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+
+1. Freedom or Power? {#freedom-or-power .chapter}
+====================
+
+Written by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard Stallman.\
+ *The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the
+love of ourselves.*
+
+—William Hazlitt
+
+\
+
+In the free software movement, we stand for freedom for the users of
+software. We formulated our views by looking at what freedoms are
+necessary for a good way of life, and permit useful programs to foster a
+community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration. Our criteria for
+free software[(1)](#FOOT1) specify the freedoms that a program’s users
+need so that they can cooperate in a community.
+
+@secondcopyingnotice{{@footnoterule @smallskip Copyright © 2001, 2009
+Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard Stallman\
+ {This essay was originally published on <http://gnu.org>, in 2001. This
+version is part of @fsfsthreecite}
+
+We stand for freedom for programmers as well as for other users. Most of
+us are programmers, and we want freedom for ourselves as well as for
+you. But each of us uses software written by others, and we want freedom
+when using that software, not just when using our own code. We stand for
+freedom for all users, whether they program often, occasionally, or not
+at all.
+
+However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the “freedom
+to choose any license you want for software you write.” We reject this
+because it is really a form of power, not a freedom.
+
+This oft overlooked distinction is crucial. Freedom is being able to
+make decisions that affect mainly you; power is being able to make
+decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with
+freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom.
+
+Making a program proprietary is an exercise of power. Copyright law
+today grants software developers that power, so they and only they
+choose the rules to impose on everyone else—a relatively small number of
+people make the basic software decisions for all users, typically by
+denying their freedom. When users lack the freedoms that define free
+software, they can’t tell what the software is doing, can’t check for
+back doors, can’t monitor possible viruses and worms, can’t find out
+what personal information is being reported (or stop the reports, even
+if they do find out). If it breaks, they can’t fix it; they have to wait
+for the developer to exercise its power to do so. If it simply isn’t
+quite what they need, they are stuck with it. They can’t help each other
+improve it.
+
+Proprietary software developers are often businesses. We in the free
+software movement are not opposed to business, but we have seen what
+happens when a software business has the “freedom” to impose arbitrary
+rules on the users of software. Microsoft is an egregious example of how
+denying users’ freedoms can lead to direct harm, but it is not the only
+example. Even when there is no monopoly, proprietary software harms
+society. A choice of masters is not freedom.
+
+Discussions of rights and rules for software have often concentrated on
+the interests of programmers alone. Few people in the world program
+regularly, and fewer still are owners of proprietary software
+businesses. But the entire developed world now needs and uses software,
+so software developers now control the way it lives, does business,
+communicates, and is entertained. The ethical and political issues are
+not addressed by the slogan of “freedom of choice (for developers
+only).”
+
+If “code is law,”[(2)](#FOOT2) then the real question we face is: who
+should control the code you use—you, or an elite few? We believe you are
+entitled to control the software you use, and giving you that control is
+the goal of free software.
+
+We believe you should decide what to do with the software you use;
+however, that is not what today’s law says. Current copyright law places
+us in the position of power over users of our code, whether we like it
+or not. The ethical response to this situation is to proclaim freedom
+for each user, just as the Bill of Rights was supposed to exercise
+government power by guaranteeing each citizen’s freedoms. That is what
+the GNU General Public License is for: it puts you in control of your
+usage of the software while protecting you from others who would like to
+take control of your decisions.[(3)](#FOOT3)
+
+As more and more users realize that code is law, and come to feel that
+they too deserve freedom, they will see the importance of the freedoms
+we stand for, just as more and more users have come to appreciate the
+practical value of the free software we have developed.
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+### Footnotes
+
+### [(1)](#DOCF1)
+
+@raggedright See @pageref{Definition} for the full list of these
+criteria. @end raggedright
+
+### [(2)](#DOCF2)
+
+@raggedright William J. Mitchell, *City of Bits: Space, Place, and the
+Infobahn* (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), p. 111, as quoted by
+Lawrence Lessig in *Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Version 2.0* (New
+York, NY: Basic Books, 2006), p. 5. @end raggedright
+
+### [(3)](#DOCF3)
+
+@raggedright See “Why Copyleft?” (@pageref{Why Copyleft}) for more on
+this issue. @end raggedright
+
+</div>
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+This document was generated by *tonghuix* on *March 25, 2016* using
+[*texi2html 1.82*](http://www.nongnu.org/texi2html/).\