www/philosophy rms-hack.html

[Exal de Jesus Garcia Carrillo]

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Changes by:     Exal de Jesus Garcia Carrillo <exal>    07/03/29 15:47:09

Added files:
        philosophy     : rms-hack.html 

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        Addition of this RMS interview.

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+<title>The Hacker Community and Ethics: An Interview with Richard M. Stallman 
- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)</title>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+   
+<h2>The Hacker Community and Ethics: An Interview with Richard M. Stallman, 
2002.</h2>
+
+<p>by Richard Stallman</p>
+<p>Published in Finnish in Tere Vad&eacute;n &amp; Richard M. Stallman: <a
+ href="http://www.uta.fi/%7Efiteva/koodivapaaksi.html";> Koodi vapaaksi - 
Hakkerietiikan vaativuus</a>,
+Tampere University Press. 2002, sivut 62-80.</p>
+
+<h4>Hackerism</h4>
+<p>Tere Vad&eacute;n (<b>TV</b>): One of the most striking features of your
+approach to the issues of technology and software and so on is that
+you consider ethical and social matters more important than possible
+technological advantages. While that maybe should be the norm, it
+unfortunately is not so. The main issues seems to be one of community;
+what kinds of communities different ways of using technology promote.
+Am I guessing right if I believe that you are thinking off ethical
+issues in terms of communities?</p>
+
+<p>Richard M. Stallman (<b>RMS</b>): Yes. The way I reached my conclusions 
about
+which freedoms are essential for using software, and which kinds of
+license requirements are acceptable, is by thinking about whether they
+would interfere<br>
+with the kinds of use of the software that are necessary to have a
+functioning community.</P>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> The idea of free software was born out of your experiences at 
MIT,
+and how that community was infiltrated and in some sense destroyed by
+commercial interests.</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> Yes, that is correct. The hackers really enjoyed the freedom to
+share and change software; that was the basis for our free-wheeling
+community.</p>
+<p>
+<b>TV:</b> What does the word 'hacker' mean to you, personally?</p>
+<p>
+<b>RMS:</b> It means someone who enjoys playful cleverness, especially in
+programming but other media are also possible. In the 14th century,
+Guillaume de Machaut wrote a palindromic three-part musical
+composition. It sounded good, too--I think I played in it once, because
+I still remember one of the parts. I think that was a good hack. I
+heard somewhere that J. S. Bach did something similar.<br />
+One possible arena for playful cleverness is breaking security. Hackers
+never had much respect for bureaucratic restrictions. If the computer
+was sitting idle because the administrators wouldn't let them use it,
+they would sometimes figure out how to bypass the obstacles and use it
+anyway. If this required cleverness, it would be fun in itself, as well
+as making it possible to do other hacking (for instance, useful work)
+on the computer instead of twiddling one's thumbs. But not all hackers
+did security breaking. Many never were interested in that.<br />
+On the Incompatible Timesharing System, the operating system developed
+by the AI lab's hackers, we made it unnecessary to break security: we
+simply did not implement security in the system. The hackers realized
+that security would be a mechanism for the administrators to dominate
+us. So we never game them the means.</p>
+<p>
+<b>TV:</b> How about the concepts of freedom and community? There's this idea
+that freedom to distribute ideas, thoughts, recipes and software
+creates the best kinds of communities or at least better than those
+based on commercial limitations on distribution and sharing.</p>
+<p>
+<b>RMS:</b> I think it is a mistake to label these restrictions as
+"commercial", because that pertains to the motive for the restrictions.
+The same restrictions, if imposed for a different motive, would do the
+same harm. What matters is the restrictions, not the motive. Commercial
+software can be free or non-free, just as noncommercial software can be
+free or non-free. It only depends on the license.</p>
+<p>
+<b>TV:</b> How would you delineate the distinction between the public
+(communal, freedom-based) and the commercial spheres?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Comparing free with commercial is like comparing happiness with
+purple. It doesn't make sense, because they are not answers to the same
+question. They are not alternatives. The meaningful comparison is
+between free and non-free software.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> It seems that the distinction between "open source" and "free
+software" is that the open source movement ultimately justifies the
+idea on utilitarian grounds; open source is the best way of producing
+functional software; while the ultimate justification for free software
+is non-calculative, non-utilitarian; freedom is unviolable. Is that a
+correct interpretation?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> More or less. I would say that freedom has value in itself, just
+as powerful reliable software does.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> But isn't there a problem here; one of the utilitarian 
calculations
+of "open source" is that it is more profitable - in the sense of making
+more money or making better softaware - to use an open source license
+than a copyleft license. A company like Apple or Nokia will adapt open
+source up to point, precisely the point where making it more free would
+turn the profitability down.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I agree that it is wrong for these decisions (about your freedom
+and mine) to be made by the software developer for the sake of his
+profit, just as the decision about whether you and I have freedom of
+speech should not be made by some third party for his own interests.<br />
+I am not going to condemn someone who does the right thing for the
+wrong reason, but it is true that relying on people to respect our
+freedom because it is profitable for them to do so is not a reliable
+system for protecting our freedom. This is the reason why we must
+reduce the political power of business.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> The argument that a company would use, of course, is that the
+profit it creates ultimately benefits the whole society. How would you
+respond to that?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> That is a claim with no basis. A non-free program can only 
benefit
+those who don't value their freedom, and thus serves as a temptation
+for people to give up their freedom. That is harmful to society.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> There is also this question of individual/private vs
+public/communal here. It is often in the interests of the individual to
+do something that threatens the community, threatens freedom. </p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I know. This is why we need to think about right and wrong in
+making our decisions, and also the reason why societies have a notion
+of punishing actions that hurt the community.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Now, somebody like Torvalds - and we don't necessarily have to 
use
+any names here - would probably share your enthusiasm about hackerism
+in the sense of playful cleverness, and would take that playful
+cleverness also to the area of being clever in making money and
+enjoying the good life. Actually that is what he hints at in a recent
+book called "The Hacker Ethics". </p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> That is true. Just because someone enjoys hacking does not mean 
he
+has an ethical commitment to treating other people properly. Some
+hackers care about ethics--I do, for instance--but that is not part of
+being a hacker, it is a separate trait. Some stamp collectors care a
+lot about ethics, while other stamp collectors don't. It is the same
+for hackers.<br />
+I agree with the person who said that there is no hacker ethic, but
+rather a hacker aesthetic.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Now, if one wants to avoid the negative consequences of the
+profit-orieted business, it feels that one has to give the individual a
+good reason for not looking after only his or her own best. And that
+something, that reason, might be something in the public sphere. </p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Of course--but why are you treating this as if it were a new 
idea
+that can only be hinted at. This idea is thousands of years old. This
+is the basic idea of ethics.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> The question about hacker aesthetics --- as you explained, there 
is
+no special hacker ethics, because a hacker can act ethically or
+unethically and nothing in hackerism itself necessitates ethical
+behaviour.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Hacking is not primarily about an ethical issue. It is an idea 
of
+what makes life meaningful. But he may be right that hacking tends to
+lead a significant number of hackers to think about ethical questions
+in a certain way. I would not want to completely deny all connection
+between hacking and views on ethics.</p>
+<br />
+Although someone said that there was a hacker aesthetic rather than a
+hacker ethic, I think "aesthetic" is not quite the right word either.
+An aesthetic is an idea of what is beautiful. This is an idea of what
+is exciting and meaningful. Is there a word for that? I can think of
+"the hacker way", but that sounds rather pompous and new-age.</p>
+<br>
+<h4>Community</h4>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Now that brings to mind several questions. For the first, one 
could
+maybe inquire after an ideal society or do forth, but let's leave that
+for the moment.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I approach these issues incrementally. I don't think I could try
+to design an ideal society and have any confidence in the conclusion.
+Attempts to propose a society quite different from the ones we know
+often tend to be disastrously flawed. So instead I propose local
+changes which I have some reason to believe are good. Note that I
+didn't imagine the free software community on my own--if I had, I would
+not be so confident it is a good idea. I knew that from having tried it.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Is there something that digitalization offers for
+community-building, something that other media (like printed books)
+could not offer, or does digitalization mean 'just' and effectivization
+of existing means?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Computers and the web make it much easier to work 
collaboratively
+and continuing to improve publications. I think that this will become
+even more true in the future, as people develop better ways to do it. 
+The proprietary mindset might as well be precisely calculated to
+deprive us of this benefit of the Internet.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Now, from a historical and philosophical perspective it seems 
that
+many a good invention or technological advance has resulted in the
+intesification of colonialization </p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> In general, technology is a good thing, and we shouldn't turn it
+down. Technology tends to cause cultural change. This is not necessarily a
+bad thing, and we should not condemn it in a blanket fashion. There are
+just certain specific kinds of cultural change that we need to oppose.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> I do not necessarily want to get stuck on this public/commercial
+issue, but if we say that we need communal agreements, values and
+systems that tone down the selfishness of the individual, and we say
+that the commercial world systematically has a tendency to promote
+selfishness, then I guess we have to conclude that there is a crucial
+distinction between the communal and the commercial?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I would agree. One person can belong to a community and work in 
a
+business at the same time. Nevertheless, there is a fundamental
+conflict between the communitarian attitude and the commercial attitude. 
+I would not say that the communitarian attitude is good and the
+commercial attitude is bad. It makes no sense to aim to eliminate the
+commercial attitude, because that is simply selfishness, and
+selfishness is vital. People must be selfish to a certain extent, just
+as they ought to be altruistic to a certain extent. To abolish
+selfishness would not make sense, even if it were possible.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> I mean, in many ways one could say that the communities in the
+post-industrial countries these days are based on commercialism, i.e.,
+people get together, work, communicate etc. mostly because of
+commercial reasons.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> This is a rather weak and ineffective kind of community, hardly
+worthy of the name.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> And, furthermore, like you know, the research and university
+community is also very tightly bound to the economical interests of the
+nations states and of the companies,</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Universities ought to resist being turned to commercial 
purposes,
+for the sake of their integrity. They have failed to resist. 
+People will always be partly selfish; to keep selfishness from
+engulfing society, we need unselfish institutions such as universities
+and democratic governments to balance the selfishness and put a check
+on it. The problem today is that organized selfishness is taking over
+society, crushing the other institutions that were designed to put a
+check on it.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> But, the counter argument goes, a free market economy that seeks 
to
+maximize profit, is the only way of producing wealth and functioning
+democratic communities.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> The free software community shows, as cooperatives in Sweden
+showed, that this is not true. There are other ways of producing
+wealth. But beyond that, producing wealth is not the be-all and end-all
+of a good society. There is no need to bend every aspect of life to
+maximizing the total wealth. The idea of sacrificing everything else to the 
production of
+wealth--regardless of who gets to share in it!--is exactly what's wrong
+with the WTO. As for producing functioning democratic communities,
+allowing commerce to dominate not only fails to do that, it is directly
+antagonistic to that.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> If ethics applies to everyone, and ethics is based on community,
+does this mean that there is an ideal community to which everyone
+should belong?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I don't think that follows.</p>
+
+<h4>Copyleft</h4>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> The concept of copyleft is a brilliant tool for the communal
+purposes. Could you tell a little on how you arrived at the idea?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I had seen simple notices of the form "verbatim copying 
permitted
+provided this notice is preserved", and investigated extending this to
+handle modification as well.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> Let's take a case here. I can see that a free software developer
+might be able to make a living by doing free software, because people
+would pay for the software, pay for the manuals, pay for the joy of
+being a part of the community, and so on. I don't think that is
+impossible. The same might go for certain musicians, even scientists
+and so on. But howabout a writer, a poet, even a musician that works in
+a very limited language area - say, finnish. Making free software or
+free music or free poetry will not be a viable option, beacuse the
+community is too small to support that kind of activity.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> The current system does rather a bad job of supporting these
+activities. To replace it with nothing at all would not make things
+much worse for these people. However, I think that voluntary methods of 
support could do just as
+good a job as the present system--maybe better.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> This seems to lead to some kind of "americanization" or
+"anglization".</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> You can't be serious, can you? Don't you realize that the
+media-copyright complex is fueling the americanization of culture
+around the world? Disconnecting that complex would do a lot to improve
+the situation.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> I was just thinking of the fact that in a small langauge area
+something like copyrights actually do some good for creative work.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Not much good, though. How many Finnish writers make a living 
from
+copyright today? Note that I don't advocate the simple and total abolition of 
copyright
+for all kinds of works. See my speech, <a 
href="/philosophy/copyright-and-globalization.html">Copyright
+and Globalization</a>.</p>
+
+<h4>Globalisation </h4>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> You have touched on some issues of globalization is some recent
+interviews. One of the problems is that copyright laws put many third
+world countries in an unfavourable position. Do you think that those
+countries should not follow the copyright laws?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> The US when it was a developing country did not recognize 
foreign
+copyrights. So why should anyone else? Of course, we know the reason
+why: it is part of a system of economic domination that the wealthiest
+business owners have imposed on the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> And, furthermore, could one see this issue also in terms of
+communities? If I remember correctly, you have said that globalization
+in the economic sense does not seem to be a good way of promoting or
+distributing well-being.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> There is nothing wrong with globalization in the abstract. What
+makes today's form of globalization so bad is not really the global
+aspect of it. It is that the WTO/IMF system subordinates all other
+interests to the interests of business. Laws to protect the
+environment, public health, workers' rights, and the general standard
+of living, are regularly swept aside. The result is a major transfer of
+wealth from most people to business owners. Paradoxically, it seems to
+be accompanied by reduced growth as well. The best way to understand today's
+"globalization" is as a system to transfer power from democratic governments to
+business, which only incidentally happens to be global. Elimination of trade
+barriers could be a good thing if accompanied by global labor standards, global
+environmental standards, global health care, a global minimum wage (even if 
not uniform),
+and global income taxes. If these were enforced world-wide with the same 
energy that the
+US pressures countries to use for copyright enforcement, we could have
+global trade, clean factories, and high wages. The world-wide free software 
community is an example of beneficial globalization: people share knowledge 
with the whole world.</p>
+
+<h4>Ethics</h4>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> How is ethcial "work" best done? It seems that you often invoke
+teachers like Buddha or Jesus as examples of a ethical way of life, </p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I never invoke Jesus. I am not a Christian and I don't 
especially
+admire Jesus. I admire Buddha somewhat more, but I don't invoke any
+teacher or hero as an *authority*, only perhaps as an *example*.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> It is also clear that one of the fascinating and influential
+features of your work is that you live as you teach. Is that a
+conscious decision in the sense that you think that ethics is something
+that can be taught best through example?</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Not at all. I do write about my ethical ideas, and I would like 
to
+do it more and better if I could. Of course, it is necessary to live in
+conformity with one's principles, or one is a hypocrite and people can
+see that.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> If we say that the reason for ethical behaviour must be given in
+the public sphere, let's say through a social contract or something
+similar, and if we at the same time notice that the
+economical/commercial sphere is driven by "maximum profit"-type of
+principles, then we have to have some sort of separation between the
+public and the commercial world.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> I don't follow this reasoning--I see no separation. Ethics 
applies
+to everyone, and the whole point of ethics is that some things you
+might selfishly wish to do are wrong, so you may not do them. This
+applies to group selfishness just as as to personal selfishness.</p>
+
+<P><b>TV:</b> ... and then the commercial world would be something that almost 
by
+necessity corrupts the idea of freedom.</p>
+
+<P><b>RMS:</b> Business does have that tendency. Corporations provide a 
mechanism
+to distill the selfishness out of people who, as individuals, are
+partly selfish but also have ethics to limit their selfishness. The
+result is selfishness that can often be unchecked by any ethics. To change this
+will require taking away the power of global business over governments.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> Reading Steven Levy's Hackers once again, I was struck by one
+issue: the hackers as displayed in the book are mostly concerned with
+the hacker ethic in so far as it concerns "tools to make tools".</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> I don't think so. A number of our programs were tools for making
+programs, but very few were specifically "tools to make tools". Why were many
+of them tools? Because hackers writing programs get ideas
+for better ways to do that. What computer hackers do is program. So
+they get excited about anything that makes programming easier.<br />
+If a hacker does square dancing, he would get excited about anything on
+the computer that is helpful for square dancing. He might write a
+program to help people learn square dancing. This indeed has happened. A
+few computer hackers do square dancing, but all computer hackers
+program. So a few are interested in writing programs for square
+dancing, but many are interested in programs they can use while
+programming.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> Levy is not too hard on the point, but the unscrupulousness with
+which the early MIT hackers accepted the Department of Defence funding
+is a case in point.</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> Some of the hackers were uncomfortable with DoD funding at the
+time, but they did not go so far as to rebel against it (by quitting,
+say). I disagreed with them I don't think it was wrong to accept that
+funding, and I did not think it wrong at the time. Corporate funding is
+far more dangerous.<br />
+So I would not call them unscrupulous for having accepted this funding.</>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> This reminds of the "instrumental rationality" that the Frankfurt
+school of critical theorists talked about; rationality that pertains to
+tools, but not goals.</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> Engineers of all kinds are famous for this; I am not sure it is
+more true of hackers than others.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> So, this brings me to the question, if ethics is about goals and
+about content, what exactly is the society or community that Free
+Software promotes?</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> My goal is that we help each other to live better together.
+Advancing human knowledge is a part of this; making sure it is
+available to everyone is a part of this; encouraging the spirit of
+cooperation is a part of this. Those goals apply to various parts of
+life, but in the area of software they direct one towards free software.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> When and how did you notice that the Tools to Make Tools-attitude
+is not enough?</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> That just tools without thinking of what to do with them is one 
I
+picked up this idea in my teens, I think. It was well known in the 60s;
+one did not have to be especially searching to happen across it then. I
+think of the Tom Lehrer song, "Werner von Braun":<br />
+"I send rockets up, but where they come down<br />
+is not my department, says Werner von Braun."<br />
+Lots of people heard this song.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> And, maybe most interestigly, how do you combine the two, the
+hacking that is intense and interesting and the ethical real-world
+work, that is often tenuous and boring? </p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> Here you seem to assume that hacking is neither ethical nor
+real-world. I disagree with both assumptions. By the way, some parts of
+developing and releasing a working program are tedious; they are not
+merely boring, they are frustrating. But hackers by the thousands in
+the free software community do these tasks in order to release working
+and reliable free software.</p>
+
+<p><b>TV:</b> I think this is even quite common in fields like computer 
science,
+physics, mathematics, philosophy, where the austerity and purity of the
+formalism give an intense pleasure of a 'non-earthly' kind. Is there a
+link? Should there be? And how do you bridge the two?</p>
+
+<p><b>RMS:</b> Is there a link between the pleasure of pure math and the rest 
of
+life? No, I see very little connection, and why should there be one?</p>
+
+<p>I enjoy folk dancing, as well as pure math. There is very little link
+between either of those pleasures and the rest of what I do. Why should
+there be? They are both harmless. Is there a "gap" that I need to
+"bridge"?</p>
+
+
+
+
+</div>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+
+<div id="footer">
+<p>
+Please send FSF &amp; 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> 
+the FSF.
+<br />
+Please send broken links and other corrections (or suggestions) to
+<a href="mailto:address@hidden";><em>address@hidden</em></a>.
+</p>
+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2007 Richard Stallman</p>
+<p>Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
+permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2007/03/29 15:47:04 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+
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