[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
www/philosophy the-law-of-success-2.html
|
From: |
Leo Albert Jackson Jr |
|
Subject: |
www/philosophy the-law-of-success-2.html |
|
Date: |
Fri, 05 Nov 2010 04:28:12 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Leo Albert Jackson Jr <lajjr3> 10/11/05 04:28:12
Added files:
philosophy : the-law-of-success-2.html
Log message:
Added page for RMS interview RT#632726
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/the-law-of-success-2.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1
Patches:
Index: the-law-of-success-2.html
===================================================================
RCS file: the-law-of-success-2.html
diff -N the-law-of-success-2.html
--- /dev/null 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ the-law-of-success-2.html 5 Nov 2010 04:28:10 -0000 1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,341 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<title>The Law of Success 2.0: An Interview with Richard Stallman - Free
Software Foundation (FSF)</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>The Law of Success 2.0: An Interview with Richard Stallman</h2>
+
+<p>
+<i>[ This is an interview between Haegwan Kim and Richard
+M. Stallman. ]</i>
+</p>
+<div>
+<p><img src="graphics/RMS.jpeg" alt="" title="Richard Stallman"
+width="259" height="194" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1761" /></p>
+<p>Haegwan Kim</p>
+<p>First, you mentioned that discussing success is not useful for you and
thatâs
+really interesting to me. In this interview mainly I want to talk about
freedom
+and related issue. But before that, could you tell me the reason that talking
about
+success is not useful to you?</p>
+
+<p>Richard Stallman</p>
+<p>Because some activities are good for society and some are harmful for
society.
+Of course, many are neutral. If person A knows how to aim for success, that
may be
+good or bad for the rest of us. And I didnât set out to be a success. I
didnât set
+out to make a lot of money or become famous. I set out to give software users
freedom,
+which is a goal that deserves to be done. Itâs a goal thatâs important in
its own right
+and I just happened to be the person trying to achieve it.</p>
+
+<p>And to a certain extent I have succeeded. It didnât make me rich but
itâs success,
+to an extent, because at least there is now a large community of people who
use and
+contribute to free software, so in that sense itâs a success. But when I
look at it I donât ask,
+ am I a success? I ask, do users have freedom?</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+
+<p>Great to hear that. Can you tell me why you are so in favour of the
freedom?</p>
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Partly itâs because I resent being pushed around. I resent anyone giving
me orders. Partly
+because I grew up in the US, where people were taught to think about freedom
â or at least were.
+I donât know if any of the children are taught any of these things any more.
Partly because not
+long before I was born, there was a World War against some horrible dictators
and partly because
+I had the experience of having freedom in my use of computers when I worked at
the MIT artificial
+intelligence lab in the 70s.</p>
+<p>And so I was sensitised to notice the difference between free software,
freedom-respecting software
+and user-subjugating software. So for ten years or so, my work was done on
improving a free operating system,
+ most of the parts of which had been developed at MIT by the group I was part
of.</p>
+<p>So working, improving that system meant taking advantage of freedom all the
time, so I came to appreciate freedom.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Okay, I see.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>But thatâs not quite the end.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Okay.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Because the community fell apart in the early 80s and it was no longer
possible to have the freedom. So I saw the contrast
+ between living in freedom and losing freedom, and I found non-freedom
disgusting. So I decided to do something to bring freedom back.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Can you tell me how� You are now trying to bring freedom back, which
conversely means there’s no freedom at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Yes. With regard to software. First of all, this is a big question. In
regard to software, proprietary software does not respect
+usersâ freedom because the program controls the users. If the users arenât
free to change a program and do so either individually
+or in groups cooperating, then the program controls the users.</p>
+<p>Now, with typical proprietary software there is even a licence that says
what users are allowed to do with the program and what
+theyâre not allowed to do and it can be as restrictive as the developer
chooses to make it. For instance, there is a Microsoft program
+for managing webpages, websites, and its licence says it canât be used to
publish anything that criticises Microsoft. So here, non-free
+software takes away your freedom of speech.</p>
+<p>This is obviously intolerable. If you canât use your copy freely you
canât control your computing. You can only do what youâre told.
+But then the second level of control, through the source, through writing the
code of the program; if you use a program whose code was
+written by somebody else and you canât see it or change it then that
somebody controls what you do. He could make the program do nasty
+things to you, and even if you happen to find out, you still canât change
it.</p>
+<p>Finding out is difficult because you donât have the source code.
Sometimes you will notice some sign that itâs doing a nasty thing.
+Other times you wonât notice. For instance, Windows has spy features which
send information about the use of the machine to Microsoft
+and users canât see that this is happening. It was not easy to find out that
these spy features are there, but people found out. They
+had to be somewhat clever, in some cases, to discover these spy features.</p>
+<p>And then there is a back door in Windows which allows Microsoft to forcibly
install software changes. It doesnât have to ask permission,
+it can just sneak them in. So this is what I mean when I say a program
controls the users. But even if thereâs no back door to allow the
+developer to install changes, itâs still the case that the program does what
the developer chose to make it do, and if you donât like that,
+you canât change it. So youâre stuck with it.</p>
+<p>So the back door is sort of icing on the cake for his power, because it
means that even if he forgot to do something nasty, he can put
+it in retroactively. Without that kind of back door, heâs limited to the
nasty things that he thought of in advance.</p>
+
+<p>There are many proprietary programs that are widely used, that do
surveillance; there are many that are specifically designed to restrict
+what users could do. Those restrictions which limit what users could do on the
data in their machines are known as digital restrictions management
+or DRM, also sometimes referred to as digital handcuffs. So the point is,
using those programs is like being handcuffed because you canât
+just move your hands around anywhere you like, the program is stopping you.</p>
+<p>And these are intentional features. Of course, programs also have bugs, and
if you don’t have the source code you can’t fix the bugs.
+So the users, in order to be free, must have the source code, and they must be
able to run their own modified versions of the source code in place
+of the original. And they have to be free also to distribute their modified
versions. Because if you don’t have that freedom then you could
+fix a problem for yourself but you couldn’t fix it for anyone else,
which means that each individual user would have to fix the problem.
+It would have to be fixed over and over and over.</p>
+<p>Also with the freedom to distribute your modified version, the people who
donât know how to program can benefit.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>I understand a bit about freedom for software now.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>So if Iâm using the free program and I make a change in it, which I know
how to do, then I could publish my modified version and then you.
+Perhaps youâre not a programmer; you would still be able to get the benefit
of the change I make. Not only that, you could pay somebody to change
+the program for you, or you could join an organisation whose goal is to change
a certain program in a certain way, and all the members would put
+in their money, and thatâs how they would hire a programmer to change it.</p>
+
+<p>So the definition of free software is the four freedoms that are needed for
the users to have control of their computing. Freedom zero is the
+freedom to run the program. Freedom one is the freedom to study the source
code and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Freedom two
+is the freedom to help others, which is the freedom to redistribute exact
copies. And freedom three is the freedom to contribute to your community,
+which is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions. So these
four freedoms ensure that the users, both individually and collectively,
+control the program. If the users donât control the program then the program
controls the users. Thatâs proprietary software and that is what makes it
evil.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Sounds similar to Creative Commons – verifying the types of
copyrights.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Yes. Creative commons publishes various licences.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Yes. Do you agree with all those kind of activities on freedom?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>They donât have a position on that.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Position?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Creative commons licences grant the users varying amounts of freedom. Two
of their licences qualify as free by our criteria.
+Those are the creative commons attribution licence and the attribution
share-alike licence, those. And I think maybe thereâs
+also the CC zero licence, which I usually donât think about. But I think
those three are all free licences.</p>
+<p>The other creative commons licences do not go far enough to make the work
free. However, I wouldnât say that all published
+works must be free. I think the published works that must be free are the ones
that you use to do practical jobs. So that means
+software, recipes for cooking – and recipes for cooking are a good
examples because, as Iâm sure you know, cooks frequently
+share and modify recipes.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Sure, yes.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>And it would be a tremendous outrage to stop them. So in effect, cooks
treat recipes as free. But letâs look at some more works
+that are used for practical jobs. Educational works are used for practical
jobs; to teach yourself or teach others. Reference works
+are used for practical jobs; to look up some information. And then there are
text fonts, which we use to display or print text so it
+can be read. These are examples of works of practical use. These are not the
only examples. I m sure you can find some more. Anyway,
+works of practical use are the ones that I believe must be free.</p>
+<p>However there are other kinds of works. For instance, there are essays of
opinion and scientific papers and there are artistic works,
+and their contributions to society are of a different kind. They donât
contribute through helping you do practical jobs. They are useful
+in other ways. So I draw different conclusions about them. I think the crucial
conclusion for those other works is the freedom to
+non-commercially redistribute exact copies, in other words the freedom to
share.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Iâm interested in what youâre doing. Youâre travelling around the
world, like me, and youâre contributing to others, not for yourself.
+And I love that way you live and I respect it so much. So I was just
wondering, how you describe yourself?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>I describe myself as a free software activist.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Activist?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Yes.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Activists means the ones who change the world?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>First of all, we havenât changed the whole world, not even in this
regard, weâve only changed a part of it.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Ok.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>As you can see, most computer users are still running proprietary systems
such as Windows and Macintosh. And then if they have smartphones,
+those smartphones are running proprietary software and it typically has
malicious features too. We have a long way to go to achieve victory.
+And the other thing is that what we have achieved, I did not achieve by
myself. But I did start this movement.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Your activities have lasted for a long time, what would be your advice for
being an activist?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>I was rather lucky, in a sense. I was in a position to do something that
would forward my cause just working by myself. As other people
+showed up who were interested they could join. So itâs generally good to
look for a way to do things that way, in other words donât set out
+at first to make a large organisation and then begin to achieve something.
Start doing things such that you alone, or a small group of people
+who support you, can achieve something, and by achieving something you can
attract the attention of others who might want to join.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Great idea.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>In fact, I’ve read that advice in a book. I don’t remember
where, because that was a long time ago, but it fit what I had alreasy done.
+I can’t say I thought of this as a general principle, but it did work
well in my case.</p>
+
+<p>And the other thing is, don’t design your activism with the idea that
first you will raise a lot of money and then with the money you’ll
+be able to do such-and-such, because on that path you almost never get
anywhere. It’s so unlikely you will succeed in raising that money that
+chances are you’ll spend all your time trying and failing, and never
start doing anything about your cause.</p>
+<p>So design your plans so that you can start doing things for the cause soon
and that way youâll spend your time getting a certain amount done for your
+cause, which is better than nothing.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Fair enough.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>And of the ones who follow the raise-money-first path, those few that
succeed in raising the money will find that their years of focusing on making
+that money have changed their goals. By the time they have that money they
will be used to trying to do everything to get money. Few people have the
+ability to turn around and start directing their efforts toward something
other than getting and keeping a lot of money.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Indeed. Can you tell me how did you gather great people when you launched
the Free Software Foundation?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>I donât know if I always gathered great people. Some who came to us were
good and some were not but I couldnât tell very well in advance, I didnât
+know how to judge that. But enough of them were good that theyâve managed to
achieve a lot.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>So did you gather people or did people automatically come to your place?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Mostly people had seen what we had already done and found it interesting,
and they would either help or, in some cases, come back when the FSF was
+hiring and we would say we were looking for someone to hire. Maybe we knew
them already–who was a good programmer–by their contributing as a
+volunteer, so we knew if we hired them, they would be good.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>I see. Thank you so much for your time. As a final question, I want to ask
you about what we should do to spread the freedom.</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>The big enemy of freedom is governments taking too much power over society.
They do that with two excuses: the excuse is terrorists or child pornographers.
+But we have to realise that anti-freedom is a bigger danger than either of
those. For instance, censoring the internet. We must not accept laws allowing
+punishment without a fair trial.</p>
+<p>The US set a horrible example when it started grabbing people from all
around the world without a trial. Even now, Obama is continuing pushing
military
+commissions, which are simply trials that don’t live up to the standards
for trials. They’re not fair trials.</p>
+<p>We know a lot of the prisoners were in Guantanamo because somebody told a
malicious rumour about them, and we can’t rely on military tribunals to
+distinguish between real evidence and malicious rumour or the fact that
somebody was tortured and eventually said whatever his torturer wanted.</p>
+<p>Right now, Iâm told the Iraqi Government is still committing torture and
I was told 30,000 prisoners who are without trial. This is a monster that the
US created.
+Governments around the world keep looking for more power. The problem is, they
have too much already.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Thatâs true. How can we get the power back from the governments?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>I wish I knew.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>(Laughter)</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>I do know something about how we can teach people the need for this.
Governments get their power by focusing peopleâs attention on some secondary
problem.</p>
+<p>For instance, in the US, how did the Government get its power to torture
and imprison people and even just bomb them? The US practises targeted killing.
Thereâs a
+list of people who are marked for death and the US Government will drop bombs
on them rather than try to arrest them. Now, how did all this get started?
Itâs because
+the US focused peopleâs attention on the secondary danger of terrorists
carrying out the September 11th attacks in the US.</p>
+<p>Now, Bush didn’t want an investigation of those attacks. Eventually
he was forced to allow an investigation, but he weakened it and corrupted the
investigators,
+so we canâ t trust the results. There has never been a proper investigation
of how those attacks were carried out and who was responsible. So maybe it was
planned by a
+bunch of terrorists as the Government says, or maybe Cheney was involved, as
some other people say. Without a real investigation, we’ll never know.</p>
+<p>But given that excuse, George Bush went on to demonstrate that tyranny is
worse than terrorism, because those terrorist attacks killed under 3,000
people, and they
+were used as the excuse for the conquest of Iraq, in which 4500 or so
Americans were killed. So even if we only consider who’s more dangerous
to Americans, the answer is Bush.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>(Laughter) People can’t judge what’s right or wrong when the
condition is getting complex and excited too muchâ¦</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>And that ignored the million or so Iraqis that Bush killed and that Bush
prevented us from counting. But by preventing them from being accurately
counted, Bush made it possible for
+low estimates such as that of Iraq Body Count to seem plausible.</p>
+<p>I read recently some journalists went to look for oil buried just below the
beach in Florida, and some sort of Federal agents ordered them not to, because
they donâ t want news that
+the oil is there. They’re hoping to cover up the effects so as to get it
out of people’s minds. And whether they’re doing that for BP or for
Obama or both, it’s
+offensive to try to stop the public from knowing.</p>
+
+<p>HK</p>
+<p>Do you believe that the internet has the possibility to change this
phenomenon?</p>
+
+<p>RMS</p>
+<p>Thatâs a different question. The internet is useful for various things
like sharing valuable information. But itâs also useful for surveillance. So
the internet can be used for good
+things and bad things. So how do we make sure that we are free to share? How
do we limit the surveillance? Itâs a matter of stopping the Government from
doing things that are unjust.</p>
+<p><em>Richard Stallman is a software freedom activist and the president of
the Free Software Foundation.</em></p>
+</div>
+
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.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="/contact/">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>
+Please see the
+<a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting
+translations of this article.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Copyright © 2010 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 in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2010/11/05 04:28:10 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="translations">
+<h4>Translations of this page</h4>
+
+<!-- Please keep this list alphabetical. -->
+<!-- Comment what the language is for each type, i.e. de is German. -->
+<!-- Write the language name in its own language (Deutsch) in the text. -->
+<!-- If you add a new language here, please -->
+<!-- advise address@hidden and add it to -->
+<!-- - /home/www/bin/nightly-vars either TAGSLANG or WEBLANG -->
+<!-- - /home/www/html/server/standards/README.translations.html -->
+<!-- - one of the lists under the section "Translations Underway" -->
+<!-- - if there is a translation team, you also have to add an alias -->
+<!-- to mail.gnu.org:/com/mailer/aliases -->
+<!-- Please also check you have the 2 letter language code right, cf. -->
+<!-- <URL:http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm> -->
+<!-- Please use W3C normative character entities. -->
+
+<ul class="translations-list">
+<!-- English -->
+<li><a href="/philosophy/luispo-rms-interview.html">English</a> [en]</li>
+<!-- French -->
+<li><a
href="/philosophy/luispo-rms-interview.fr.html">Français</a> [fr]</li>
+<!-- Chinese (Simplified) -->
+<li><a
href="/philosophy/luispo-rms-interview.zh-cn.html">简体中文</a> [zh-cn]</li>
+<!-- Chinese (Traditional) -->
+<li><a
href="/philosophy/luispo-rms-interview.zh-tw.html">繁體中文</a> [zh-tw]</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
| [Prev in Thread] |
Current Thread |
[Next in Thread] |
- www/philosophy the-law-of-success-2.html,
Leo Albert Jackson Jr <=