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Copyright, which comes into existence whenever anything is written, is
about the word for word copying of someone else's words. Copyright
protects the original author from others passing the authors work of
as their own. On the other hand, a patent provides a monopoly on an
idea. If you can describe an idea in words, you can patent it, and
thereby prohibit anyone else from using that idea, whether they came
up with the idea independently or not.
Richard Stallman likes to analogise with mythical Musical Patents.
Beethoven would not have been able to write his symphonies if musical
patents existed. ``The idea of four note motifs, particular
groupings of chords, the idea of having certain
instruments playing on their own for a little while, the idea
of music getting quieter then returning wth a boom, the
crescendo, the string quartet, or the idea of
adding a certain instrument to the orchestra could be
patented.'' Other composers would then be required to pay a royalty
to use any of these ideas or else write music that did not infringe
these patents. Imagine the task of writing a symphony and attempting
to ensure you did not infringe on any music patents. This is the
situation software writers face today.
There is much confusion over the terms free software and open source.
They are generally not the same thing, and we need to be
clear what is meant by free. The issue is not whether one needs to pay
for the software, but whether the software has onerous restrictions on
what you can do with it. Software that you can download for free may
not be free in the sense of free speech. It may be encumbered with
restrictions and limitations that inhibit your freedom to make use of
that software. Similarly, software that you purchase may in fact place
no restrictions or limitations on what you can do with it, and this is
indeed then free in the sense of free speech. The issues are most
sharply highlighted by the software patents debate of the early 21st
Century which puts at risk the free expression of new ideas that build
on those that went before.
Open source software is thus not necessarily free software. Indeed,
some open source software places considerable restrictions on what you
can do with the source code, thus rendering it non-free. GNU software
is open source software that is also free in the sense of free speech.
This software allows everyone to redistribute and modify the software,
without restriction.
We contrast open and free software with proprietary software
that we have become familiar with--the software that we buy on trust
from a vendor, trust that it will work, trust that it does only what
it should do without back doors that allows the vendor or others to
break in, and trust that you will be allowed to use the software for
your purposes. But the vendor disowns any responsibility if the
software fails in any way. When you find it has bugs and is not fit
for your purposes you must buy the next version to get something that
works for you. You become bound to that vendor and, with proprietary
ways of storing your data (as in MSWord), your freedom to choose
vendors is very limited. We have become locked in a cycle of secret
codes that require us to pay regular dues to some of the riches
organisations in the world.
Free and open source software can make development cheaper through
sharing of ideas and building on the pool of ideas that become
available. Through free software development practises, more people
can get involved and work loads can be shared, and people with very
different skill levels can collaborate and help increase the overall
skill level of the whole community. Bugs are caught quicker because
there are more people looking over the source and bugs are fixed
quicker because of this. Security flaws will be found sooner, because
there are many more eyes looking over the code, and organisations are
welcome to themselves review the code they use to become confident in
the code.
Free software demands that the user be granted four kinds of
freedom: freedom to run the program, for any purpose; freedom to
study how the program works, and adapt it to your own needs; freedom
to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour; and freedom
to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public,
so that the whole community benefits. A pre-condition for this is
the availability of the entire source code, so that along with the
freedom comes the responsibility to share your ``discoveries'' with
others. From https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.
Free software projects still need to be structured. Usually they are
conducted under the watchful eye of a project leader, commonly
referred to as the maintainer. Anyone can contribute to the
project and decisions are often discussed openly and decided by
consensus after discussion of the technical merits. Sometimes the
project leader will need to cast the `deciding vote'. Sometimes, the
merits of alternative approaches can not be reconciled, and we then
have the freedom to branch the software into two alternative, even
competing, ideas.
In addition to founding the GNU Project, Richard Stallman
founded the Free Software Foundation to pioneer the cause of free
software--free software that gives individuals the opportunity to
share their innovations and through this to allow others to learn and
to contribute their discoveries. The GNU project publishes the
philosophy of free software at
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.
The free software world aims to share their knowledge and software in
order for all to gain towards a common goal. The proprietary software
world aims to hoard their software, to hide their discoveries, to let
others go through the discovery process themselves rather than to
innovate from the shoulders of those who went before them.
Stallman characterises the view of the proprietary vendors as: ``If
you share with your neighbour, you are a pirate. If you want any
changes, beg us to make them.''. If I enjoyed a piece of music or a
novel, should I be inhibited from lending the CD or the book to my
neighbour?
Eric Raymond, in his ``Musings on Linux and Open Source'' in the book
``The Cathedral and the Bazaar'' makes compelling arguments for
Free and Open Source Software development. Some of his points,
paraphrased, are:
- The quality of the software is maintained by a simple strategy
of releasing the software to the general public every week and
receiving feedback from hundreds of users within days: release early
and release often.
- Users can be cultivated into becoming developers if your
software is serving a need of theirs. They will add functionality
to suit their particular goals, and this functionality is likely to
be useful to others.
A review of Richard Stallman's speech on Software Patents is available
from https://www.ariel.com.au/essays/rms-unsw-2004-10-14.html.
In March 2000 Richard Stallman (with Eben Moglen, a professor at
Columbia Law School) introduced the GNU Free Documentation License
(GFDL). Stallman identifies the GFDL as a means to enlist commercial
publishers to fund free document writing without surrendering any
vital liberty.
The GFDL identifies the conditions relating to the copying and
revision of documents. Documents are more complicated than simply
placing source code on the Internet. The GFDL is consequently more
complex, covering the mass copying of the document, inclusion in
collections, and specific issues relating to the covers.
Two important concepts relating to the availability of the document
are introduced: transparent copies of the document and opaque copies
of the document. A GFDL document must be transparent--that is,
available in a format whose specification is available to the general
public and which can be read using free software. Formats such as
LATEX (used for this book) and XML (using publicly available DTDs)
are fine. But making your document available only in
PostScript or PDF or Microsoft Word is not transparent. These are
opaque documents that might suffer the same old problems of document
rot--after a few years the documents may no longer be accessible
because the proprietor of the proprietary format might have gone out
of business and the knowledge of the format has been lost.
The license also identifies invariant sections of a document that must
not contain anything that could fall directly within the document's
overall subject, and cannot be modified or removed from the document.
In addition, technical measures that obstruct or control the reading
and copying of the document can not be used (and hence access to the
document can not be restricted).
Copyright © 1995-2006 [email protected]
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