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Keeping Free Software Free
April 3, 2006, 6:19 pm |
*Keeping Free Software Free*
MARCH 28, 2006
By Richard Stallman
Next-generation computers are designed to restrict how you use them
even before you buy them. What can the free software community do?
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060328_903602.htm
In 1989, in a very different world from today's, I wrote the first
version of the GNU General Public License, a license that gives computer
users freedom. The GNU GPL, of all the free software licenses, is the
one that most fully embodies the values and aims of the free software
movement by ensuring four fundamental freedoms for every user. These are
freedoms: 1) to run the program as you wish, 2) to study the source code
and change it to do what you wish, 3) to make and distribute copies when
you wish, and 4) to distribute modified versions when you wish.
Any license that grants these freedoms is a free software
license. The GNU GPL goes further -- it protects these freedoms
for all users of all versions of the program by forbidding
middlemen from stripping them away. Most components of the
GNU/Linux operating system, including the Linux component that
was made free software in 1992, are licensed under GPL Version
2, released in 1991. Now, with legal advice from Professor Eben
Moglen at Columbia Law School, I am designing Version 3 of the
GNU GPL.
GPL v3 must cope with threats to freedom that we couldn't have
imagined in 1989. The coming generation of computers, and many
products with increasingly powerful embedded computers, are
being turned against us by their manufacturers -- before we buy
them. They're designed to restrict the uses to which we can put
them.
TRUSTED OR TREACHEROUS?. First, there was the TiVo. People may
think of TiVo as a device to record TV programs, but it contains
a real computer running a GNU/Linux system. As required by the
GPL, you can get the source code for the system. You can change
the code, recompile and install it. But once you install a
changed version, the TiVo won't run at all, because of a special
mechanism designed to sabotage you. Freedom No. 1, the freedom
to change the software to do what you wish, has become a sham.
Then came "trusted computing," what I call treacherous
computing, meaning that companies can "trust" your computer to
obey them instead of you. It enables network sites to tell which
program you're running. If you change the program, or write your
own, they will refuse to talk to you. Once again, freedom No. 1
becomes lip service.
Microsoft (MSFT ) has a
scheme, originally called Palladium, that enables an application
program to "seal" data so that no other program can gain access
to it. If Disney (DIS )
distributes movies this way, you'll be unable to exercise your
legal rights of fair use and /de minimis/ use. If an application
records your data this way, it will be the ultimate in vendor
lock-in. This too destroys freedom No. 1 -- if modified versions
of a program cannot access the same data, you can't really
change the program to do what you wish. Something like Palladium
is planned for a coming version of Windows.
ROOT OF EVIL. AACS, the "Advanced Access Content System,"
promoted by Disney, IBM (IBM ), Microsoft (MSFT ), Intel (INTC ), Sony (SNE ), and others, aims to restrict use of HDTV
recordings -- and software -- so they can't be used except as
these companies permit. Sony was caught last year installing a
"rootkit" into millions of people's computers through CDs and
not telling them how to remove it.
Sony learned from its mistake: It will now install the "rootkit"
in your computer before you get it, and you won't be able to
remove it. This plan explicitly requires devices to be "robust"
-- meaning you cannot change them. Its implementers will surely
want to include GPL-covered software, again trampling freedom
No. 1. This scheme should get "AACSed," and a boycott of HD DVD
and Blu-ray has already been
announced.
Allowing a few businesses to organize a scheme to deny our
freedoms for their profit is a failure of government, but so
far, most of the world's governments, led by the U.S., have
acted as paid accomplices rather than policemen for these
schemes. The copyright industry has promulgated its peculiar
ideas of right and wrong so vigorously that some readers may
find it hard to entertain the idea that individual freedom can
trump profits.
SOFTWARE FREEDOM. Facing these threats to our freedom, what
should the free software community do? Some say we should give
in and accept the distribution of our software in ways that
don't allow modified versions to function, because this will
make our software more popular. Some refer to free software as
"open source," that being the catchphrase of an amoral approach
to the matter which cites powerful and reliable software as the
highest goal. If we allow companies to use our software to
restrict us, this "open-source Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
could help them restrict us more powerfully and consistently.
Those who wield the power could benefit by sharing and improving
the software they use to do so. We too could read it -- read it
and weep if we can't make a changed version run. For the goals
of freedom and community, the goals of the free software
movement, this concession would amount to failure.
We developed the GNU operating system so that we could control
our own computers, and use them in freedom. To seek popularity
for our software by ceding this freedom would defeat that
purpose. Therefore we have designed Version 3 of the GNU GPL to
uphold the user's freedom to modify the source code and put
modified versions to real use.
The debate about the GPL v3 is part of a broader debate about
DRM vs.your rights. The motive for DRM schemes is to increase
profits for those who impose them, but their profit is a side
issue when millions of people's freedom is at stake. Desire for
profit, though not wrong in itself, cannot be justification for
denying the public control over its technology. Defending
freedom means thwarting DRM.
First published by BusinessWeek Online. Stallman is the founder
of the GNU Project, launched in 1984 to develop the free
software operating system GNU. Verbatim copying and distribution
of this entire article is permitted worldwide without royalty in
any medium, provided this notice is preserved
--
Regards
Vinay
Mob: 9422113939
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Vinay Yadav vinayRas Infotech
www.vinayras.com Nagpur, India
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Linux Consultant & PHP/MySQL Developer
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