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www/philosophy google-engineering-talk.html
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From: |
Pavel Kharitonov |
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Subject: |
www/philosophy google-engineering-talk.html |
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Date: |
Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:04:27 +0000 |
CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Pavel Kharitonov <ineiev> 11/01/24 16:04:27
Modified files:
philosophy : google-engineering-talk.html
Log message:
improve markup
Validation fix s/GNU&Linux/GNU\&Linux/
Link TOC entries to respective passages
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/google-engineering-talk.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.2&r2=1.3
Patches:
Index: google-engineering-talk.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/philosophy/google-engineering-talk.html,v
retrieving revision 1.2
retrieving revision 1.3
diff -u -b -r1.2 -r1.3
--- google-engineering-talk.html 24 Sep 2010 22:25:43 -0000 1.2
+++ google-engineering-talk.html 24 Jan 2011 16:04:19 -0000 1.3
@@ -13,49 +13,51 @@
</strong></p>
<h3>Table of Contents</h3>
-<p>1. Introduction 2<br />
-2. How it started 2<br />
-3. GNU operating system 3<br />
-4. GNU Emacs 5<br />
-5. Expensive habits 5<br />
-6. Definition of free software 6<br />
-7. Freedom 2 moral dilemma 7<br />
-8. Freedom 2 spirit of good will 7<br />
-9. Freedom 0 to run a program, Freedom 1 to modify it 8<br />
-10. DRM, backdoors, bugs 8<br />
-11. Freedom 3 having no master 9<br />
-12. Copyleft forbidding is forbidden 10<br />
-13. General Public License 11<br />
-14. Making money off free software 12<br />
-15. Why write free software 13<br />
-16. Linux kernel 14<br />
-17. GNU vs. Linux confusion problem freedom 15<br />
-18. Enemies of free software 16<br />
-19. Treacherous computing 17<br />
-20. Help GNU 18<br />
-21. Saint Ignucius 18<br />
-22. About anonymity, credit cards, cell phones 19<br />
-23. Free formats, copyright, Microsoft 20<br />
-24. Dangers of webmail loss of freedom 20<br />
-25. Copyright art vs. software 21<br />
-26. Malicious free software 22<br />
-27. Patented file formats 22<br />
-28. Games as free software 22<br />
-29. GPL freedoms for cars, saving seeds 23<br />
-30. No software is better than non-free software 23<br />
-31. Portability of free software 24<br />
-32. Is some free software obfuscated on purpose? 24<br />
-33. Proprietary keeping an edge 25<br />
-34. Forbidding is forbidden how is this freedom? 25<br />
-35. Can Google help free software 25<br />
-36. Free software on windows, good or bad 26<br />
-37. SCO's suit 26<br />
-38. Stallman's problem typing 27<br />
-39. Open source, good or bad Pat-riot Act. 27<br />
-40. The end 27
-</p>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#introduction">1. Introduction … 2</a></li>
+<li><a href="#how-it-started">2. How it started … 2</a></li>
+<li><a href="#gnu-operating-system">3. GNU operating system … 3</a></li>
+<li><a href="#gnu-emacs">4. GNU Emacs … 5</a></li>
+<li><a href="#expensive-habits">5. Expensive habits … 5</a></li>
+<li><a href="#definition-of-free-software">6. Definition of free software
… 6</a></li>
+<li><a href="#freedom-2-moral-dilemma">7. Freedom 2 moral dilemma …
7</a></li>
+<li><a href="#freedom-2-spirit-of-good-will">8. Freedom 2 spirit of good will
… 7</a></li>
+<li><a href="#freedom-0-to-run-a-program-freedom-1-to-modify-it">9. Freedom 0
to run a program, Freedom 1 to modify it … 8</a></li>
+<li><a href="#drm-back-doors-bugs">10. DRM, back doors, bugs …
8</a></li>
+<li><a href="#freedom-3-having-no-master">11. Freedom 3 having no master
… 9</a></li>
+<li><a href="#copyleft-forbidding-is-forbidden">12. Copyleft forbidding is
forbidden … 10</a></li>
+<li><a href="#general-public-license">13. General Public License …
11</a></li>
+<li><a href="#developing-gnu">13a. Developing GNU</a></li>
+<li><a href="#making-money-off-free-software">14. Making money off free
software … 12</a></li>
+<li><a href="#why-write-free-software">15. Why write free software …
13</a></li>
+<li><a href="#linux-kernel">16. Linux kernel … 14</a></li>
+<li><a href="#gnu-vs-linux-confusion-problem-freedom">17. GNU vs. Linux
confusion problem freedom … 15</a></li>
+<li><a href="#enemies-of-free-software">18. Enemies of free software …
16</a></li>
+<li><a href="#treacherous-computing">19. Treacherous computing …
17</a></li>
+<li><a href="#help-gnu">20. Help GNU … 18</a></li>
+<li><a href="#saint-ignucius">21. Saint Ignucius … 18</a></li>
+<li><a href="#about-anonymity-credit-cards-cell-phones">22. About anonymity,
credit cards, cell phones … 19</a></li>
+<li><a href="#free-formats-copyright-microsoft">23. Free formats, copyright,
Microsoft … 20</a></li>
+<li><a href="#dangers-of-webmail-loss-of-freedom">24. Dangers of webmail loss
of freedom … 20</a></li>
+<li><a href="#copyright-art-vs-software">25. Copyright art vs. software
… 21</a></li>
+<li><a href="#malicious-free-software">26. Malicious free software …
22</a></li>
+<li><a href="#patented-file-formats">27. Patented file formats …
22</a></li>
+<li><a href="#games-as-free-software">28. Games as free software …
22</a></li>
+<li><a href="#gpl-freedoms-for-cars-saving-seeds">29. GPL freedoms for cars,
saving seeds … 23</a></li>
+<li><a href="#no-software-is-better-than-non-free-software">30. No software is
better than non-free software … 23</a></li>
+<li><a href="#portability-of-free-software">31. Portability of free software
… 24</a></li>
+<li><a href="#is-some-free-software-obfuscated-on-purpose">32. Is some free
software obfuscated on purpose? … 24</a></li>
+<li><a href="#proprietary-keeping-an-edge">33. Proprietary keeping an edge
… 25</a></li>
+<li><a href="#forbidding-is-forbidden-how-is-this-freedom">34. Forbidding is
forbidden how is this freedom? … 25</a></li>
+<li><a href="#can-google-help-free-software">35. Can Google help free software
… 25</a></li>
+<li><a href="#free-software-on-windows-good-or-bad">36. Free software on
windows, good or bad … 26</a></li>
+<li><a href="#scos-suit">37. SCO's suit … 26</a></li>
+<li><a href="#stallmans-problem-typing">38. Stallman's problem typing …
27</a></li>
+<li><a href="#open-source-good-or-bad-pat-riot-act">39. Open source, good or
bad Pat-riot Act … 27</a></li>
+<li><a href="#the-end">40. The end … 27</a></li>
+</ul>
-<h3>1. Introduction</h3>
+<h3 id="introduction">1. Introduction</h3>
<p><b>ED:</b> Well, thank you everybody for making it. I'm Ed Falk and this
man needs very little introduction; if you don't know what the letters RMS
stand for, you probably don't belong in this room.</p>
@@ -63,7 +65,7 @@
<p>[Richard bows]</p>
-<h3>2. How it started</h3>
+<h3 id="how-it-started">2. How it started</h3>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Please raise your hands if you cannot hear me. [Laughter]
Yes, somebody raised his hand.</p>
@@ -83,7 +85,7 @@
<p>So I found myself in a situation where the only way you could get a modern
computer and start to use it was to sign a non-disclosure agreement for some
proprietary operating system. Because all the operating systems for modern
computers in 1983 were proprietary, and there was no lawful way to get a copy
of those operating systems without signing a non-disclosure agreement, which
was unethical. So I decided to try to do something about it, to try to change
that situation. And the only way I could think of to change it was to write
another operating system, and then say as the author "this system is free; you
can have it without a non-disclosure agreement and you're welcome to
redistribute it to other people. You're welcome to study how it works. You're
welcome to change it." So, instead of being divided and helpless, the users of
this system would live in freedom. Ordinary proprietary software is part of a
scheme where users are deliberately kept divided and helpless. The program
comes with a license that says you're forbidden to share it, and in most cases
you can't get the source code, so you can't study it or change it. It may even
have malicious features and you can't tell. With free software, we respect the
user's freedom, and that's the whole point. The reason for the free software
movement is so that the people of cyberspace can have freedom, so that there is
a way to live in freedom and still use a computer, to avoid being kept divided
and helpless.</p>
-<h3>3. GNU operating system</h3>
+<h3 id="gnu-operating-system">3. GNU operating system</h3>
<p>You can't use a computer without an operating system, so a free software
operating system was absolutely essential. And in 1983 I announced my plan to
develop one: an operating system called GNU.</p>
@@ -112,13 +114,13 @@
<p>I had never used UNIX before that time. I was never a UNIX wizard and I
chose to follow the design of UNIX for the exact reason that I've told you, not
because UNIX was my favorite system or anything. Sometimes people write that it
was changes in UNIX's licensing policy that inspired GNU. Well, this is not
true; in fact, UNIX was never free software. They were more or less restrictive
and more or less nasty about enforcing the requirements, but it was never free
software, so those changes actually made no difference and, in any case, they
took place long before I ever saw an actual UNIX machine.</p>
-<h3>4. GNU Emacs</h3>
+<h3 id="gnu-emacs">4. GNU Emacs</h3>
<p>So, at the time, I thought that I and the other people I was recruiting to
try to help would develop all these pieces and make a complete system and then
we'd say, "come and get it." But that's not how it happened. In September '84,
I started developing GNU Emacs, which was my second implementation of the
extensible programmable text editor. And by early '85, it was suitable for me
to do all my editing with it. Now, that was a big relief. You see, I had
absolutely no intention of learning to use Vi. [Laughter, applause] So, until
that point, I did my editing on other machines where there was an Emacs and
copied the files through the net, in order to test them on the UNIX machine.
Once GNU Emacs was running, I could do my editing on the UNIX machine.</p>
<p>But other people wanted to get copies of GNU Emacs to use it for their
editing, to use it on their UNIX systems. There was no GNU system yet, there
were just a few pieces. But this one piece turned out to be interesting by
itself. People asked me for copies, so I had to work out the details of how to
distribute it. Of course, I put a copy in the anonymous FTP server, and that
was good for people on the net, but in 1985, most programmers were not on the
Internet. So they asked me for copies; what was I going to say? I could have
said, "I want to spend my time writing more pieces of the GNU system, not
writing mag tapes, so please find a friend who can download it and put it on
tape for you," and they would have found people sooner or later, because
programmers generally know other programmers.</p>
-<h3>5. Expensive habits</h3>
+<h3 id="expensive-habits">5. Expensive habits</h3>
<p>But I had no job, and I was looking for some way to make some money through
my work on free software. So I announced, "send me $150 and I'll mail you a
tape of GNU Emacs." And the orders began dribbling in. By the middle of the
year, they were trickling in, eight to ten orders a month, which, if necessary,
I could have lived on.</p>
@@ -126,7 +128,7 @@
<p>So I still live, basically, like a student, and I want it to be that
way.</p>
-<h3>6. Definition of free software</h3>
+<h3 id="definition-of-free-software">6. Definition of free software</h3>
<p>But people sometimes used to say to me, "what do you mean, it's free
software, if it costs $150?" Well, the English word "free" has multiple
meanings and they were confused by that. It even took me a few years to realize
that I needed to clarify this. One meaning, you see, refers to price, and
another meaning refers to freedom. When we speak of free software, we're
talking about freedom, not price. So think of "free speech," not "free
beer."</p>
@@ -145,7 +147,7 @@
<p>[<a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html";>http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html</a>]</p>
-<h3>7. Freedom 2 moral dilemma</h3>
+<h3 id="freedom-2-moral-dilemma">7. Freedom 2 moral dilemma</h3>
<p>Why these particular freedoms? Why should we define it this way?</p>
@@ -155,7 +157,7 @@
<p>In fact, I was once in the audience when John Perry Barlow was giving a
speech and he said, "raise your hands if you have no unauthorized copies of
software." And he was surprised to see someone raise his hand, until he saw it
was me. And then he said, "oh, of course, you," because he knew why I have no
unauthorized copies; that's because all my copies of software are free
software, and everybody's authorized to make copies. That's the whole point.</p>
-<h3>8. Freedom 2 spirit of good will</h3>
+<h3 id="freedom-2-spirit-of-good-will">8. Freedom 2 spirit of good will</h3>
<p>The most essential resource of any society is the spirit of good will, the
willingness to help your neighbor; not necessarily every time you're asked, but
fairly often. This is what makes the difference between a livable society and a
dog-eat-dog jungle. This spirit is not going to be 100% and it's not going to
be zero, but it's going to be somewhere in between -- and cultural actions can
influence it, can raise it or lower it. And it's essential to work to raise it
some, because that makes life easier for everyone. So it's no accident that the
world's major religions have been encouraging this spirit of good will for
thousands of years.</p>
@@ -163,7 +165,7 @@
<p>And what does it mean when they establish harsh punishments for anyone
caught sharing? How much fear do you think it's going to take before everyone's
too scared to help his neighbor? And do you want that terror campaign to go on
in our society? I hope that the answer is no. We need to abolish the war on
copying that is being imposed on our society. We need to say, loud and clear,
"copying and sharing with your neighbor is good, it's legitimate, and laws that
prohibit this are wrong."</p>
-<h3>9. Freedom 0 to run a program, Freedom 1 to modify it</h3>
+<h3 id="freedom-0-to-run-a-program-freedom-1-to-modify-it">9. Freedom 0 to
run a program, Freedom 1 to modify it</h3>
<p>So that's the reason for Freedom 2; it's essentially an ethical reason. You
can't live an ethical life if you don't have Freedom 2.</p>
@@ -181,7 +183,7 @@
<p>course do it. RealPlayer, for instance, spies on you. The TiVo spies on
you. Some people were excited about the TiVo, enthusiastic about it, because it
uses some free software inside. But it also has non-free software in it and it
spies on you. So this shows it's not enough. We shouldn't cheer when something
uses some free software; we should cheer when it respects the user's
freedom.</p>
-<h3>10. DRM, back doors, bugs</h3>
+<h3 id="drm-back-doors-bugs">10. DRM, back doors, bugs</h3>
<p>But spyware is not as bad as it gets. There are non-free software packages
that are deliberately designed to refuse to work. This is called DRM, Digital
Restrictions Management, where the program says, "I won't let you look at that
file; I won't let you copy this; I won't let you edit this." Well, who the hell
is this program to stop you? And sometimes non-free programs will reconfigure
your machine, for instance make it display advertisements, figuring that you
won't know it's going to happen and you won't know how to undo it afterward.</p>
@@ -195,7 +197,7 @@
<p>Now, we, the developers of free software, are also human, we also make
mistakes. I have designed features that users didn't like. I have written code
that had bugs in it. The difference is, {with our} you're not a prisoner of our
decisions, because we don't keep you helpless. If you don't like my decisions,
you can change them, because you have the freedom to change them. I won't blame
the developers of non-free, user-subjugating software for being human and
making mistakes; I will blame them for keeping you helpless prisoner of their
mistakes by denying you the freedom to correct those mistakes yourself.</p>
-<h3>11. Freedom 3 having no master</h3>
+<h3 id="freedom-3-having-no-master">11. Freedom 3 having no master</h3>
<p>But Freedom 1 is not enough. Freedom 1 is the freedom personally to study
and change the source code. Freedom 1 is not enough because there are millions
of users who use computers, but don't know how to program, so they can't take
advantage of Freedom 1, not personally. And Freedom 1 is not enough even for us
programmers, because there's just so much software, even so much free software,
that nobody has the time to study it all and master it all and make all the
changes that she wants.</p>
@@ -211,7 +213,7 @@
<p>Now, what this shows is that merely having a choice between a discrete set
of options is not freedom. Freedom is something much deeper and much broader
than having a few choices you can make. Many people try to equate freedom with
having some choice and they're missing the point completely. Freedom means that
you get to make the decisions about how to live your life. {It doesn't mean,
you know} Having three choices about being able to choose this master or this
master or this master is just a choice of masters, and a choice of masters is
not freedom. Freedom is having no master.</p>
-<h3>12. Copyleft forbidding is forbidden</h3>
+<h3 id="copyleft-forbidding-is-forbidden">12. Copyleft forbidding is
forbidden</h3>
<p>So I've explained the reasons for the four freedoms. And thus I've
explained to you what free software means. A program is free software for you,
a particular user, if you have all of these four freedoms. Why do I define it
that way? The reason is that sometimes the same code can be free software for
some users and non-free for the rest. This might seem strange, so let me give
you an example to show how it happens.</p>
@@ -223,19 +225,19 @@
<p>Here's how it works: we start with a copyright notice which legally doesn't
actually make a difference anymore, but it reminds people that the program is
copyrighted, which means that, by default, it's prohibited to copy, distribute
or modify this program. But then we say, "you are authorized to make copies,
you are authorized to distribute them, you are authorized to modify this
program and you are authorized to publish modified or extended versions." But
there is a condition, and the condition says that any program you distribute
that contains any substantial part of this must, as a whole, be distributed
under these conditions, no more and no less. Which means that, no matter how
many people modify the program or how much, as long as any substantial amount
of our code is in there, that program must be free software in the same way. In
effect, we guarantee that nobody can put himself between you and me and strip
off the freedom and pass the code on to you missing the freedom. In other
words, forbidding is forbidden.</p>
-<h3>13. GNU General Public License</h3>
+<h3 id="general-public-license">13. GNU General Public License</h3>
<p>Copyleft makes the four freedoms into inalienable rights for all users, so
that wherever the code goes, the freedom goes with it. The specific license
that we use to implement the general concept of copyleft is called the GNU
General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. This license is used for around
two thirds or three quarters of all free software packages. But that still
leaves a substantial number that have other licenses. Some of those licenses
are copyleft licenses, some are not. So we have copylefted free software and we
have non-copylefted free software. In both cases, the developers have respected
your freedom; they have not tried to trample your freedom. The difference is,
with copyleft we go further and we actively defend your freedom against anyone
who would try to be a middleman and take it away from you, whereas the
developers of non-copylefted free software don't do that. They have not tried
to take away your freedom, but they don't actively protect your freedom from
anyone else. So I think that they could do more for the sake of freedom. But
they haven't done anything bad; insofar as they have done things, those things
are good. So I won't say that they are wrong, I will just say that they could
do more. I think that they're making a mistake.</p>
<p>But their work is free software, so it does contribute to our community
and, in fact, that software can be part of a free operating system such as
GNU.</p>
-<h3>13a. Developing GNU</h3>
+<h3 id="developing-gnu">13a. Developing GNU</h3>
<p>During the 1980s, our work on the GNU Project was to develop or find all
these pieces of GNU so that we could have a complete GNU system. In some cases,
someone else wrote a program and made it free software and we were able to use
it, and that was good because it shortened the work that we had to do. For
instance, the X Window System is one of the programs that was developed by
others for reasons of their own, but they did make it free software, so we
could use it.</p>
<p>Now, people were saying the job was so big, we'd never finish it. Well, I
thought we would eventually get a free operating system but I agreed the job
was big; we had to look for shortcuts. So, for instance, I always wanted to
have windowing facilities in GNU. I had written a couple of window systems at
the AI LAB before even starting GNU, so of course I wanted that in the system.
But we never developed a GNU window system because someone else developed X
first. I looked at it and I said, "well, it's not copylefted, but it is free,
it's popular, it's powerful, so let's just use it." And so we saved one big
chunk of work. So we took it, X, and we put it into the GNU system and we
started making other pieces of GNU work with X. Because the goal was to have a
free operating system, not to have a free operating system every piece of which
had been written purposely by us just for that.</p>
-<h3>14. Making money off free software</h3>
+<h3 id="making-money-off-free-software">14. Making money off free software</h3>
<p>However, it only happened occasionally that someone else released some free
software that was useful in GNU and when it happened, it was a coincidence,
because they were not writing this software in order to have a free operating
system. So when it happened, that was great, but there were lots of other
pieces we had to develop. Some were developed by staff of the Free Software
Foundation. The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity to promote
free software which we founded in October, '85, after GNU Emacs' popularity
suggested that people might actually start donating money to the GNU project.
So we founded the Free Software Foundation and it asked for donations, but also
took over selling the tapes of GNU Emacs. And it turns out that most of the
FSF's income for the first many years came from that, from selling things, from
selling copies of software and manuals that everyone was free to copy. Now this
is interesting, because this was supposedly impossible; but we did it
anyway.</p>
@@ -243,7 +245,7 @@
<p>So I've actually had three different free software businesses during the
period I've been working on GNU. I've described two of them; the third one is,
I get paid for some of my speeches. Whether I get paid for this speech, I don't
yet know. [Laughter] I said, "please pay me what you can." Now, I think Google
ought to be able to afford to pay me some handsome amount, but whether it will,
I don't know. Anyway, I figured it's worth doing the speech just for the good
it will do for the movement.</p>
-<h3>15. Why write free software</h3>
+<h3 id="why-write-free-software">15. Why write free software</h3>
<p>So this raises the question of why people develop free software. You see,
there are people who believe that no one would ever write software except to
get paid, that that's the only motive that anyone would ever have to write
code. It's amazing, the kind of utterly stupid, simplistic theories that people
will sometimes believe because that's part of a prevailing ideology.</p>
@@ -269,7 +271,7 @@
<p>So there are many possible motives to write free software. And,
fortunately, there are many developers of free software and a lot of free
software is being developed.</p>
-<h3>16. The Kernel, Linux</h3>
+<h3 id="linux-kernel">16. The Kernel, Linux</h3>
<p>So, during the 1980s we were filling in these missing pieces of the GNU
operating system. By the early '90s we had almost everything necessary. Only
one important piece was missing, one essential piece for an initial system, and
that was the kernel. We started developing a kernel in 1990. {I was looking for
some way to} I was looking for some shortcut, some way we could start from
something existing. I thought that debugging a kernel would be painful, because
you don't get to do it with your symbolic debugger, and when it crashes, it's
sort of annoying.</p>
@@ -279,11 +281,19 @@
<p>Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for that, because in 1991, Linus
Torvalds, a Finnish college student, developed his own kernel, using the
traditional monolithic design, and he got it to barely run in less than a year.
Initially, Linux --that's what this kernel's name was-- was not free, but in
1992 he re-released it under the GNU General Public License and at that point
it was free software. And so it was possible, by combining Linux and the GNU
system, to make a complete free operating system. And thus, the goal we had set
out for, that I had announced in 1983, had been reached: there was, for the
first time, a complete modern operating system for modern computers, and it was
possible to get a modern computer and run it without betraying the rest of
humanity, without being subjugated. You could do this by installing the GNU +
Linux operating system.</p>
-<h3>17. GNU vs. Linux confusion problem freedom</h3>
+<h3 id="gnu-vs-linux-confusion-problem-freedom">17. GNU vs. Linux confusion
problem freedom</h3>
<p>But the people who combined GNU and Linux got confused and they started
naming the entire thing Linux, which was actually the name of one piece. And
somehow that confusion spread faster than we have been able to correct it. So
I'm sure you've heard many people speaking of Linux as an operating system, an
operating system {most of which} which basically started in 1984 under the name
of the GNU Project.</p>
-<p>Now, this clearly isn't right. This system isn't Linux; it contains Linux,
Linux is the kernel, but the system as a whole is basically GNU. So I ask you:
please don't call it Linux. If you call it Linux, you're giving Linus Torvalds
credit for our work. Now, he contributed one important piece of the system, but
he didn't contribute the biggest part and the overall vision was there long
before he got involved. We started developing the system when he was in junior
high school. So please give us equal mention; surely we deserve at least that.
You can do that by calling the system GNU/Linux, or GNU+Linux, or GNU&Linux,
whichever punctuation mark you feel expresses it best.</p>
+<p>Now, this clearly isn't right. This system isn't Linux; it contains Linux,
+Linux is the kernel, but the system as a whole is basically GNU. So I ask you:
+please don't call it Linux. If you call it Linux, you're giving Linus Torvalds
+credit for our work. Now, he contributed one important piece of the system, but
+he didn't contribute the biggest part and the overall vision was there long
+before he got involved. We started developing the system when he was in junior
+high school. So please give us equal mention; surely we deserve at least that.
+You can do that by calling the system GNU/Linux, or GNU+Linux, or
GNU&Linux,
+whichever punctuation mark you feel expresses it best.</p>
<p>[<a
href="http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html";>http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html</a>]</p>
@@ -299,7 +309,7 @@
<p>We've come in view of finishing the job, you know. Maybe we're only one
order of magnitude away, having come through many orders of magnitude. But that
doesn't mean that what's left is easy. And today we have something that we
didn't have before: we have enemies; powerful, rich enemies, powerful enough to
buy governments.</p>
-<h3>18. Enemies of free software</h3>
+<h3 id="enemies-of-free-software">18. Enemies of free software</h3>
<p>At the beginning, GNU and the free software movement had no enemies. There
were people who weren't interested, lots of them, but nobody was actively
trying to stop us from developing and releasing a free operating system.
Nowadays, they are trying to stop us and the main obstacle we face is this,
rather than the work itself.</p>
@@ -317,7 +327,7 @@
<p>So when we face the various dangers that we must confront, we are weakened
by the lack of resolve. Now, having strong motivation to fight for freedom
won't guarantee that we win all of these fights, but it will sure help. It will
make us try harder, and if we try harder, we'll win more of them.</p>
-<h3>19. Treacherous computing</h3>
+<h3 id="treacherous-computing">19. Treacherous computing</h3>
<p>We are going to have to politically organize to keep from being completely
prohibited from writing free software.</p>
@@ -333,7 +343,7 @@
<p>[<a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html";>http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html</a>]</p>
-<h3>20. Help GNU</h3>
+<h3 id="help-gnu">20. Help GNU</h3>
<p>Now, www.gnu.org is the website of the GNU Project. So you can go there for
more information. In the /gnu directory you'll find the history and in the
/philosophy directory you'll find articles about the philosophy of free
software and in the /directory you'll find the Free Software Directory, which
now lists over 3,000 usable free software packages that will run the on
GNU/Linux system.</p>
@@ -341,7 +351,7 @@
<p>Now, I'm about to close my speech, but before I do, I'd like to mention
that I've got some stickers here to give away. These stickers show a flying gnu
and a flying penguin, both rather unrealistic, but they're superheroes. And {I
also have some things} if people don't mind, I've got some things I'm selling
on behalf of the Free Software Foundation, so if you buy them, you're
supporting us. I've got these buttons that say, "ask me about free software --
it's all about freedom" and I've got some GNU keyrings and GNU pins that are
sort of pretty. So you can buy those. You can also support us by becoming an
associate member. Now, you can do that just through our website, but I also
have some cards you can have if you would like to join [right now].</p>
-<h3>21. Saint Ignucius</h3>
+<h3 id="saint-ignucius">21. Saint Ignucius</h3>
<p>So now I will close my speech by presenting my alter ego. See, people
sometimes accuse me of having a "holier than thou" attitude. Now, I hope that's
not true. I'm not going to condemn somebody just for not being as firmly
committed as I am. I will try to encourage him to become more so, but that's
different. So I don't think I really have a "holier than thou" attitude, but I
have a holy attitude because I'm a saint; it's my job to be holy.</p>
@@ -369,7 +379,7 @@
<p>[Applause]</p>
-<h3>22. About anonymity, credit cards, cell phones</h3>
+<h3 id="about-anonymity-credit-cards-cell-phones">22. About anonymity, credit
cards, cell phones</h3>
<p>So I can answer questions for a while.</p>
@@ -385,7 +395,7 @@
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Remove anonymity? Well, I don't know about those efforts,
but I think it's horrible. I don't do e-commerce because I don't like to buy
things with credit cards. I want to buy things anonymously and I do so by
paying cash in a store. I don't like giving Big Brother any records about me.
For the same reason, I do not have a cell phone. I don't want to carry a
personal tracking device. We have to fight more to preserve our privacy from
surveillance systems. So, although I'm not familiar with the specific efforts
you're talking about, I find them dangerous, much more dangerous than computer
insecurity. Now, perhaps that's because I'm not a Windows user; so I have less
problem to deal with.</p>
-<h3>23. Free formats, copyright, Microsoft</h3>
+<h3 id="free-formats-copyright-microsoft">23. Free formats, copyright,
Microsoft</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> [unintelligible]</p>
@@ -397,7 +407,7 @@
<p>You know, we've been trying since around 1992 or so to convince users to
stop using GIF format, because that format is patented and some users will get
sued. So we said, "everybody please stop using GIF format for the sake of those
who get sued if the public uses this format." And people haven't listened. So
the thing is, we can't do what Microsoft does, because that's based on using
the power that they have, and since we have chosen to respect people's freedom,
we don't have power over the public.</p>
-<h3>24. Dangers of webmail loss of freedom</h3>
+<h3 id="dangers-of-webmail-loss-of-freedom">24. Dangers of webmail loss of
freedom</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> So, when somebody's using Google, they don't have access
to the source code that we use, so they have no way of [unintelligible] what we
do, so using that violates their freedom.</p>
@@ -415,7 +425,7 @@
<p>{Leaving so soon? [Laughter] I hope it wasn't something I said. And gee,
now I won't get to meet her. Anyway.}</p>
-<h3>25. Copyright art vs. software</h3>
+<h3 id="copyright-art-vs-software">25. Copyright art vs. software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Are the Creative Commons a different denomination of the
same religion or a different religion?</p>
@@ -429,25 +439,25 @@
<p>For practical, functional works, people have to be free with the four
freedoms, including free to publish a modified version. But for art I wouldn't
say that. I think that there's a certain minimum freedom that we must always
have for using any published work, and that is the freedom to non-commercially
distribute verbatim, exact copies. But I wouldn't say that it has to go further
than that necessarily. So I think the Creative Commons licenses are a very
useful and good thing to use for art.</p>
-<h3>26. Malicious free software</h3>
+<h3 id="malicious-free-software">26. Malicious free software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Since everybody has the freedom to modify the code and
republish it, how do you keep out saboteurs?</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Well, you don't. The point is, you can't ever. So you just
look at these different versions and you see which one you actually like. You
can't keep the saboteurs out of non-free software either; in fact, the
developer could be the saboteur. The developers often put in, as I said,
malicious features. And then you're completely helpless. At least with free
software, you can read the source code, you can compare the two versions. If
you're thinking of switching from this version to that version, you can compare
them and see what's different and look for some malicious code.</p>
-<h3>27. Patented file formats</h3>
+<h3 id="patented-file-formats">27. Patented file formats</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Do you happen to know which popular file formats are
secret and which ones are public?</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Well, of the popular file formats, the only ones that I
know of that are secret are some Microsoft ones. But, on the other hands, there
are others that have patent problems. For instance, there's still a patent
covering LZW compression, which is used in GIF format. And someone has a patent
he claims covers JPEG format and is actually suing a bunch of companies. And
then there's a patent on MP3 audio, so that the free software MP3 encoders have
been driven underground in the US. That's why people should switch to Ogg
Vorbis format. And then, if you look at, say, MPEG-2 video, there are 39
different US patents said to cover aspects of MPEG-2. So there are a lot of
such problems.</p>
-<h3>28. Games as free software</h3>
+<h3 id="games-as-free-software">28. Games as free software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Is there any software that sort of mixes between the
Creative Commons and functional software, such as games or...?</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Well, {you can say that a game} in many cases you can look
at a game as the combination of a program and a scenario. And then it would
make sense to treat the program like a program and the scenario like a work of
fiction. On the other hand, what you see is that it's quite useful for the
users to edit and republish modified versions of these scenarios. So, although
those are like fiction and art, not like software, it really seems to be useful
for users to be free to change them.</p>
-<h3>29. GPL freedoms for cars, saving seeds</h3>
+<h3 id="gpl-freedoms-for-cars-saving-seeds">29. GPL freedoms for cars, saving
seeds</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Do you envision this free software philosophy to go
across, off the boundary to products, commodities...</p>
@@ -459,7 +469,7 @@
<p>If we imagine, someday in the future, that such copiers exist, well that
will be a different situation and yeah, that change would have consequences for
ethics and politics. If we had food copiers, I'm sure that agribusiness would
be trying to forbid people from having and using food copiers. And that would
be a tremendous political issue, just as today there's a tremendous political
issue about whether farmers ought to be allowed to save seeds. Now, I believe
that they have a fundamental right to save seeds and that it's tyranny to stop
them. A democratic government would never do that.</p>
-<h3>30. No software is better than non-free software</h3>
+<h3 id="no-software-is-better-than-non-free-software">30. No software is
better than non-free software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> [roughly] Do you see a problem with free software being
under-produced because nobody wants to invest money [unintelligible]?</p>
@@ -471,25 +481,25 @@
<p>Non-free software is evil and we're better off with nothing than with
non-free software. The tragedy of the commons can happen either through overuse
or under-contribution, but overuse is impossible in software.
Under-contribution happens when a program is proprietary. Then it's a failure
to contribute to the commons. And so I would like that proprietary software to
stop being developed. A non-free program is worse than no program, because
neither one allows you to get a job done in freedom, but the non-free program
might tempt people to give up their freedom and that's really bad.</p>
-<h3>31. Portability of free software</h3>
+<h3 id="portability-of-free-software">31. Portability of free software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Is their a potential conflict between the free software
philosophy and the portability of [unintelligible]?</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> No, {I don't see} this makes no sense to me at all. I see
no conflict between the philosophy of free software and portability. And in the
free software world we've worked very hard to achieve portability from all
sides. We make our software very portable and we make our software standardized
so that other people can easily have portability, so we are aiding portability
from every possible direction. Meanwhile, you see Microsoft deliberately
introducing incompatibilities and deliberately blocking interoperability.
Microsoft can do that because it has power. We can't do that. If we make a
program incompatible and the users don't like it, they can change it. They can
change it to be compatible. So we are not in a position where we could impose
incompatibility on anybody, because we have chosen not to try to have power
over other people.</p>
-<h3>32. Is some free software obfuscated on purpose?</h3>
+<h3 id="is-some-free-software-obfuscated-on-purpose">32. Is some free software
obfuscated on purpose?</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Something [unintelligible] obfuscated [unintelligible]
understand it.</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> Well, I disagree with you. Please, this is silly. If you're
saying a program is hard to understand, that's not the same as the people are
restricting it. It's not the same as saying, "you're forbidden to see it." Now,
if you find it unclear, you can work on making it clearer. The fact is, the
developers probably are trying to keep it clear, but it's a hard job and,
unless you want to compare our software with proprietary software and see which
one is clearer, you have no basis to make the claim that you're making. From
what I hear, non-free software is typically much worse and the reason is that
the developers figure no one will ever see it, so they'll never be embarrassed
by how bad it is.</p>
-<h3>33. Proprietary keeping an edge</h3>
+<h3 id="proprietary-keeping-an-edge">33. Proprietary keeping an edge</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> You hear the argument a lot from people who manufacture
devices or [unintelligible] hardware that they need to have proprietary
software in order to give them an edge, because, if they gave away the software
for free, then a competitor could manufacture the device [unintelligible].</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> I don't believe this. I think it's all bullshit, because
there they are competing with each other and each one's saying, "we need to
make the software proprietary to have an edge over the others." Well, if none
of them did it, they might all lose their edge? I mean, so what? We shouldn't
buy this. And I mean, we shouldn't buy what they're saying and we shouldn't buy
their products either.</p>
-<h3>34. Forbidding is forbidden how is this freedom?</h3>
+<h3 id="forbidding-is-forbidden-how-is-this-freedom">34. Forbidding is
forbidden how is this freedom?</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> I might be saying [unintelligible]</p>
@@ -505,7 +515,7 @@
<p>So I'm making the distinction between freedom, which is having control over
your own life, and power, which is having control over other people's lives.
We've got to make this distinction; if we ignore the difference between freedom
and power, then we lose the ability to judge whether a society is free or not.
You know, if you lose this distinction, then you look at Stalinist Russia and
you say, "well, there was just as much freedom there, it's just that Stalin had
it all." No! In Stalinist Russia, Stalin had power and people did not have
freedom; the freedom wasn't there, because it's only freedom when it's a matter
of controlling your own life. Controlling other people's lives is not freedom
at all, not for either of the people involved.</p>
-<h3>35. Can Google help free software</h3>
+<h3 id="can-google-help-free-software">35. Can Google help free software</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> In your opinion, is there anything that Google as a
company could do better in the spirit of free software?</p>
@@ -515,7 +525,7 @@
are written in Javascript, and servers install them without your
noticing.]</p>
-<h3>36. Free software on windows, good or bad</h3>
+<h3 id="free-software-on-windows-good-or-bad">36. Free software on windows,
good or bad</h3>
<p>I'll take three more questions.</p>
@@ -535,19 +545,19 @@
Windows can be useful as he said; however, writing a free program only
for Windows is a waste.]</p>
-<h3>37. SCO's suit</h3>
+<h3 id="scos-suit">37. SCO's suit</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> What would be the impact of SCO winning their argument
against Linux? So what would be the impact on...</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> I don't know, it depends. It would have no effect on the
GPL. But {it might have some effect} some code might have to be removed from
Linux. And whether that would be a big problem or a tiny problem depends on
what code, so there's no way of saying. But I don't think SCO is a real
problem. I think software patents and treacherous computing and hardware with
secret specs, those are the real problems. That's what we've got to be fighting
against.</p>
-<h3>38. Stallman's problem typing</h3>
+<h3 id="stallmans-problem-typing">38. Stallman's problem typing</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> I have a non-ideology question. I'm personally very
interested in your battle with repetitive stress injuries and the impact that
it had on the development of GNU Hurd.</p>
<p><b>RICHARD:</b> None, because I was never working on the GNU Hurd. {I've
never} We hired a person to write the GNU Hurd. I had nothing to do with
writing it. And there were a few years when I couldn't type much and then we
hired people to type for me. And then I found, by using keyboards with a light
touch, I could type again.</p>
-<h3>39. Open source, good or bad Pat-riot Act.</h3>
+<h3 id="open-source-good-or-bad-pat-riot-act">39. Open source, good or bad
Pat-riot Act.</h3>
<p><b>AUDIENCE:</b> Can you give us your opinion of open source?</p>
@@ -555,7 +565,7 @@
<p>And what they're saying may be right and if this convinces some people to
write free software, that's a useful contribution. But I think they're missing
the point when they don't talk about freedom, because that's what makes our
community weak, that we don't talk about and think about freedom enough. People
who don't think about freedom won't value their freedom and they won't defend
their freedom and they'll lose it. Look at the USA Pat-riot Act. You know,
people who don't value their freedom will lose it.</p>
-<h3>40. The end</h3>
+<h3 id="the-end">40. The end</h3>
<p>So thank you, and if anyone wants to buy any of these FSF things or...</p>
@@ -588,7 +598,7 @@
<p>Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2010/09/24 22:25:43 $
+$Date: 2011/01/24 16:04:19 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
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