www/philosophy programs-must-not-limit-freedom....

[James Turner]

CVSROOT:        /web/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     James Turner <jturner>  12/08/30 16:42:22

Added files:
        philosophy     : programs-must-not-limit-freedom.html 

Log message:
        New article from rms RT #769750

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1

Patches:
Index: programs-must-not-limit-freedom.html
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RCS file: programs-must-not-limit-freedom.html
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+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<!-- Parent-Version: 1.69 -->
+<title>Why programs must not limit the freedom to run them
+- GNU Project - Free Software Foundation</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<!--#set var="article_name" 
value="/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom" -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/gnun/initial-translations-list.html" -->
+<h2>Why programs must not limit the freedom to run them</h2>
+
+<p>by <a href="http://www.stallman.org/";>Richard Stallman</a></p>
+
+<p>Free software means software controlled by its users, rather than the
+reverse. Specifically, it means the software comes with <a
+href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html";>four essential freedoms
+that software users deserve</a>. At the head of the list is freedom zero,
+the freedom to run the program as you wish, in order to do what you wish.</p>
+
+<p>Some developers propose to place usage restrictions in software
+licenses to ban using the program for certain purposes, but that would
+be a disastrous path. This article explains why freedom zero must not
+be limited. Conditions to limit the use of a program would achieve
+little of their aims, but could wreck the free software community.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, let's be clear what freedom zero means. It means that
+the distribution of the software does not restrict how you use it.
+This doesn't make you exempt from laws. For instance, fraud is a
+crime in the US&mdash;a law which I think is right and proper.
+Whatever the free software license says, using a free program to carry
+out your fraud won't shield you from prosecution.</p>
+
+<p>A license condition against fraud would be superfluous in a country
+where fraud is a crime. But why not a condition against using it for
+torture, a practice that states frequently condone when carried out by
+the &ldquo;security forces&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p>A condition against torture would not work, because enforcement of any
+free software license is done through the state. A state that wants
+to carry out torture will ignore the license. When victims of US
+torture try suing the US government, courts dismiss the cases on the
+grounds that their treatment is a national security secret. If a
+software developer tried to sue the US government for using a program
+for torture against the conditions of its license, that suit would be
+dismissed too. In general, states are clever at making legal excuses
+for whatever terrible things they want to do. Businesses with poweful
+lobbies can do it too.</p>
+
+<p>What if the condition were against some specialized private activity?
+For instance, PETA proposed a license that would forbid use of the
+software to cause pain to animals with a spinal column. Or there
+might be a condition against using a certain program to make or
+publish drawings of Mohammad. Or against its use in experiments with
+embryonic stem cells. Or against using it to make unauthorized copies
+of musical recordings.</p>
+
+<p>It is not clear these would be enforcible. Free software licenses are
+based on copyright law, and trying to impose usage conditions that way
+is stretching what copyright law permits, stretching it in a dangerous
+way. Would you like books to carry license conditions about how you
+can use the information in them?</p>
+
+<p>What if such conditions are legally enforcible&mdash;would that be good?</p>
+
+<p>The fact is, people have very different ethical ideas about the
+activities that might be done using software. I happen to think those
+four unusual activities are legitimate and should not be forbidden.
+In particular I support the use of software for medical experiments on
+animals, and for processing meat. I defend the human rights of animal
+right activists but I don't agree with them; I would not want PETA to
+get its way in restricting the use of software.</p>
+
+<p>Since I am not a pacifist, I would also disagree with a &ldquo;no military
+use&rdquo; provision. I condemn wars of agression but I don't condemn
+fighting back. In fact, I have supported efforts to convince various
+armies to switch to free software, since they can check it for back
+doors and surveillance features that could imperil national security.</p>
+
+<p>Since I am not against business in general, I would oppose a
+restriction against commercial use. A system that we could use only
+for recreation, hobbies and school is not off limits to most of what
+we do.</p>
+
+<p>I've stated some of my views about other political issues, about
+activities that are or aren't unjust. Your views might differ, and
+that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage
+restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people
+would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would
+be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only
+for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to
+kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program
+allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a
+Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music
+programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for
+classical music.</p>
+
+<p>The result would be a system that you could not count on for any
+purpose. For each task you wish to do, you'd have to check lots of
+licenses to see which parts of your system are off limits for that
+task.</p>
+
+<p>How would users respond to that? I think most of them would use
+proprietary systems. Allowing any usage restrictions whatsoever in
+free software would mainly push users towards nonfree software.
+Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions
+in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a
+long, soft, straight piece of spaghetti.</p>
+
+<p>
+It is worse than ineffective; it is wrong too, because software
+developers should not exercise such power over what users do. Imagine
+selling pens with conditions about what you can write with them; that
+would be noisome, and we should not stand for it. Likewise for
+general software. If you make something that is generally useful,
+like a pen, people will use it to write all sorts of things, even
+horrible things such as orders to torture a dissident; but you must
+not have the power to control people's activities through their pens.
+It is the same for a text editor, compiler or kernel.</p>
+
+<p>You do have an opportunity to determine what your software can be used
+for: when you decide what functionality to implement. You can write
+programs that lend themselves mainly to uses you think are positive,
+and you have no obligation to write any features that might lend
+themselves to activities you disapprove of.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion is clear: a program must not restrict what jobs its
+users do with it. Freedom zero must be complete. We need to stop
+torture, but we can't do it through software licenses. The proper job
+of software licenses is to establish and protect users' freedom.</p>
+
+<!-- If needed, change the copyright block at the bottom. In general,
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+     
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+
+
+</div><!-- for id="content", starts in the include above -->
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+<div id="footer">
+
+<p>Please send general FSF &amp; GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:address@hidden";>&lt;address@hidden&gt;</a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
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+
+<p>Copyright &copy; 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.</p>
+
+<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
+href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/";>Creative
+Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2012/08/30 16:42:12 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>