The distinction between free software and proprietary software was
not a technical one, but a political and ethical choice, and the key
element of this choice was the right to learn, and share what people
learn with others.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/article2866645.ece
How good would it be to have software programmers
who are committed to the idea of writing software and sharing it
with each other and with anyone else who agrees to share alike?
What if anyone could be a part of and benefit from this community
even without being a computer expert or knowing anything about
programming?
The Free Software movement envisages a society like
that, and to drive home the idea behind using free software,
Richard Stallman, founder, Free Software Foundation, interacted
with free software activists, students and teachers of engineering
colleges, e-governance consultants and network security experts,
here on Monday.
He was delivering a lecture on Free Software,
Freedom, and Education' organised by the Free Software Foundation,
Tamil Nadu at IIT-Madras.
Not everybody needs to write programs to use free
software in their devices. But they should not be forbidden to do
that, Dr. Stallman. Proprietary software, he said, asserts legal
control over its users through a combination of copyrights,
contracts, and patents, which abuse the rights of the users.
The distinction between free software and
proprietary software was not a technical one, but a political and
ethical choice, and the key element of this choice was the right
to learn, and share what people learn with others.
Equally critical of many modern devices that use
proprietary software, he recalled that in 2009 Amazon had removed
George Orwell's 1984' from Kindle e-book readers, only to insert
them back after a few months, promising the users that the company
would never do such a thing, unless instructed by the State. They
do not allow the user the traditional freedom of buying a book
anonymously because the sites have a database of the e-readers and
the users cannot use the device unless they are registered with
it, or even share the e-book with their friends, he added.
Dr. Stallman said that Piracy' was a propaganda
word used by proprietary software companies, who equated sharing
with attacking ships. You are in a moral dilemma, caught between
two evils when your friend asks you to lend her a specific
program. Either you violate the licence and share it with her, or
commit a greater evil by denying her and complying with the
licence, he said.
Talking about android phones, he said not every part
of open source software is free. Apart from the source code, there
are drivers, firmware and libraries that make the executables
work, but the user is not given access to them. While the source
code is free, the executables are not, Dr. Stallman said.
He spoke against the end-user licence agreements of
proprietary software companies, the backdoor policies that made
changes to the user's computer from remote devices and the Digital
Restrictions Management (DRM), which act as digital handcuffs to
further restrict the control of the user on his own machine.
Dr. Stallman urged students to use only free forms
of software and upload programs with the free software license so
that they can be used by others, and not use any form of
proprietary software, including Mpeg formats and Flash players.
They could also be involved in reverse engineering to recreate
products that have secret specifications. There is a lot of free
software available worldwide and one person cannot study and
master the source code. Only if we work collectively, will we have
control over our computing, he said.
--
Krittika
Vishwanath
Research
Associate
IT for Change
In special
consultative status with the United Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net
Skype id: krittika85
Tel:+91-80-2665
4134, 2653 6890. Fax:+91-80-4146 1055
Mobile: +91 9535321980
Read our Teacher's Communities of Learning project's
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