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www/philosophy lessig-fsfs-intro.html
|
From: |
Yavor Doganov |
|
Subject: |
www/philosophy lessig-fsfs-intro.html |
|
Date: |
Tue, 01 May 2007 19:22:34 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Yavor Doganov <yavor> 07/05/01 19:22:34
Modified files:
philosophy : lessig-fsfs-intro.html
Log message:
ldquo, rdquo, mdash
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.7&r2=1.8
Patches:
Index: lessig-fsfs-intro.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html,v
retrieving revision 1.7
retrieving revision 1.8
diff -u -b -r1.7 -r1.8
--- lessig-fsfs-intro.html 23 Apr 2007 22:22:19 -0000 1.7
+++ lessig-fsfs-intro.html 1 May 2007 19:22:16 -0000 1.8
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
</p>
<p>
-Every generation has its philosopher -- a writer or an artist who
+Every generation has its philosopher — a writer or an artist who
captures the imagination of a time. Sometimes these philosophers are
recognized as such; often it takes generations before the connection
is made real. But recognized or not, a time gets marked by the people
@@ -22,20 +22,22 @@
<p>
Our generation has a philosopher. He is not an artist, or a
professional writer. He is a programmer. Richard Stallman began his
-work in the labs of MIT, as a programmer and architect building
-operating system software. He has built his career on a stage of
-public life, as a programmer and an architect founding a movement for
-freedom in a world increasingly defined by "code."
+work in the labs of <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of
Technology">MIT</abbr>,
+as a programmer and architect building operating system software. He
+has built his career on a stage of public life, as a programmer and an
+architect founding a movement for freedom in a world increasingly
+defined by “code.”
</p>
<p>
-"Code" is the technology that makes computers run. Whether inscribed
-in software or burned in hardware, it is the collection of
+“Code” is the technology that makes computers run. Whether
+inscribed in software or burned in hardware, it is the collection of
instructions, first written in words, that directs the functionality
-of machines. These machines -- computers -- increasingly define and
-control our life. They determine how phones connect, and what runs on
-TV. They decide whether video can be streamed across a broadband link
-to a computer. They control what a computer reports back to its
-manufacturer. These machines run us. Code runs these machines.
+of machines. These machines — computers — increasingly
+define and control our life. They determine how phones connect, and
+what runs on TV. They decide whether video can be streamed across a
+broadband link to a computer. They control what a computer reports
+back to its manufacturer. These machines run us. Code runs these
+machines.
</p>
<p>
What control should we have over this code? What understanding? What
@@ -44,71 +46,77 @@
<p>
These questions have been the challenge of Stallman's life. Through
his works and his words, he has pushed us to see the importance of
-keeping code "free." Not free in the sense that code writers don't
-get paid, but free in the sense that the control coders build be
-transparent to all, and that anyone have the right to take that
-control, and modify it as he or she sees fit. This is "free software";
-"free software" is one answer to a world built in code.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Free." Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own term. There's
-nothing to lament. Puzzles force people to think, and this term "free"
-does this puzzling work quite well. To modern American ears, "free
-software" sounds utopian, impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is
-free. How could the most important words running the most critical
-machines running the world be "free." How could a sane society aspire
-to such an ideal?
-</p>
-<p>
-Yet the odd clink of the word "free" is a function of us, not of the
-term. "Free" has different senses, only one of which refers to
-"price." A much more fundamental sense of "free" is the "free,"
-Stallman says, in the term "free speech," or perhaps better in the
-term "free labor." Not free as in costless, but free as in limited in
-its control by others. Free software is control that is transparent,
-and open to change, just as free laws, or the laws of a "free
-society," are free when they make their control knowable, and open to
-change. The aim of Stallman's "free software movement" is to make as
-much code as it can transparent, and subject to change, by rendering
-it "free."
+keeping code “free.” Not free in the sense that code
+writers don't get paid, but free in the sense that the control coders
+build be transparent to all, and that anyone have the right to take
+that control, and modify it as he or she sees fit. This is “free
+software”; “free software” is one answer to a world
+built in code.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Free.” Stallman laments the ambiguity in his own
+term. There's nothing to lament. Puzzles force people to think, and
+this term “free” does this puzzling work quite well. To
+modern American ears, “free software” sounds utopian,
+impossible. Nothing, not even lunch, is free. How could the most
+important words running the most critical machines running the world
+be “free.” How could a sane society aspire to such an
+ideal?
+</p>
+<p>
+Yet the odd clink of the word “free” is a function of us,
+not of the term. “Free” has different senses, only one of
+which refers to “price.” A much more fundamental sense of
+“free” is the “free,” Stallman says, in the
+term “free speech,” or perhaps better in the term
+“free labor.” Not free as in costless, but free as in
+limited in its control by others. Free software is control that is
+transparent, and open to change, just as free laws, or the laws of a
+“free society,” are free when they make their control
+knowable, and open to change. The aim of Stallman's “free
+software movement” is to make as much code as it can
+transparent, and subject to change, by rendering it
+“free.”
</p>
<p>
The mechanism of this rendering is an extraordinarily clever device
-called "copyleft" implemented through a license called GPL. Using the
-power of copyright law, "free software" not only assures that it
-remains open, and subject to change, but that other software that
-takes and uses "free software" (and that technically counts as a
-"derivative work") must also itself be free. If you use and adapt a
-free software program, and then release that adapted version to the
-public, the released version must be as free as the version it was
-adapted from. It must, or the law of copyright will be violated.
-</p>
-<p>
-"Free software," like free societies, has its enemies. Microsoft has
-waged a war against the GPL, warning whoever will listen that the GPL
-is a "dangerous" license. The dangers it names, however, are largely
-illusory. Others object to the "coercion" in GPL's insistence that
-modified versions are also free. But a condition is not coercion. If
-it is not coercion for Microsoft to refuse to permit users to
-distribute modified versions of its product Office without paying it
-(presumably) millions, then it is not coercion when the GPL insists
-that modified versions of free software be free too.
+called “copyleft” implemented through a license called
+GPL. Using the power of copyright law, “free software” not
+only assures that it remains open, and subject to change, but that
+other software that takes and uses “free software” (and
+that technically counts as a “derivative work”) must also
+itself be free. If you use and adapt a free software program, and
+then release that adapted version to the public, the released version
+must be as free as the version it was adapted from. It must, or the
+law of copyright will be violated.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Free software,” like free societies, has its
+enemies. Microsoft has waged a war against the GPL, warning whoever
+will listen that the GPL is a “dangerous” license. The
+dangers it names, however, are largely illusory. Others object to the
+“coercion” in GPL's insistence that modified versions are
+also free. But a condition is not coercion. If it is not coercion for
+Microsoft to refuse to permit users to distribute modified versions of
+its product Office without paying it (presumably) millions, then it is
+not coercion when the GPL insists that modified versions of free
+software be free too.
</p>
<p>
And then there are those who call Stallman's message too extreme. But
extreme it is not. Indeed, in an obvious sense, Stallman's work is a
simple translation of the freedoms that our tradition crafted in the
-world before code. "Free software" would assure that the world
-governed by code is as "free" as our tradition that built the world
-before code.
+world before code. “Free software” would assure that the
+world governed by code is as “free” as our tradition that
+built the world before code.
</p>
<p>
-For example: A "free society" is regulated by law. But there are
-limits that any free society places on this regulation through law: No
-society that kept its laws secret could ever be called free. No
-government that hid its regulations from the regulated could ever
-stand in our tradition. Law controls. But it does so justly only when
-visibly. And law is visible only when its terms are knowable and
+For example: A “free society” is regulated by law. But
+there are limits that any free society places on this regulation
+through law: No society that kept its laws secret could ever be called
+free. No government that hid its regulations from the regulated could
+ever stand in our tradition. Law controls. But it does so justly only
+when visibly. And law is visible only when its terms are knowable and
controllable by those it regulates, or by the agents of those it
regulates (lawyers, legislatures).
</p>
@@ -128,11 +136,11 @@
good) and the reasoning can be taken without the permission of the
original lawyers. The opinions they produce can be quoted in later
briefs. They can be copied and integrated into another brief or
-opinion. The "source code" for American law is by design, and by
-principle, open and free for anyone to take. And take lawyers do -- for
-it is a measure of a great brief that it achieves its creativity
-through the reuse of what happened before. The source is free;
-creativity and an economy is built upon it.
+opinion. The “source code” for American law is by design,
+and by principle, open and free for anyone to take. And take lawyers
+do — for it is a measure of a great brief that it achieves its
+creativity through the reuse of what happened before. The source is
+free; creativity and an economy is built upon it.
</p>
<p>
This economy of free code (and here I mean free legal code) doesn't
@@ -144,18 +152,19 @@
flourishes, with later work added to the earlier.
</p>
<p>
-We could imagine a legal practice that was different -- briefs and
-arguments that were kept secret; rulings that announced a result but
-not the reasoning. Laws that were kept by the police but published to
-no one else. Regulation that operated without explaining its rule.
+We could imagine a legal practice that was different — briefs
+and arguments that were kept secret; rulings that announced a result
+but not the reasoning. Laws that were kept by the police but
+published to no one else. Regulation that operated without explaining
+its rule.
</p>
<p>
We could imagine this society, but we could not imagine calling it
-"free." Whether or not the incentives in such a society would be
-better or more efficiently allocated, such a society could not be
-known as free. The ideals of freedom, of life within a free society,
-demand more than efficient application. Instead, openness and
-transparency are the constraints within which a legal system gets
+“free.” Whether or not the incentives in such a society
+would be better or more efficiently allocated, such a society could
+not be known as free. The ideals of freedom, of life within a free
+society, demand more than efficient application. Instead, openness
+and transparency are the constraints within which a legal system gets
built, not options to be added if convenient to the leaders. Life
governed by software code should be no less.
</p>
@@ -176,8 +185,8 @@
known, and among these, an especially insightful account of the
changed circumstances that render copyright in the digital world
suspect. They will serve as a resource for those who seek to
-understand the thought of this most powerful man -- powerful in his
-ideas, his passion, and his integrity, even if powerless in every
+understand the thought of this most powerful man — powerful in
+his ideas, his passion, and his integrity, even if powerless in every
other way. They will inspire others who would take these ideas, and
build upon them.
</p>
@@ -189,13 +198,13 @@
</p>
<p>
Yet when our world finally comes to understand the power and danger of
-code -- when it finally sees that code, like laws, or like government,
-must be transparent to be free -- then we will look back at this
-uncompromising and persistent programmer and recognize the vision he
-has fought to make real: the vision of a world where freedom and
-knowledge survives the compiler. And we will come to see that no man,
-through his deeds or words, has done as much to make possible the
-freedom that this next society could have.
+code — when it finally sees that code, like laws, or like
+government, must be transparent to be free — then we will look
+back at this uncompromising and persistent programmer and recognize
+the vision he has fought to make real: the vision of a world where
+freedom and knowledge survives the compiler. And we will come to see
+that no man, through his deeds or words, has done as much to make
+possible the freedom that this next society could have.
</p>
<p>
We have not earned that freedom yet. We may well fail in securing
@@ -216,15 +225,15 @@
</div>
<!--#include virtual="/server/footer-short.html" -->
-
<div id="footer">
+
<p>
Please send FSF & GNU inquiries to
<a href="mailto:address@hidden";><em>address@hidden</em></a>.
-There are also <a href="http://www.fsf.org/about/contact.html";>other ways to
contact</a>
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
the FSF.
<br />
-Please send broken links and other corrections (or suggestions) to
+Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to
<a href="mailto:address@hidden";><em>address@hidden</em></a>.
</p>
@@ -236,17 +245,16 @@
</p>
<p>
-Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
-51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USA
-<br />
-Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted
+Free Software Foundation, Inc.,</p>
+<address>51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USA</address>
+<p>Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted
without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved.
</p>
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2007/04/23 22:22:19 $
+$Date: 2007/05/01 19:22:16 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
@@ -275,10 +283,10 @@
<ul class="translations-list">
<!-- English -->
<li><a href="/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.html">English</a> [en]</li>
-<!-- French -->
-<li><a
href="/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.fr.html">Français</a> [fr]</li>
<!-- Persian -->
<li><a
href="/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.fa.html">فارسی</a> [fa]</li>
+<!-- French -->
+<li><a
href="/philosophy/lessig-fsfs-intro.fr.html">Français</a> [fr]</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
- www/philosophy lessig-fsfs-intro.html,
Yavor Doganov <=