Free software movement

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Richard Stallman , Founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Movement (photo from 2015)

The free software movement is a social movement with the aim of promoting free software and thereby achieving or maintaining certain freedoms for users of software : the freedom to run, study and change the software, as well as copies of the software or without being able to distribute changes. Though drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by founding the GNU Project . In 1985, he also founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF for short) to support the movement.

philosophy

The philosophy of the movement is that the use of computers should not lead to people being prevented from working together. In practice this means that proprietary software - which imposes such restrictions - is to be rejected and free software to be promoted, with the ultimate goal of freeing everyone in cyberspace - ergo every computer user. Stallman noted that this act promotes rather than hampers the advancement of technology because “it means it avoids wasteful effort in duplicate system programming. This effort can instead be put into improving the 'state of the art'. "

Members of the free software movement believe that all software users should have the freedoms listed in the free software definition . Many of them consider it immoral to forbid people to exercise these freedoms or to prevent users from exercising them because these freedoms are needed to create a sane society in which software users can help each other and have control over their computer .

However, some Free Software users and programmers do not consider proprietary and licensed software to be strictly immoral; as reasons they cite the better profitability of business models for proprietary software or technical properties and expediency.

"While social change may occur as an unintended by-product of technological change, advocates of new technologies often have promoted them as instruments of positive social change."

"While social change can occur as an unintended by-product of technological change, advocates of new technologies have often touted them as tools for positive social change."

- Joel West

This quote from the professor at San José State University explains a lot about the philosophy, or the reasons why the free software movement exists. Assuming that social change is not only influenced by technological progress, but also directed in some respects, is it ethically justifiable to withhold these technologies from certain people? If not directly to induce change, the movement is there to promote awareness of the effects that are happening because of the physical things around us. A computer, for example, gives us so much freedom that we would not have without a computer. But should these technological means be implied freedoms or rather selective privileges? The moral debate on both sides is a difficult subject for the free software movement to compromise with the opposition.

The FSF also believes that all software needs free documentation (see also the GNU Free Documentation License ), particularly because conscientious programmers should be able to update manuals to reflect modifications they have made to the software. Regarding other types of written work, the FSF sees less need for freedom to modify. The “FLOSS Manual Foundation” (FM for short) specializes in the free software movement with the aim of providing such documentation. Members of the free software movement advocate that works that serve a practical purpose should be free.

activities

GNU and Tux mascots surrounded by supporters of Free Software at FISL 16.

Write and distribute Free Software

The core work of the free software movement focuses on software development. The free software movement eschews proprietary software and refuses to install software that does not give it the freedoms of free software. According to Stallman:

“The only thing in the software field that is worse than an unauthorized copy of a proprietary program, is an authorized copy of the proprietary program because this does the same harm to its whole community of users, and in addition, usually the developer, the perpetrator of this evil, profits from it. "

“The only thing worse in software than an unauthorized copy of a proprietary program is an authorized copy of a proprietary program because it does the same damage to the whole community of users (and mostly developers too). Only the cause of this evil benefits from it. "

- Richard Stallman

awareness raising

Some supporters of the free software movement hold public speeches or rent booths at software-related conferences to promote awareness of software freedoms. This activity is seen as very important in the movement, as many people nowadays already use free software, but do not even know that it is free software; such people would sooner or later not accept free software as a replacement or subconsciously add it to their free software.

Ethical equivalence

Margaret S. Elliot, a researcher in the Department of Software at California Irvine University, not only outlines many of the benefits that can come from a free software movement; it also claims that there is an inherent need to give everyone the same opportunities to use the Internet - assuming that computers are globally accessible. As the world relies more on technology and its advancement today, creating a selective Internet that allows only a few to surf the web freely would be absurd, according to Elliot. If there is a desire to live in a more connected world that benefits from communication and global willingness to help, then Free Software is desirable worldwide - according to many promoters of awareness of the Free Software movement. The ideas sparked by the GNU people are an approach to promote a “collaborative environment” that understands how to take advantage of a local and a global community.

legislation

The movement has shown a great deal of lobbying against software patents and the expansion of copyright laws. Further lobbying focuses on the use of Free Software in state-owned companies and state-sponsored projects.

The Venezuelan government passed a free software law in January 2006. Ordinance No. 3,390 obliged all state-owned companies to migrate to Free Software within two years.

Congressmen Edgar David Villanueva and Jacques Rodrich Ackerman were instrumental in introducing Law 1609 "Free Software in Public Administrations" in the Republic of Peru . This incident immediately drew Microsoft Inc.'s attention to Peru; the general manager then personally wrote a letter to Edgar David Villanueva. Villanueva's response to this received worldwide attention and is still regarded today as a classic contribution in the argumentation of Free Software in governments.

Efforts have also been made in the United States to pass state-level laws requiring the use of Free Software in state agencies.

Subgroups and religious divisions

As in many social movements, there was also an ongoing internal conflict in the free software movement between personalities and between supporters of the movement who demanded compromises or, on the other hand, strict adherence to values.

Open source

Although commercial Free Software was not uncommon at the time when Netscape announced in 1998 that it would make their popular web browser free, a strategy session was held to develop a stronger Free Software business case that would focus more on technology than (business ) Politics focused. Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens then founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI for short) to promote the term open source software as an alternative term for free software. OSI wanted to address the identified deficits in the technology, but also some members of OSI disagreed with the position of the free software movement that free software is not a social problem and is unethical. Instead, they argued that OpenSource was a better model for software development. The latter became the view of people like Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds, while Bruce Perens said that OpenSource was simply a way of promoting Free Software under a new brand.

Some representatives of Free Software use the term Free / Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS for short) as a compromise. This should bring together the proponents of Free Software and the proponents of open source software, based on both philosophies, in order to work on projects with more cohesion. Some users consider such a compromise term to be ideal in order to promote both the freedoms for software users and the economically superior development model of OpenSource. This unifying approach gets a tailwind from the fact that the overwhelming majority of OSI-recognized licenses and self-proclaimed open source programs are also compatible with the Free Software formalism and vice versa.

While some people associate the concepts of “open source software” and “free software”, they represent different ideas and values. This ambiguity began in 1998 when the practice in the free software community began to use the term “open source software” to distinguish it from “free software”; in this way they differentiated linguistically what they were doing. The open source movement views open software as a practical issue rather than an ethical dilemma . She puts the main focus on software development and sees non-free software as not a good, but still an acceptable solution.

The free software movement, on the other hand, sees free software as a moral imperative. Proprietary software should be rejected for selfish and social reasons. Only free software should be developed and taught in order to do justice to the goal of making computer technology as useful as possible for humanity. It is argued that all of the economic and technical advantages that Free Software brings result from the rights that developers and users enjoy. An example of this is the possibility of co-determination, which makes the design of Free Software to damage or spy on users very unlikely. At the same time, the benefits that the open source movement provided within and outside of the free software movement have been questioned. It is unclear whether free and open source software really leads to higher-performance and less vulnerable code, as the researchers Robert Glass and Benjamin Mako Hill statistically showed that this would usually not be the case.

Illustration of the saying "Free as in free speech and not as in free beer." (2013)

With regard to the meaning and misunderstanding of the English word “ free ” (German “free”, but also “free”), representatives of the free software movement have looked for less ambiguous terms and analogies to get rid of the confusion regarding Free Software profitability. One example is the saying “free beer versus free speech”. The adjective "libre", borrowed from Spanish or French , gained importance in the English-speaking part of the movement, as this makes it unmistakably clear that free software refers to the term freedom . The term “open source” also leads to misunderstandings, since it is often assumed that the disclosure of source code is sufficient to meet the open source criteria. In India , where the free software movement has many supporters, even the government has adapted a guideline to introduce the term “swatantra” as a substitute for the term “free” .

The move from the free software movement to the open source movement has had a negative impact on community development, according to Christopher Kelty, who devotes an entire academic chapter to the free software movement in his Theorizing Media and Practice . The open source movement denies that the selectivity and privatization of software are unethical. Although the open source movement is working towards the same social benefits as the free software movement, Kelty contends that by disregarding the basic beliefs of free software advocates, the previous argument is being reduced to absurdity. If it is considered ethical that the Internet and other technologies are restricted to those users who have the means to use the software, then there is no argument against the state of affairs today; there is no need to complain when all morality is in effect.

Although the movements have different values ​​and goals, representatives from both camps work together when it comes to implementing practical projects. In 2005 Richard Glass regarded the differences as a “serious fracture” that was “vital to both sides of the fracture” but “of little importance to anyone else who studies the movement from a software development perspective” as it was only a “minor one Impact on this area ”.

Stallman and Torvalds

Finnish software developer Linus Torvalds

The two most prominent people associated with the movement are Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds . They can be seen as representatives of value-based versus apolitical philosophy - just like the GNU versus Linux programming styles . Paradoxically, however, it was only through the symbiosis of both works that a complete operating system could be created, which is now known as GNU / Linux (or simply Linux). In the GNU / Linux name dispute , the FSF argued for the term “GNU / Linux” because GNU was already a long-term project for the development of a free operating system and only a kernel was missing to complete one.

Measure progress

The Open Hub online service (founded in 2004 and launched in 2006) monitors development activity in the Free Software community and offers detailed metrics and quantitative analyzes for the growth and popularity of free projects and free programming languages .

Criticism and controversy

Should principles be compromised?

In 2006, Eric Raymond criticized the slow pace with which Free Software was advancing and suggested temporary compromises in favor of faster achievement of long-term goals. Raymond argued that this would attract the attention of the respective software and, consequently, could significantly improve the influence of the free software movement on relevant standards and laws.

Richard Stallman, on the other hand, sees the current level of compromise as a far greater cause for concern.

How should programmers be paid?

Stallman said that is exactly the point where people misunderstand the term "free". There is nothing wrong with demanding payment as a programmer for a planned project, but it is considered an advance against the freedom to restrict or control user decisions. Stallman also suggests that in some cases monetary incentives are not necessary for motivation, as the joy of expressing creativity is a reward in itself.

“Viral” licensing

The free software movement advocates the copyleft licensing scheme (often pejoratively referred to as a "viral license"). In its strongest form, Copyleft mandates that every work derived from copyleft-licensed software must also carry a copyleft license so that the license can spread from work to work like a computer virus . However, these terms of delivery can only be enforced through applicable copyright . Critics question copyleft licensing that the idea of ​​restrictive modifications is not in line with the emphasis on various "freedoms" of movement, especially when looking at alternative licenses such as B. looks at the MIT license , the BSD license and the Apache license , which are formulated much more liberally. Proponents, however, enjoy the security that copyleft-licensed works cannot be integrated into non-free software projects under any circumstances. However, they emphasize that copyleft licenses do not work for everyone and that developers can in any case simply decide not to use copyleft-licensed software.

See also

Portal: Free Software  - Overview of Wikipedia content on the subject of Free Software

literature

  • David M. Berry: Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source , Pluto Press, 2008, ISBN 0-7453-2414-2
  • Johan Soderberg: Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement , Routledge, 2007, ISBN 0-415-95543-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Stallman on the nature of the Free software movement in 2008 on emacs-devel mailing list.
  2. ^ Announcement of the GNU project .
  3. ↑ Use Free Software . gnu.org.
  4. ↑ Stallman interviewed by Sean Daly . Groklaw. June 23, 2006.
  5. ↑ a b The GNU Manifesto . gnu.org.
  6. ↑ Why free software? . gnu.org.
  7. ^ Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism . gnu.org.
  8. ^ The Effect of Computerization Movements Upon Organizational Adoption of Open Source (PDF) . San Jose State University. Archived from the original on August 14, 2012.
  9. ↑ Free Software and Free Manuals . gnu.org.
  10. ^ A b Richard Stallman: Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software. In: GNU Operating System. Free Software Foundation, accessed February 11, 2013 .
  11. ^ Transcript of Stallman on Free Software . FSFE. March 9, 2006.
  12. ^ Transcript of Stallman speaking at WSIS . Ciarán O'Riordan .
  13. ↑ Mobilization of software developers . Institute for Software Research. Archived from the original on May 12, 2013.
  14. ↑ Free software liberates Venezuela . Free Software Magazine n ° 10. February 8, 2006. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved March 16, 2007.
  15. ^ An English translation of the Free Software bill proposed in Peru .
  16. ^ Peruvian Congressman Edgar Villanueva writing to Microsoft about free software. . Archived from the original on August 29, 2007.
  17. ↑ Open source's new weapon: The law? .
  18. ^ History of the OSI . opensource.org.
  19. ↑ Open Source misses the point . gnu.org.
  20. ^ Bruce Perens : It's Time to Talk About Free Software Again . February 17, 1999. Archived from the original on July 16, 2014. Retrieved on April 2, 2015.
  21. ^ Robert L. Glass: Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering . Addison-Wesley , 2003, ISBN 0-321-11742-5 , p. 174. ISBN 978-0-321-11742-7 .
  22. ^ Benjamin Mako Hill : When Free Software Isn't (Practically) Better . November 19, 2010. Archived from the original on January 3, 2015. Retrieved on April 3, 2015.
  23. ↑ Mark Bohannon: India adopts a comprehensive open source policy . Retrieved August 27, 2015.
  24. ^ Swatantra Software In the Press . FSF-India. Retrieved August 27, 2015.
  25. ↑ theorizing media and practice . anthropology of media,.
  26. ↑ Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source" . gnu.org.
  27. ^ Richard Glass: Standing in Front of the Open Source Steamroller . In: Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott A. Hissam, Karim R. Lakahani (Eds.): Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software . MIT Press, 2005, ISBN 0-262-06246-1 , p. 89.
  28. ↑ Linux and GNU - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) . Gnu.org. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  29. ^ ESR's "World Domination 201", on the need for more compromise by the free software movement .
  30. ^ RMS on the progress of the movement and his worry about compromise .
  31. ^ Richard Stallman on "World Domination 201" .: "I cannot agree to that compromise, and my experience teaches me that it won't be temporary. ... What our community needs most is more spine in rejection of non-free software. It has far too much willingness to compromise. ... To "argue" in favor of adding non-free software in GNU / Linux distros is almost superfluous, since that's what nearly all of them have already done. "
  32. ^ David McGowan: Legal Aspects of Free and Open Source Software . In: Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott A. Hissam, Karim R. Lakahani (Eds.): Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software . MIT Press, 2005, ISBN 0-262-06246-1 , p. 382.
  33. ↑ Open Source Licensing Guide . Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  34. ↑ Dave Newbart: Microsoft CEO takes launch break with the Sun-Times , Chicago Sun-Times. June 1, 2001. Archived from the original on June 15, 2001.  (Internet archive link)
  35. ↑ Kirk St. Amant & Brian Still: Examining Open Source Software Licenses through the Creative Commons Licensing Model . In: Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives . Information Science Reference, 2008, ISBN 1-59140-999-3 , pp. 382 of 728.
  36. ↑ Bruce Byfield: IT Manager's Journal: 10 Common Misunderstandings About the GPL . August 29, 2006. Retrieved August 23, 2008.
  37. ^ Richard Poynder: The Basement Interviews: Freeing the Code . March 21, 2006. Retrieved February 5, 2010.