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+1. Free Software Is Even More Important Now {#free-software-is-even-more-important-now .chapter}
+===========================================
+
+Since 1983, the Free Software Movement has campaigned for computer
+users’ freedom—for users to control the software they use, rather than
+vice versa. When a program respects users’ freedom and community, we
+call it “free software.”
+
+We also sometimes call it “libre software” to emphasize that we’re
+talking about liberty, not price. Some proprietary (nonfree) programs,
+such as Photoshop, are very expensive; others, such as Flash Player, are
+available gratis—but that’s a minor detail. Either way, they give the
+program’s developer power over the users, power that no one should have.
+
+Those two nonfree programs have something else in common: they are both
+*malware.* That is, both have functionalities designed to mistreat the
+user. Proprietary software nowadays is often malware because the
+developers’ power corrupts them.[(1)](#FOOT1) With free software, the
+users control the program, both individually and collectively. So they
+control what their computers do (assuming those computers are loyal and
+do what the users’ programs tell them to do).
+
+With proprietary software, the program controls the users, and some
+other entity (the developer or “owner”) controls the program. So the
+proprietary program gives its developer power over its users. That is
+unjust in itself, and tempts the developer to mistreat the users in
+other ways.
+
+Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to
+carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having
+control over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs
+you use, and all the more so when you use them for something important
+in your life.
+
+Users’ control over the program requires four essential
+freedoms.[(2)](#FOOT2) @firstcopyingnotice{{@footnoterule @smallskip See
+<http://gnu.org/help> for ways to help the free software movement.
+@medskip @footnoterule @medskip Copyright © 2015 Richard Stallman\
+ {A substantially edited version of this article was published on the
+[Wired](Wired) web site as “Why Free Software Is More Important Now Than
+Ever Before” (Wired, 28 September 2013,
+[http://wired.com/opinion/2013/09/why-free-software-\
+is-more-important-now-than-ever-before](http://wired.com/opinion/2013/09/why-free-software-%3Cbr%3Eis-more-important-now-than-ever-before)).
+This version of this essay is part of @fsfsthreecite}
+
+1.  The freedom to run the program as you wish, for whatever purpose.
+2.  The freedom to study the program’s “source code,” and change it, so
+    the program does your computing as you wish. Programs are written by
+    programmers in a programming language—like English combined with
+    algebra—and that form of the program is the “source code.” Anyone
+    who knows programming, and has the program in source code form, can
+    read the source code, understand its functioning, and change it too.
+    When all you get is the executable form, a series of numbers that
+    are efficient for the computer to run but extremely hard for a human
+    being to understand, understanding and changing the program in that
+    form are forbiddingly hard.
+3.  The freedom to make and distribute exact copies when you wish. (It
+    is not an obligation; doing this is your choice. If the program is
+    free, that doesn’t mean someone has an obligation to offer you a
+    copy, or that you have an obligation to offer him a copy.
+    Distributing a program to users without freedom mistreats them;
+    however, choosing not to distribute the program—using it
+    privately—does not mistreat anyone.)
+4.  The freedom to make and distribute copies of your modified versions,
+    when you wish.
+
+The first two freedoms mean each user can exercise individual control
+over the program. With the other two freedoms, any group of users can
+together exercise *collective control* over the program. With all four
+freedoms, the users fully control the program. If any of them is missing
+or inadequate, the program is proprietary (nonfree), and unjust.
+
+Other kinds of works are also used for practical activities, including
+recipes for cooking, educational works such as textbooks, reference
+works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias, fonts for displaying
+paragraphs of text, circuit diagrams for hardware for people to build,
+and patterns for making useful (not merely decorative) objects with a 3D
+printer. Since these are not software, the free software movement
+strictly speaking doesn’t cover them; but the same reasoning applies and
+leads to the same conclusion: these works should carry the four
+freedoms.
+
+A free program allows you to tinker with it to make it do what you want
+(or cease do to something you dislike). Tinkering with software may
+sound ridiculous if you are accustomed to proprietary software as a
+sealed box, but in the Free World it’s a common thing to do, and a good
+way to learn programming. Even the traditional American pastime of
+tinkering with cars is obstructed because cars now contain nonfree
+software.
+
+### The Injustice of Proprietariness {#the-injustice-of-proprietariness .subheading}
+
+If the users don’t control the program, the program controls the users.
+With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the developer or
+“owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it,
+exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an
+instrument of unjust power.
+
+In outrageous cases (though this outrage has become quite usual)
+proprietary programs are designed to spy on the users, restrict them,
+censor them, and abuse them.[(3)](#FOOT3) For instance, the operating
+system of Apple iThings does all of these, and so does Windows on mobile
+devices with ARM chips. Windows, mobile phone firmware, and Google
+Chrome for Windows include a universal back door that allows some
+company to change the program remotely without asking permission. The
+Amazon Kindle has a back door that can erase books.
+
+The use of nonfree software in the “internet of things” would turn it
+into the “internet of telemarketers”[(4)](#FOOT4) as well as the
+“internet of snoopers.”
+
+With the goal of ending the injustice of nonfree software, the free
+software movement develops free programs so users can free themselves.
+We began in 1984 by developing the free operating system GNU. Today,
+millions of computers run GNU, mainly in the GNU/Linux
+combination.[(5)](#FOOT5)
+
+Distributing a program to users without freedom mistreats those users;
+however, choosing not to distribute the program does not mistreat
+anyone. If you write a program and use it privately, that does no wrong
+to others. (You do miss an opportunity to do good, but that’s not the
+same as doing wrong.) Thus, when we say all software must be free, we
+mean that every copy must come with the four freedoms, but we don’t mean
+that someone has an obligation to offer you a copy.
+
+### Nonfree Software and SaaSS {#nonfree-software-and-saass .subheading}
+
+Nonfree software was the first way for companies to take control of
+people’s computing. Nowadays, there is another way, called Service as a
+Software Substitute, or SaaSS. That means letting someone else’s server
+do your own computing tasks.
+
+SaaSS doesn’t mean the programs on the server are nonfree (though they
+often are). Rather, using SaaSS causes the same injustices as using a
+nonfree program: they are two paths to the same bad place. Take the
+example of a SaaSS translation service: The user sends text to the
+server, and the server translates it (from English to Spanish, say) and
+sends the translation back to the user. Now the job of translating is
+under the control of the server operator rather than the user.
+
+If you use SaaSS, the server operator controls your computing. It
+requires entrusting all the pertinent data to the server operator, which
+will be forced to show it to the state as well—who does that server
+really serve, after all?[(6)](#FOOT6)
+
+### Primary and Secondary Injustices {#primary-and-secondary-injustices .subheading}
+
+When you use proprietary programs or SaaSS, first of all you do wrong to
+yourself, because it gives some entity unjust power over you. For your
+own sake, you should escape. It also wrongs others if you make a promise
+not to share. It is evil to keep such a promise, and a lesser evil to
+break it; to be truly upright, you should not make the promise at all.
+
+There are cases where using nonfree software puts pressure directly on
+others to do likewise. Skype is a clear example: when one person uses
+the nonfree Skype client software, it requires another person to use
+that software too—thus both surrender their freedom. (Google Hangouts
+have the same problem.) It is wrong even to suggest using such programs.
+We should refuse to use them even briefly, even on someone else’s
+computer.
+
+Another harm of using nonfree programs and SaaSS is that it rewards the
+perpetrator, encouraging further development of that program or
+“service,” leading in turn to even more people falling under the
+company’s thumb.
+
+All the forms of indirect harm are magnified when the user is a public
+entity or a school.
+
+### Free Software and the State {#free-software-and-the-state .subheading}
+
+Public agencies exist for the people, not for themselves. When they do
+computing, they do it for the people. They have a duty to maintain full
+control over that computing so that they can assure it is done properly
+for the people. (This constitutes the computational sovereignty of the
+state.) They must never allow control over the state’s computing to fall
+into private hands.
+
+To maintain control of the people’s computing, public agencies must not
+do it with proprietary software (software under the control of an entity
+other than the state). And they must not entrust it to a service
+programmed and run by an entity other than the state, since this would
+be SaaSS.
+
+Proprietary software has no security at all in one crucial case—against
+its developer. And the developer may help others attack. Microsoft shows
+Windows bugs to the NSA[(7)](#FOOT7) (the US government digital spying
+agency) before fixing them. We do not know whether Apple does likewise,
+but it is under the same government pressure as Microsoft. If the
+government of any other country uses such software, it endangers
+national security.[(8)](#FOOT8) Do you want the NSA to break into your
+government’s computers?
+
+### Free Software and Education {#free-software-and-education .subheading}
+
+Schools (and this includes all educational activities) influence the
+future of society through what they teach. They should teach exclusively
+free software, so as to use their influence for the good. To teach a
+proprietary program is to implant dependence, which goes against the
+mission of education. By training in use of free software, schools will
+direct society’s future towards freedom, and help talented programmers
+master the craft.
+
+They will also teach students the habit of cooperating, helping other
+people. Each class should have this rule: “Students, this class is a
+place where we share our knowledge. If you bring software to class, you
+may not keep it for yourself. Rather, you must share copies with the
+rest of the class—including the program’s source code, in case someone
+else wants to learn. Therefore, bringing proprietary software to class
+is not permitted except to reverse engineer it.”
+
+Proprietary developers would have us punish students who are good enough
+at heart to share software and thwart those curious enough to want to
+change it. This means a bad education.[(9)](#FOOT9)
+
+### Free Software: More Than “Advantages” {#free-software-more-than-advantages .subheading}
+
+I’m often asked to describe the “advantages” of free software. But the
+word “advantages” is too weak when it comes to freedom. Life without
+freedom is oppression, and that applies to computing as well as every
+other activity in our lives. We must refuse to give the developers of
+the programs or computing services control over the computing we do.
+This is the right thing to do, for selfish reasons; but not solely for
+selfish reasons.
+
+Freedom includes the freedom to cooperate with others. Denying people
+that freedom means keeping them divided, which is the start of a scheme
+to oppress them. In the free software community, we are very much aware
+of the importance of the freedom to cooperate because our work consists
+of organized cooperation. If your friend comes to visit and sees you use
+a program, she might ask for a copy. A program which stops you from
+redistributing it, or says you’re “not supposed to,” is antisocial.
+
+In computing, cooperation includes redistributing exact copies of a
+program to other users. It also includes distributing your changed
+versions to them. Free software encourages these forms of cooperation,
+while proprietary software forbids them. It forbids redistribution of
+copies, and by denying users the source code, it blocks them from making
+changes. SaaSS has the same effects: if your computing is done over the
+web in someone else’s server, by someone else’s copy of a program, you
+can’t see it or touch the software that does your computing, so you
+can’t redistribute it or change it.
+
+### Conclusion {#conclusion .subheading}
+
+We deserve to have control of our own computing; how can we win this
+control? By rejecting nonfree software on the computers we own or
+regularly use, and rejecting SaaSS. By developing free
+software[(10)](#FOOT10) (for those of us who are programmers). By
+refusing to develop or promote nonfree software or SaaSS. By spreading
+these ideas to others.[(11)](#FOOT11)
+
+We and thousands of users have done this since 1984, which is how we now
+have the free GNU/Linux operating system that anyone—programmer or
+not—can use. Join our cause, as a programmer or an activist. Let’s make
+all computer users free.
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+### Footnotes
+
+### [(1)](#DOCF1)
+
+@raggedright See <http://gnu.org/proprietary/proprietary.html> for an
+evolving list of these threats. @end raggedright
+
+### [(2)](#DOCF2)
+
+@raggedright See @pageref{Definition} for the full definition of free
+software. @end raggedright
+
+### [(3)](#DOCF3)
+
+@raggedright See footnote 1, on @pageref{Proprietary Software}. @end
+raggedright
+
+### [(4)](#DOCF4)
+
+@raggedright Marcelo Rinesi, “The Telemarketer Singularity,”
+6 August 2015, <http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/rinesi20150806>.
+@end raggedright
+
+### [(5)](#DOCF5)
+
+@raggedright See “The GNU Project” (@pageref{GNU Project}), for more on
+the history of the GNU operating system, and
+<http://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html>, for the “GNU/Linux FAQ.” @end
+raggedright
+
+### [(6)](#DOCF6)
+
+@raggedright See “Who Does That Server Really Serve?” (@pageref{Server})
+for more on this issue. @end raggedright
+
+### [(7)](#DOCF7)
+
+@raggedright Sean Gallagher, “NSA Gets Early Access to Zero-Day Data
+from Microsoft, Others,” 14 June 2013,
+[http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-\
+early-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-%3Cbr%3Eearly-access-to-zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/).
+@end raggedright
+
+### [(8)](#DOCF8)
+
+@raggedright See “Measures Governments Can User to Promote Free
+Software” (@pageref{Government}) for our suggested policies. @end
+raggedright
+
+### [(9)](#DOCF9)
+
+@raggedright See <http://gnu.org/education> for more discussion of the
+use of free software in schools. @end raggedright
+
+### [(10)](#DOCF10)
+
+@raggedright See “How to Choose a License for Your Own Work”
+(@pageref{License Recommendations}) for our licensing recommendations.
+@end raggedright
+
+### [(11)](#DOCF11)
+
+@raggedright See <http://gnu.org/help> for the various ways you could
+help. @end raggedright
+
+</div>
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+This document was generated by *tonghuix* on *March 25, 2016* using
+[*texi2html 1.82*](http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/).\