Commit | Line | Data |
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177c0ea7 | 1 | Why Software Should Not Have Owners |
a933dad1 DL |
2 | |
3 | by Richard Stallman | |
4 | ||
5 | Digital information technology contributes to the world by making it | |
6 | easier to copy and modify information. Computers promise to make this | |
7 | easier for all of us. | |
8 | ||
9 | Not everyone wants it to be easier. The system of copyright gives | |
10 | software programs "owners", most of whom aim to withhold software's | |
11 | potential benefit from the rest of the public. They would like to be | |
12 | the only ones who can copy and modify the software that we use. | |
13 | ||
14 | The copyright system grew up with printing--a technology for mass | |
15 | production copying. Copyright fit in well with this technology | |
16 | because it restricted only the mass producers of copies. It did not | |
17 | take freedom away from readers of books. An ordinary reader, who did | |
18 | not own a printing press, could copy books only with pen and ink, and | |
19 | few readers were sued for that. | |
20 | ||
21 | Digital technology is more flexible than the printing press: when | |
22 | information has digital form, you can easily copy it to share it with | |
23 | others. This very flexibility makes a bad fit with a system like | |
24 | copyright. That's the reason for the increasingly nasty and draconian | |
25 | measures now used to enforce software copyright. Consider these four | |
26 | practices of the Software Publishers Association (SPA): | |
27 | ||
28 | * Massive propaganda saying it is wrong to disobey the owners | |
29 | to help your friend. | |
30 | ||
31 | * Solicitation for stool pigeons to inform on their coworkers and | |
32 | colleagues. | |
33 | ||
34 | * Raids (with police help) on offices and schools, in which people are | |
35 | told they must prove they are innocent of illegal copying. | |
36 | ||
37 | * Prosecution (by the US government, at the SPA's request) of people | |
38 | such as MIT's David LaMacchia, not for copying software (he is not | |
39 | accused of copying any), but merely for leaving copying facilities | |
40 | unguarded and failing to censor their use. | |
41 | ||
42 | All four practices resemble those used in the former Soviet Union, | |
43 | where every copying machine had a guard to prevent forbidden copying, | |
44 | and where individuals had to copy information secretly and pass it | |
45 | from hand to hand as "samizdat". There is of course a difference: the | |
46 | motive for information control in the Soviet Union was political; in | |
47 | the US the motive is profit. But it is the actions that affect us, | |
48 | not the motive. Any attempt to block the sharing of information, no | |
49 | matter why, leads to the same methods and the same harshness. | |
50 | ||
51 | Owners make several kinds of arguments for giving them the power | |
52 | to control how we use information: | |
53 | ||
54 | * Name calling. | |
55 | ||
56 | Owners use smear words such as "piracy" and "theft", as well as expert | |
57 | terminology such as "intellectual property" and "damage", to suggest a | |
58 | certain line of thinking to the public--a simplistic analogy between | |
59 | programs and physical objects. | |
60 | ||
61 | Our ideas and intuitions about property for material objects are about | |
62 | whether it is right to *take an object away* from someone else. They | |
63 | don't directly apply to *making a copy* of something. But the owners | |
64 | ask us to apply them anyway. | |
65 | ||
66 | * Exaggeration. | |
67 | ||
68 | Owners say that they suffer "harm" or "economic loss" when users copy | |
69 | programs themselves. But the copying has no direct effect on the | |
70 | owner, and it harms no one. The owner can lose only if the person who | |
71 | made the copy would otherwise have paid for one from the owner. | |
72 | ||
73 | A little thought shows that most such people would not have bought | |
74 | copies. Yet the owners compute their "losses" as if each and every | |
75 | one would have bought a copy. That is exaggeration--to put it kindly. | |
76 | ||
77 | * The law. | |
78 | ||
79 | Owners often describe the current state of the law, and the harsh | |
80 | penalties they can threaten us with. Implicit in this approach is the | |
81 | suggestion that today's law reflects an unquestionable view of | |
82 | morality--yet at the same time, we are urged to regard these penalties | |
83 | as facts of nature that can't be blamed on anyone. | |
84 | ||
85 | This line of persuasion isn't designed to stand up to critical | |
86 | thinking; it's intended to reinforce a habitual mental pathway. | |
87 | ||
88 | It's elemental that laws don't decide right and wrong. Every American | |
89 | should know that, forty years ago, it was against the law in many | |
90 | states for a black person to sit in the front of a bus; but only | |
91 | racists would say sitting there was wrong. | |
92 | ||
93 | * Natural rights. | |
94 | ||
95 | Authors often claim a special connection with programs they have | |
96 | written, and go on to assert that, as a result, their desires and | |
97 | interests concerning the program simply outweigh those of anyone | |
98 | else--or even those of the whole rest of the world. (Typically | |
99 | companies, not authors, hold the copyrights on software, but we are | |
100 | expected to ignore this discrepancy.) | |
101 | ||
102 | To those who propose this as an ethical axiom--the author is more | |
103 | important than you--I can only say that I, a notable software author | |
104 | myself, call it bunk. | |
105 | ||
106 | But people in general are only likely to feel any sympathy with the | |
107 | natural rights claims for two reasons. | |
108 | ||
109 | One reason is an overstretched analogy with material objects. When I | |
110 | cook spaghetti, I do object if someone else takes it and stops me from | |
111 | eating it. In this case, that person and I have the same material | |
112 | interests at stake, and it's a zero-sum game. The smallest | |
113 | distinction between us is enough to tip the ethical balance. | |
114 | ||
115 | But whether you run or change a program I wrote affects you directly | |
116 | and me only indirectly. Whether you give a copy to your friend | |
117 | affects you and your friend much more than it affects me. I shouldn't | |
118 | have the power to tell you not to do these things. No one should. | |
119 | ||
120 | The second reason is that people have been told that natural rights | |
121 | for authors is the accepted and unquestioned tradition of our society. | |
122 | ||
123 | As a matter of history, the opposite is true. The idea of natural | |
124 | rights of authors was proposed and decisively rejected when the US | |
125 | Constitution was drawn up. That's why the Constitution only *permits* | |
126 | a system of copyright and does not *require* one; that's why it says | |
127 | that copyright must be temporary. It also states that the purpose of | |
128 | copyright is to promote progress--not to reward authors. Copyright | |
129 | does reward authors somewhat, and publishers more, but that is | |
130 | intended as a means of modifying their behavior. | |
131 | ||
132 | The real established tradition of our society is that copyright cuts | |
133 | into the natural rights of the public--and that this can only be | |
134 | justified for the public's sake. | |
135 | ||
136 | * Economics. | |
137 | ||
138 | The final argument made for having owners of software is that this | |
139 | leads to production of more software. | |
140 | ||
141 | Unlike the others, this argument at least takes a legitimate approach | |
142 | to the subject. It is based on a valid goal--satisfying the users of | |
143 | software. And it is empirically clear that people will produce more of | |
144 | something if they are well paid for doing so. | |
145 | ||
146 | But the economic argument has a flaw: it is based on the assumption | |
147 | that the difference is only a matter of how much money we have to pay. | |
148 | It assumes that "production of software" is what we want, whether the | |
149 | software has owners or not. | |
150 | ||
151 | People readily accept this assumption because it accords with our | |
152 | experiences with material objects. Consider a sandwich, for instance. | |
153 | You might well be able to get an equivalent sandwich either free or | |
154 | for a price. If so, the amount you pay is the only difference. | |
155 | Whether or not you have to buy it, the sandwich has the same taste, | |
156 | the same nutritional value, and in either case you can only eat it | |
157 | once. Whether you get the sandwich from an owner or not cannot | |
158 | directly affect anything but the amount of money you have afterwards. | |
159 | ||
160 | This is true for any kind of material object--whether or not it has an | |
161 | owner does not directly affect what it *is*, or what you can do with | |
162 | it if you acquire it. | |
163 | ||
164 | But if a program has an owner, this very much affects what it is, and | |
165 | what you can do with a copy if you buy one. The difference is not | |
166 | just a matter of money. The system of owners of software encourages | |
167 | software owners to produce something--but not what society really | |
168 | needs. And it causes intangible ethical pollution that affects us | |
169 | all. | |
170 | ||
171 | What does society need? It needs information that is truly available | |
172 | to its citizens--for example, programs that people can read, fix, | |
173 | adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners | |
174 | typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change. | |
175 | ||
176 | Society also needs freedom. When a program has an owner, the users | |
177 | lose freedom to control part of their own lives. | |
178 | ||
179 | And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary | |
180 | cooperation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that | |
181 | helping our neighbors in a natural way is "piracy", they pollute our | |
182 | society's civic spirit. | |
183 | ||
184 | This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not | |
185 | price. | |
186 | ||
187 | The economic argument for owners is erroneous, but the economic issue | |
188 | is real. Some people write useful software for the pleasure of | |
189 | writing it or for admiration and love; but if we want more software | |
190 | than those people write, we need to raise funds. | |
191 | ||
192 | For ten years now, free software developers have tried various methods | |
193 | of finding funds, with some success. There's no need to make anyone | |
194 | rich; the median US family income, around $35k, proves to be enough | |
195 | incentive for many jobs that are less satisfying than programming. | |
196 | ||
197 | For years, until a fellowship made it unnecessary, I made a living | |
198 | from custom enhancements of the free software I had written. Each | |
199 | enhancement was added to the standard released version and thus | |
200 | eventually became available to the general public. Clients paid me so | |
201 | that I would work on the enhancements they wanted, rather than on the | |
202 | features I would otherwise have considered highest priority. | |
203 | ||
204 | The Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt charity for free software | |
205 | development, raises funds by selling CD-ROMs, tapes and manuals (all | |
206 | of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from | |
207 | donations. It now has a staff of five programmers, plus three | |
208 | employees who handle mail orders. | |
209 | ||
210 | Some free software developers make money by selling support services. | |
211 | Cygnus Support, with around 50 employees, estimates that about 15 per | |
212 | cent of its staff activity is free software development--a respectable | |
213 | percentage for a software company. | |
214 | ||
215 | Companies including Intel, Motorola, Texas Instruments and Analog | |
216 | Devices have combined to fund the continued development of the free | |
217 | GNU compiler for the language C. Meanwhile, the GNU compiler for the | |
218 | Ada language is being funded by the US Air Force, which believes this | |
219 | is the most cost-effective way to get a high quality compiler. | |
220 | ||
221 | All these examples are small; the free software movement is still | |
222 | small, and still young. But the example of listener-supported radio | |
223 | in this country shows it's possible to support a large activity | |
224 | without forcing each user to pay. | |
225 | ||
226 | As a computer user today, you may find yourself using a proprietary | |
227 | program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to | |
228 | refuse. Cooperation is more important than copyright. But | |
229 | underground, closet cooperation does not make for a good society. A | |
230 | person should aspire to live an upright life openly with pride, and | |
231 | this means saying "No" to proprietary software. | |
232 | ||
233 | You deserve to be able to cooperate openly and freely with other | |
234 | people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the | |
235 | software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be | |
236 | able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks. | |
237 | ||
238 | You deserve free software. | |
239 | ||
240 | ||
241 | Copyright 1994 Richard Stallman | |
242 | Verbatim copying and redistribution is permitted | |
243 | without royalty as long as this notice is preserved; | |
244 | alteration is not permitted. |