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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">

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### 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

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