:By your silly definition, Mr. Editor,

[Billly Gates]

"However. If I write software, with my time, and my effort, then nobody is going to tell ME under what terms I may let someone else use it. Period.". Agreed. I view freedom = power. Not freedom vs power. I think what Stallman really means is who has the power? You as teh developer or the user. Most companies like Microsoft and IBM want to have power over the their software. But this comes at an expense to the user. For example I had to buy XP because of my job. I already activated it twice and I am afriad to install anything. If it screws up my system then I have to activate my pc for the last time before forking another 300 BUCKS! I know most of you are laughing at me right now but as a user this is not funny and it is, well kind of my computer so why can't I install more then 3 times?

This is what RMS means by freedom. I never have to worry about this under linux. Of course many opensource programers also make proprietary software for work which pays the bills. I think there should be some limits as to whats exceptable in an EULA for example. However as a user I have to make a choice between how much power do I want. Gnu ( power for me) or MS-EULA ( all strict power for ms), or somewhere in between with most software products. I am a poor part time college student so I choose GNU.

Re:By your silly definition, Mr. Editor,

[blakestah]

However. If I write software, with my time, and my effort, then nobody is going to tell ME under what terms I may let someone else use it. Period.

But copyright law already does that. If you let anyone use your software, they CAN make archival backups. They CAN transfer the copyright and all archival materials to someone else. They CAN implement ANY idea embodied by the work and use it as their own intellectual property. The only thing you have control over is the specific expression you use.

Whereas I agree that posturing over whether one thing or another is freedom or power is semantic and will NOT lead to a logical conclusion to the argument, I am almost completely unconvinced that copyright law as it currently applies to software is appropriate. It can be redefined however the government sees fit - its purpose, after all, is to encourage people to create works for limited time protection, so that public domain eventually becomes quite rich in intellectual property.

Currently many people are finding it less costly in the long run to create new operating systems instead of using those commercially available. That alone tells you we have had a near complete failure of the laws on software IP. It is long past due for a change.

RMS is correct

[plastercast]

Almost everyone of the "RMS should mind his own business" posts here ignores the key argument that he makes. That freedom cannot be limited only to the producer, but also must be extended to the consumer (the code user here). This cannot simply be a bad choice one vs bad choice two, but needs to extend to some of the realities of the world. While it may be simple to say, "well, I have the freedom to make my own software" (which for obvious reasons isn't true for the vast majority of people) is false becase of the power pattents grant.
They are arbitrary, not some divine (or as Rand would say, nature) given right. Say we live in a world where the software producer has total "freedom" to do what he or she would like. O'Riley and ERS would say that no one should have the "power" to take their right to this property away from them. What if the software or hardware pioneers had placed a pattent on a logic gate, or the word proccessor, or the browser, or any number of other broad areas like this. Think of how it would impact the rest of society, this untaped knowledge and technology that is now held from the public behind the iron bars of pattent and property. Sure, in theory I have the ability to say, I don't want to use product ABC with license requirements XYZ, but in pratice no such ability exists, as I must also sustain myself physically (food shelter, etc come to mind).
The reality is that our actions inharently effect others, and the (IMHO) simple way of looking at property, code in this case, as comming with a absolute freedom/power to decide how others use it not only makes little sense philosophically, but also pratically.

(sorry for the typos by the way)

Interesting read, but you're forgetting one thing.

[uwmurray]

RMS,

Please review Locke. People have property rights. If I put my efforts into thing X I have property rights to thing X and thus it is morally permissible for me, not you to decide how to distribute X, if at all.

I, and many others here in the /. community agree with you, people/corporations ought to open up certain projects, as open source is good for the customer - but the notion that somehow software developers are somehow morally obligated to GPL their work is completely nuts.

The ideals behind socialisms, either those of government or those of software, do not work. Without the ability to distribute property (of which software is a type) as one sees fit, one loses much economic incentive to develop in the first place.

Please RMS, check your ego just a little bit and town down the sensationalism, its starting to get rather tired.

Besides, some of my code is far to ugly to ever be open-sourced :)

Cordially,
Andrew Murray University of Washington

Consistency

[YoJ]

I don't think most people who have posted have grasped the fundamental idea of what RMS is talking about. Here is a little test. Please answer the following questions truthfully:

1. Do you think it is right for someone to hack a Tivo and add an extra harddrive?
   
2. Do you think it should be legal to sell any copy of Windows that you no longer use to someone else?
   
3. Do you think quoting a paragraph from a book in a written paper should be an illegal copyright infringement?
   

If you think at all like me, then your answers are yes, yes, no. I think that if you buy a toy, then you should be able to take it apart and see what else you can make it do. If you buy Windows, you should be able to sell it to someone else after you are done using it. Quoting a paragraph from a book should be fair use.

And yet the Tivo usage agreement says something about no reverse engineering or disassembling. Microsoft does not let you sell copies of Windows, even if you no longer use it. The third example is a right of consumers that is respected by volumes of law. How are they all similar? In every case the author releases their work under a restrictive license. In all three cases I think the restriction should not be legally binding. This means that I think that creators should not be allowed to release their work under any license they choose. I think there are restrictions that should not be enforced, and license "agreements" that I believe do not mean anything. This is what RMS is saying.

Re:On the nature of power

[Uruk]

It'll be interesting to hear your explanation of how I can "take freedom from other people" by writing my own software and offering it under license terms of my own choosing

Simple - people should have the freedom to use software. See the free software definition. When you license software under a non-free software license, you take away my freedoms as listed by the free software definition.

Programs, like math formulas, like cooking recipies, like common sense, are generally useful technical information. They help advance society, and it's wrong for someone to deny that to people, just like it's wrong to deny people the ability to use common sense ideas and methods, (read: one click shopping) just like it's wrong to deny people to make use of information that can help them. (think of banning people from using calculus unless they paid a licensing fee)

If you honestly believe what you wrote, you're not talking about power, or even ideology. You're talking about religion

Huh? Where did you get this? My feeling is that you're just trying to brand an idea a religion, (read up on the definition, and I think you'll see the error in this) so that you can slag it. That's what we call a strawman argument.

Is a RMS-free lincense free?

[coyote-san]

If I face a choice between keeping my software private (avoiding the whole issue of freedom vs. power since nobody will ever see the code), or releasing it under the RMS-free license:

This software may be used by any person other than RMS, and for any reason. RMS may not view this code; hell, he can't even be told it exists. The only restriction on derived works is that it must retain all RMS-free provisions.

Would this be a free license? Besides the obvious point that the license would become completely free at some point in the future, there's the practical matter that it will not affect RMS's ability to use my code in any way - the alternative to the RMS-free license is that I don't let anyone see the code (or not without explicit compensation in terms of salary or licensing fees). The only people affected are the 6,127,317,984 people who are neither RMS nor I.

What's the alternative? Is anyone seriously suggesting that I must publish all code I write? If so, why are programmers different from, oh, lawyers? (They must represent anyone who demands their services, without compensation.) Or doctors and dentists? Or taxi drivers. Or anyone else in the service sector?

freedom to contract

[MoNsTeR]

A software license is simply a contract. If the contract says, "in exchange for the use of this software, I agree not to give copies of it away" or whatever, that's not fundamentally different from a contract that says, "in exchange for the use of this software and source code, I agree to publish any changes I make to it".

In no case are you coerced into agreeing to a software license (and if you were, then the crime against freedom would be the coercion, not the license). If RMS says he's opposed to the freedom to choose a "restrictive" license (as if the GPL weren't restrictive...), then what he means to say is that he's opposed to unlimited freedom of contract.

I won't even expound on my personal feelings on the matter, I just think RMS should say what he means.

My code is my child (maybe)

[selan]

[The following is an idea that I'm just thinking about now. Could be interesting, could be stupid--let's see...]

It seems to me that the big argument here is about ownership and property rights, which everyone has strong opinions about, pro and con. However, maybe there is another approach that will make some sense to everyone. Maybe we should think of developers as guardians of their code instead of owners.

The analogy is that of a parent to a child. I don't own my child; she is free to live her own life. But I do have power over her. I gave birth to her and I have the responsibility to raise her until she is old enough to live on her own. As long as I am her guardian, I have the right, in fact the obligation, to make choices that affect her life. I decide what kind of education to give her, what morals to teach her, etc. And it's my right and obligation to protect her in her interactions with others. I set these limits because I want her to become a good, productive,giving member of society.

My code can be like my child (how many developers think of their code as their "baby"?) I created it and I put effort into improving it. I want it to become useful to others. Might I then also have the right to be its guardian and maintain custody of it when I release it into the world? Do I have the freedom to choose how I want others to use it? What do you think?

Freedom vs. Power - Not their decision to make

[Toodles]

However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.

This just doesn't sit well with me at all. I don't demand that the people who create software I use release under the GPL over whatever license it is currently using. I *will* look for alternatives, with my priorities being cost and opensource, in that order. Remember, this is a 'free software' group speaking, not the 'open source' group; big difference. A manifest destiny declaring all software should be GPL'ed should be met with serious opposition.

My code, that I work on, is mine. I owe to no one the work that was involved. (Code produced for an employer is different. For now, I mean code I do on my spare time.) *If*, and this is a big If, if I distribute my code in any form to anyone, it is entirely at my descretion. I own my work, and I'll do with it what I please. I am very happy to abide by the GPL in gpl'ed code. The reason is it's *their* code I'm using. These are *their* conditions they want the code used for, and I will keep my end of the bargain in return for their generosity in providing for everyone. If I don't like it, I don't *have* to use their code.

No one, not even RMS, is going to tell John Carmack that Doom 3 *has* to be released under the GPL. However, if RMS wants to spout that His Immenence Carmack is taking advantage of power, he would cause more harm than good. John Carmack knows the value of the GPL, and has shown this many many times over, with the release of Wolf3d and Doom source code, followed by the GPL of the Doom and Quake source. This has done tremendous things for the home brew gaming community, and while he can't measure in dollars the good he has done, I hope he has even a close approximation of the help he has provided in the releasing GPL. I will follow to the letter every section of the GPL in any work I do based on John's released software; not out of fear for lawyers, but out of respect for John's contribution. His gift.

No one has the right to say what we can or cannot do with our 'art', code in this case. RMS can spout anything he likes, but the moment he decides that my release of SuperWhizBangTurbo MUST be GPL'd is the exact moment his freedom to swing ends at my nose.

RMS, we appreciate what you've done, and what you fail to realize is the sheer enormity of code released daily under the GPL. However, what your proposing is not 'increasing the freedoms of computer users everywhere', you are 'taking away the rights of programmers everywhere'. We do, have been, and will continue to release under the GPL at every opportunity. However, we will find something else in protest if any effort is made to force us to do so. Even if its for the greater good, we are stubborn individuals, and will resist any effort to force us into submission.

Toodles

freedom to take away freedom

[abe ferlman]

Your simple post is attractive for its conciseness, but you conflate the power to take away freedoms and the power to protect freedom. They are different.

The distinction is actually rather obvious. You have the freedom to do anything you like except take away freedoms. You are being too simplistic with your notion of "power"- It's not that all power is bad, but rather that power when used to take away important freedoms is bad.

The GPL takes away no more freedom than is necessary to preserve freedom, and in a world where no one is able to take away your freedom to use information (i.e., a world without copyright), the GPL becomes unenforcable, you're right- but also unnecessary. I can only guess that those shouting loudest about how the GPL takes away freedoms must be paid by microsoft, because the only freedom it takes away is your right to keep someone else from having the same freedoms you have, and the only beneficiaries of such a system would be those who want to take the work of the community and make it exclusively their own.

Your "right to defend my home" example presumes you have an exclusive right to the object you are protecting. Intellectual property doesn't work this way though- the government grants you a temporary monopoly, it is not yours by right but rather because the framers of the constitution thought it would be a good bargain that would maximize social benefit. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Your "censorship" example raises a good point. Everyone has the right to say that certain things ought not be said, but no one has the right to *keep people from saying those things*. Where is the freedom to censor? It is incompatible with free speech, and free speech is a fundamental right, so it trumps the "freedom to censor". Similarly, the freedom to take away other people's right to use software is incompatible with the freedom to use and modify software for any purpose.

No wishing for more wishes. -the djinni