It's good to be free

I have just returned from the BCS Manchester event on The Free Software Movement in Ethics and Practice presented by Richard Stallman, the founder and president of the Free Software Foundation. Richard, speaking for over 2 hours without notes or any visual aids, captivated the audience of over 250 with his passion about establishing a world in which a user's freedom is respected.

Traditional software was compared on it's functionality, cost and practicality and never considered 'what does the software do to my freedom?'. Conventional software does not respect a user's freedom as the user is utterly helpless as he can't change it (because he hasn't the source code) and the user has to use the software in the way that the developer deems appropriate.

To set the context, Richard identified four freedoms which are required for software to be free:

• Freedom 0 - Being able to run the program as you wish


• Freedom 1 - Being able to study and change the source code to do what you want


• Freedom 2 - Being able to help your neighbour by distributing the software


• Freedom 3 - Being able to contribute to the community by sharing and distributing the modified/evolved code to neighbours.

Any software which does not meet all of these freedoms, should be considered proprietary and could be considered unethical as it isn't contributing to society.

Freedom 0 is essential so that you have control of your computing. There are many applications which restrict who (named users), where (specific computers), when (whilst valid licence held) you can run your (purchased) program. The control is often not via a license but via specific code which determines what can and can't be done.

Freedom 1 allows to determine what the application is doing to you. There are many instances of applications which spy on you; this is a growing trend particularly with the always connected society connected to the Internet where you are offered (or in some cases not) updates to your software. Failure to comply with this freedom demonstrates that the applications are actually controlling you and not working for you. Examples such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Microsoft Vista are tremendous examples of advances in restricting users! As there are millions of users who can never use this freedom, as they don't have the necessary skills (i.e. they aren't programmers) and so much software, Freedom 3 was defined to recognise the need to work together as part of a community.

Freedom 2 is a basic moral right which proprietary software prevents. There is much propaganda with regarding distributing copies of software by calling this piracy. Therefore helping a neighbour is equated with attacking a ship; Richard thought that pirates used guns to ply their trade rather than software, so it is a very strange use of the word pirate!

Freedom 3 is all about working together and to allow co-operation as changes evolve. This results in co-operative progress regardless of the original intent of the software.

With software conforming to the 4 freedoms, everyone gets the benefits and society reaps the rewards. The software is developed under the control if its users with no single user having all the power. Free software cannot have any malicious features; if such a feature were added, someone else will take it out (and the originator will get a bad reputation).

After extolling the virtues of the 4 freedoms, Richard moved on to explore the Business View of Free Software and how businesses can benefit. An instinctive view is that free software could be bad for business, particularly software developers. This is not true, because whilst there are a small fraction of businesses developing software who may be affected by the availability of free software, there are many more businesses who use software which is vital for their survival who can benefit hugely and take advantage of the 4 freedoms. One area where businesses can benefit is in the area of support and services. With proprietary software there is an essential monopoly with little incentive to fix problems etc (typical response - we have a new upgrade in a few months time, see if that has fixed your problem (and introduced a few more)); for free software there is the option for free market support as well as a choice of paid for support from multiple suppliers.

Free Software does not remove the need for custom software development as software development (specifically programming) is a small proportion of the overall software development cost. Free software could actually generate jobs in the adaption and extension of existing software, which may be commissioned and paid for, even though the resulting software is to be subject to the 4 freedoms.

A clear distinction was made between Free Software and Open Source Software (OSS) as there is often the perception that they are the same. OSS was introduced as a distinct phrase in 1998 to distance some software from the user's freedom. OSS has different philosophical values to FSF and does not offer anything specific to respect a user's freedom.

Richard's presentation was extremely compelling and thought provoking, and whilst noting that user's freedom isn't easy to respect, there are approaches which can lead to a better society.