[Discussioni] Fw: [cyber~rights] [Fwd: Linux a work speech in Milano]

Mar 22 Maggio 2001 21:43:43 CEST

un po' lunghetto, ma mi sembra che ne valga la pena...
antonella

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 17:28:04 +0200
From: Marco Gatti <gatti a mondadori.it>
To: cyber-rights a ecn.org
Subject: [cyber~rights] [Fwd: Linux a work speech in Milano]

It was a pleasure to meet you at the Linux a work conference in Milano
on 2001 May 17 and to eat lunch with you.  I only regret  we had so
little time.

Here is the text of my speech -- when I spoke I left some things out
and added others, but this is what I was working from. 

Also, I am writing a longer essay that incorporates this speech and
other ideas.  But I have not finished writing it.  If you wish I could
send it to you when it is ready, which I hope will be in June.

Best wishes!

An Economy of Free Software: Benefits and Dangers
=================================================

    Copyright (c) 2001 Robert J. Chassell

    Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
    this document provided the copyright notice and this permission
    notice are preserved on all copies.

    Permission is granted to process this file through TeX or a
    Texinfo to HTML converter and publish the results, provided the
    published document carries a copying permission notice identical
    to this one except for the removal of this paragraph (this
    paragraph not being relevant to the published document).

    Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
    document into another language, under the above conditions for
    modified versions, except that this permission notice may be
    stated in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.

Introduction
************

The title of this presentation is

     `An Economy of Free Software: Benefits and Dangers'

I will talk about the implications of open source, freely
redistributable software - the ways we gain and defend the right to
enter and do business in a competitive and free market and the
dangers we face.

First, a brief introduction:

Free software is software that you have the legal right to:

   * copy,

   * study,

   * modify, and

   * redistribute.

In addition to freedom, fully free software imposes on you an
_obligation_ to the community.  If you fix or extend work that others
have done before you, and you use that work publicly, your duty
requires you to

   * redistribute your fixes and extensions.

You may not be a programmer, you may not want to become one, but if
you are a businessman, or a teacher, or a government official, or a
manager, or a student, you will make decisions that involve your or
others' use of software, one way or another.

That is why software freedom is important to everyone.

Another name for free software is `open source software'; I will
explain why we prefer the phrase `free software'.

GNU/Linux is the premier example of free software.  In the past few
years, it has become widely known.

Free software is free in the sense of freedom,

   * "fri programvare" in Norwegian

   * "fri programvara" in Swedish

   * "vapaa ohjelmisto" in Finnish

   * "freie Software" in German

   * "software libero" in Italian

   * "software libre" in Spanish

   * "logiciel libre" in French

I will talk about the moral and market consequences of freedom in a
minute.  But first, I want to focus on the practical strengths of free
software, its reliability, efficiency, and security.

Free Software Brings Reliability
================================

I do not have much experience with systems that crash, excepting when
hardware fails, or I am testing experimental software, or when my
sister's husband is working on the electricity upstairs and turns off
_all_ the electricity.

Programs are complex entities.  They have thousands or millions of
components.  Because the components themselves are mathematical
objects, that is to say, numbers and symbols, the components will not
and cannot break, any more than the number 3 can break.  But the
components can be combined wrongly, or a programmer can insert the
wrong components, or leave them out.  Such bugs cause havoc.

An advantage of free software is that lots of people - three, four,
ten, sometimes more, sometimes hundreds - look at a piece of code.
And as the somewhat awkward saying goes

     Many eyes make all bugs shallow.

That is to say, one of the many people looking at the code will notice
the problem.  And it will get fixed.  Everyone wants and is rewarded
for good, working code.  The user does not want trouble; he wants a
working program.  The programmer does not want a shameful reputation.
She wants a good reputation.

In contrast, a proprietary company that sells updates will have a
financial incentive to leave at least some bugs in its code.  This is
so its customers will have a reason to buy the next upgrade.

In the world of free software, everyone has an incentive to remove
bugs.  All the people and all their institutions have the same motive,
which is to create reliable software.  This is a benefit.

Free Software Brings Efficiency
===============================

A second notable feature of free software is that many applications
run well on older, less capable machines.  For example, a little while
ago I ran a window manager, graphical Web browser, and an image
manipulation program on my sister's old 486 machine.  These worked
fine.

Text editors, electronic mail, and spreadsheets require even fewer
resources.

This frugality means that people can use older equipment.  It means
that people can work very effectively on newer, more capable
equipment.

At the same time, manufacturers are building modern, low-end computers
that do as much as the older ones, and are not too expensive.

There is no need to acquire expensive hardware to run your software,
unless you are doing the kind of job that you could not undertake a
few years ago.

Frugal Standards
................

Moreover, free software brings with it frugal standards.  For example,
you do not have to waste your correspondents' budgets by sending them
overly bloated email.

A while back I received an email message that took up more than four
and a half times the resources needed to convey the information.

Next time you budget for a project, consider paying four and a half
times its cost.  Then consider whether you would fund it.

Next time you pay at a restaurant, take out four and a half times the
money...

For me the resource use was not an issue because I do not pay by the
minute for telecommunications, as many do.  But I know that my
correspondents around the world prefer that I take care in my
communications that I do not waste their money or that of their
supporting institutions.

In the free software community, no one has reason to support bloat, so
there is less of it.

Free Software Brings Security
=============================

Your work should be secure.  Your computer should avoid what you do
not want.

But some software fails to be safe.  In the spring of the year 2000,
for example, a large number of people who used proprietary software
were hurt by a virus called the `I Love You' virus or `Love Bug'.  The
vendor had created a system that is foolishly vulnerable.

You can, of course, make free software equally vulnerable, just as
you can open the door to any house or business and invite thieves in.
But none of the free software distributions that I know are so
vulnerable.  This is because people want to avoid harm and are able
to insist that their vendors protect them.

You should have confidence in your privacy.

Of course, the free software producers do not always succeed, but on
the whole, they have done well.

The motivations and rewards favor security for all involved.

Free Software Brings a Choice of Vendors
========================================

Why does freedom tend to lead towards reliability, efficiency, and
security?

Freedom means that you, as a customer, have a choice among those who
would provide you with software and associated services.  You are not
in a `take it or leave it' situation.

Businessmen often use the word "vendor", meaning a person or business
who sells goods or services, a supplier.  Freedom means that can
choose among your vendors.

When given the choice, most people choose reliability, efficiency, and
security.  It is very simple.

Perhaps paradoxically, freedom of choice is good for vendors also.
Yes, it is easier for a customer to leave.

But this also means that a customer is not frightened of working with
a small business that he or she fears may vanish in five or ten years.
The customer can move on without trouble, and as a consequence, finds
it less expensive and risky to stay.  This contrasts with comments I
have have heard, where a customer decides to avoid a business because
moving from it would be expensive, and the customer fears that the
business will disappear.

Also, if customers can readily leave, employees know that they come to
the business because the customers like the solutions the business
sells.  Employees like this, because it tells them they are doing a
good job.  Owners sometimes like this, since they, too, want to know
they are living morally.

This leads us to the conclusion:

`The Key to good software is Freedom'

Legal framework
***************

The key to software freedom is the legal right to copy, study,
modify, and redistribute software.  Rights generate freedom.

These rights apply directly to programmers ... and they apply
indirectly, but just as strongly to people who use software, which is
everyone.

It is important to ensure all four of these rights: legal rights to
copy, study, modify, and redistribute software.

While you and other people will benefit a little if you have two or
three of these rights, rather than none of them, you and everyone else
should have all four rights.  Without them, you lose the social and
technical benefits.

It is also important to ensure that programmers and others fulfill
their duty to redistribute modifications and permit others to use
them.

We all need a legal and institutional framework to protect and
preserve these rights.  If you cannot protect your freedom, people
will take it from you.

GPL, Rights, Duty, in detail
****************************

The GNU General Public License is a specially drafted copyright
license.  It is a legal tool.

Here, I am going to address you as programmers or students of
programming.  But, to repeat myself, even if you are not now and never
intend to be a programmer, you will use software or work with people
who use software.  The software will be embedded in the electrical
system that provides you light and power, or embedded in a car or bus;
or more obviously it will run the program you use to write a paper or
browse the Web.

In essence, the GNU General Public License forbids you to forbid.  It
also forbids others from preventing you from acting.

In addition, the GNU General Public License imposes on you an
obligation to the community.  This duty is enforceable by law as well
as being an obligation that others expect you to follow.  If you
distribute binary code that includes extensions to work that others
have done, your duty requires you to redistribute the source code to
the extensions you made.

The GNU GPL was invented by the GNU Project to protect and preserve
free software.  (Richard Stallman started the GNU Project in 1984.
It led to GNU/Linux.)

(Parenthetically, I should mention that usually, disputes do not need
lawyers; they are settled by discussion.  When lawyers get involved,
people often ask the Free Software Foundation to act on their behalf.

(The Foundation sponsors the GNU Project and the GNU General Public
License.  In so far as it can, the FSF acts to preserve and protect
your and others' freedom.)

Copyright, Copyleft
===================

Since the GNU General Public License gives you *more* rights than the
usual copyright license, it is sometimes called a `copyleft'.

This neologism depends on the multiple meanings of the word `right'.
The word `copyright' uses the word `right' but

   * a `copyright' license is actually a `lack-the-right-to-copy'
     license.

On the other hand,

   * a `copyleft' is a `right-to-copy' license.

Before talking about your duty, let me first go through the list of
rights that comes with free software:  your rights to copy, study,
modify, and redistribute the software.

Copy
====

First, the right to copy.

Not many people own or manage a factory that would enable them to copy
a car.  Indeed, to copy a car is so difficult that we use a different
word, we speak of `manufacturing' a car.  And there are not many car
manufacturers in the world.

Ask yourself, do you own or have ready access to a car factory?

But everyone with access to a computer owns or manages a software
factory, a device for manufacturing software, that is to say, for
making new copies.  Because copying software is so easy, we do not use
the word `manufacturing'; we usually do not even think of it as a kind
of manufacturing, but it is.

Ask yourself, do you own or have ready access to a computer?

The right to copy software is the right to use your property, your own
means of production.

Study
=====

Second, the right to study.  This right is of little direct interest
to people who are not programmers.  It is like the right of a doctor
to study medicine or lawyer to read legal text books.  Unless you are
in the profession, you probably wish to avoid such study.

However, this right to study has several implications, both for those
who program and for everyone else.

The right to study means that people in places like Mexico, or
Germany, or Thailand, or Glasgow, can study the same code as people in
Japan or the United States.  It means that people are not prevented
from learning how others succeeded.

Bear in mind that many programmers work under restrictions that forbid
them from seeing others' code.  All they see are the toy programs of
school text books, no real programs.

Many years ago, Sir Isaac Newton said that the best way to see ahead
and to advance is to sit on the shoulders of a giant.

But programmers who are unable to see others' code do not sit on the
shoulders of anyone; they are thrown into the mud.  The right to study
is the right to look ahead, the right to advance.

Moreover, the right to study means that the software itself must be
made available in a manner that humans can read.

Source code is vital
====================

To oversimplify slightly, software comes in two forms, one readable
only by computers and the other readable only by people.  The form
that a computer can read is what the computer runs.  This form is
called a binary or executable.  The form that a human can read is
called source code.  It is what a human programmer creates, and is
translated by another computer program into the binary or executable
form.

(Actually, a programmer can read a binary, but with difficulty; it is
seldom worth the effort.  And some programming languages use the same
text for both the humanly readable and the executable code.  Either
way, readily readable code is best for humans.)

Modify
======

The next right, the right to modify, is the right to fix a problem or
enhance a program.  For most people, this means your right or your
organization's right to hire someone to do the job for you, in much
the same way you hire an auto mechanic to fix a car or truck or hire a
carpenter to work in your home.

If you are a programmer, this means your right to do the work
yourself, if you wish.

Modification is helpful.  Application developers cannot think of all
the ways others will use their software.  Developers cannot foresee
the new burdens that will be put on their code.  They cannot
anticipate all the local conditions, whether someone in Kenya will
use a program first written in Finland.

Redistribute
============

Finally, of these legal rights, comes the right to redistribute.

This means that you, who own a computer, a software factory, have the
right to make copies of a program and redistribute it.  You can charge
for these copies, or give them away.  Others may do the same.

Remember, that redistributed code must include source code.
Redistributed binary code lets you run a computer, but prevents you
from doing anything else.  It traps you in dependence.

The Duty to Distribute Derived Source
=====================================

When you create and distribute new code that fixes or extends older
code, then you gain a duty, which is to distribute the sources for
your new code, under the same license as the older code.  This means
that people who use your new version of the older code retain the same
rights and freedoms that they had when they used the older code.

You do not lose the benefits of collaboration.

It means that if you fix my code, I have the right to use your fix.

More limited licenses
=====================

Most computer programs have licenses.  But some licenses do not impose
an obligation to redistribute fixes or extensions.

These other licenses, such as the BSD license, permit a person or
company to take software that is itself free, and fix a bug or make
an improvement, and then restrict who can use that fix or improvement.

The United States government created the BSD license.  In effect, it
became a way to subsidize partially monopolistic companies, since each
received code that was paid for by the United States taxpayer.  (The
code was written at the University of California, Berkeley, under a
program mostly funded by the US military.)

The original Netscape Public License was like this as well.  You could
look at their original source code, but if you contributed
modifications or improvements, America On Line, the company that
purchased Netscape, had the legal right to take your work and prevent
you from using any fixes to it or improvements to it that they made.
They could legally prevent you from using software with your own code
in it!

While a good many people went along with this license, and they called
it `free software', many others refused to cooperate with Netscape.  I
myself think that this is one reason the new Netscape browser was so
delayed: Netscape lost the cooperation of the people they needed at
the beginning, the people who are the best in the world, who refused
to help them.

I mention all this because it turns out that the obligation is as
important as the rights.  For success, a company must contribute to
the community as well as take from it.

And while good will is important, and community concern is important,
it is only through the law can we ensure that everyone acts upon their
duty.

Collaboration and Sharing
*************************

... In addition to survival, as illustrated by the "evolutionarily
stable strategy" ...

Free software brings social and ethical advantages.  These, indeed,
are the most important reasons to favor free software.

Free software helps lead to a free society.  A free society is better.

More specifically, The right to redistribute, so long as it is
defended and upheld, means that software is sold in a competitive,
free market.

This has several consequences.  Low price is a consequence.  This
helps consumers.

But first and foremost, these legal and economic rights lead to
collaboration and sharing.

People share when they are not harmed by doing so.  People like to
help their neighbors.  With free software, you are not hurt if you
help someone else - you lose nothing, but your neighbor gains.  And
since you will not hurt yourself, you have every other reason to help
your neighbor.

Most people are kindly.  Also, most recognize that they they help
their neighbor their neighbor is likely to return the favor.

Competition
***********

When software is sold in a free market, competition among vendors
leads to a lower price.  This benefits people who are not programmers,

Put another way, the price of software is determined primarily by
legal considerations: by the degree to which customers enjoy freedom.

     If customers are forbidden to buy a product
     except at a high price,
     and that prohibition is successfully enforced,
     the product will be expensive.

On the other hand, if software is sold in a free market, competition
among vendors will lead to a lower price.

Vendors who expect to become large monopolies do not like competition.
They dislike lower prices.  They are strongly against free software
and the free market.

However, other vendors recognize that they lose when their business is
restricted, and that restrictions are what a monopoly imposes.  These
vendors want a fair chance to make a living.

What Free Software Brings
*************************

Let me restate all this: what are benefits brought by freedom?

We have already talked about reliability, efficiency, and security.
These are important practical benefits.

They come because people fix software when they have the freedom to do
so.  And when people have the freedom to chose software that works
well, they do.

With freedom, the social structure of motivations and incentives works
to encourage  reliable, efficient, and secure software.

Let me briefly talk about the other benefits of freedom to software.

What does freedom bring?

To customers and businesses, freedom brings:

   * A choice of vendors

   * Low barriers to entry

To society, freedom brings

   * Access

   * Sharing

   * Empowerment

Free Software Brings Sharing
============================

Free software permits legal sharing.  This is an ethical issue.  Do
you want to encourage sharing?  Should schools teach kids to be
selfish, as required by the laws for restricted software?

     As a practical matter, kids want to share.  They want to help
     their friends.

     Adults want to share to.  You want to help your friends.

     A government should encourage sharing and cooperation,
     not forbid it.

Reduce Policing
...............

The alternative is policing, which is to say, making sure that
software is not used or copied illegally.  Generally speaking, the
word `policing' is not used.  Instead you hear of `license
compliance' or other such phrase.  A while back, the company that
supplies me with electricity hired a `License Compliance Manager' to
make sure that engineers did not take their work home, since their
work was associated with software that was not supposed to go out of
the building.  Policing is expensive and unpleasant.

Free Software Brings Low Barriers to Entry
==========================================

Freedom means that you, as a businessman, have the legal right to
start a business.  You are not hindered by overly expensive licenses.
You are not forbidden.

Likewise, as a customer, you may use the code.

Freedom means that businesses are rewarded, with sales and profits,
for satisfying customers legally, rather than rewarded by overcharging
and hurting customers.

The Legal Right to Start a Business
...................................

A quick digression here: restricted software often means you are
forbidden to start a business.  Miguel de Icaza, who started a major
international project in Mexico, could never have started the GNOME
Project with restricted software.  He was forbidden to use it.

Since free software is sold in a competitive market, its price is low.
This means no one sells software as such.  Instead, they sell services
or they sell hardware as, for example, IBM does.

Success depends on satisfying your customers.  This makes both your
employees and your customers more happy.

Reduce Policing
...............

The alternative is policing, which is to say, making sure that
software is not used or copied illegally.  Generally speaking, the
word `policing' is not used.  Instead you hear of `license
compliance' or other such phrase.  A while back, the company that
supplies me with electricity hired a `License Compliance Manager' to
make sure that engineers did not take their work home, since their
work was associated with software that was not supposed to go out of
the building.  Policing is expensive and unpleasant.

Free Software Brings Empowerment
================================

People who use binary-only software packages are forbidden to study
them, learn from them, modify, or customize them.  They gain no power
from the software, except in so far as the package itself solves a
problem.

Free software provides the means for people to learn and become as
good as or better than the programmers who wrote the software.

It empowers people who previously were kept out of the circle.

Why enter the software industry?
================================

Because competition in a competitive market forces down the price of
free software, no one should enter the software industry to sell
software as such.  Instead, a business should enter the industry to
make money in other ways - to sell services, to sell solutions.

Hewlett-Packard uses free software for its printers.  Suse and Red Hat
are other examples of companies that make a living with free software.

IBM is another example.  IBM found that some of its customers refused
to buy bigger and more expensive computers, even though they needed
more capacity.  The customers were afraid that their existing software
would not run on the bigger machines.

So IBM has adopted GNU/Linux to its whole range of hardware from its
smallest laptop to its largest mainframe.

As a result, an IBM saleman can say `look, GNU/Linux runs on the
machine you are using now; and it runs on this bigger machine.  Your
software will run, too.  So you can buy the bigger machine safely.'

IBM uses the software to sell its hardware.

Meanings of the Word Free
*************************

Let me clear up a verbal issue that sometimes confuses English
speakers.

The low price of free software leads some English speakers to think
that the word `free' in the phrase `free software' means they can
obtain it without cost.  They think `free software' means `for free'.

This is not the definition, which is about freedom, but it is an easy
misunderstanding.

The English word `free' has several meanings.  As Miguel de Icaza, a
Mexican - and founder, by the way, of the GNOME project- once said to
me,

     English is broken; it does not distinguish
     between `free beer' and `free speech'.

Miguel's native language, Spanish, distinguishes between `gratis' and
`libre'.  When you speak of `free beer', you mean beer that is gratis;
but when you speak of `free speech' you mean freedom.

In Italian, free software is ``software libero'.

And, in other languages:

    `fri programvare' in Norwegian

    `fri programvara' in Swedish

    `vapaa ohjelmisto' in Finnish

    `freie Software' in German

    `software libre' in Spanish

    `logiciel libre' in French

Open source
...........

Incidentally, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens invented the phrase `open
source' a few years ago as a synonym `free software'.  They wanted to
work around the dislike many companies have of the word `free'.  The
phrase is popular; Eric and Bruce succeeded in their purpose.

However, I prefer the term `free software' since it better conveys the
goal of freedom; the proposition that every man and woman has the
right to do first rate work, and must not be forbidden from doing so.

History: Success Out of Failure
*******************************

Before discussing the dangers we face, let me talk briefly about the
history of free software, how freedom led to success out of failure.

Originally, all software was free.  That is to say, programmers had
the legal right to copy, study, modify, and redistribute it.  Indeed,
in the beginning, you could not copyright a computer program and you
could not patent any of its mathematics.  Trade secrecy was not
onerous.

Beginning in the 1970s and early 1980s, it became legal in the United
States for companies to copyright computer programs, and legal for
them to patent mathematical procedures.  Software vendors stopped
supplying source code.

Creating Free Software - Start GNU Project
==========================================

In the early and mid 1980s, the attacks on programmers' freedom
inspired Richard Stallman and others (including me) to start GNU, a
project to create an open source, freely redistributable operating
system and associated applications.

We were able to do this because we had the legal right to invent a
license, the GPL.  Under the law, if you use our work, or if you fix
or extend our work, you have to abide by the license conditions we
set.

The conditions we set are specified in the GNU General Public License,
which (let me remind you again) gives you the rights to copy, study,
modify, and redistribute the software, and the obligation to
redistribute your changes under the same license (if you distribute
the changes at all; if you keep your changes to yourself, you do not
have to redistribute sources).

Of course, if you do not like the terms of our license, you do not
have to use our software.

Success Out of Failure
======================

In the early 1990s, the main parts of the GNU Project were complete.
We had written most of the necessary software.

However, work on a a key piece was delayed.  The Free Software
Foundation, which sponsors the GNU Project, was developing a highly
advanced operating system kernel.  This is the software that schedules
operations for the central process unit and does other important jobs.

Had this been a restricted-distribution project, the whole project
would have failed, as so many have done, even though more than
seven-eighths was completed, tested, and in use in other systems.

But this was a free software project.  Linus Torvalds, a young Finn,
was able, legally and practically, to write his own, less advanced
kernel.  Linus called this kernel Linux, and adopted the GNU programs
that were already written, the GNU environment.  He also adopted the
GNU General Public License, which made his contribution freely
redistributable.

The combination of the GNU environment and the Linux kernel led to a
usable operating system and set of applications called "GNU/Linux", a
name that is often shortened simply to "Linux".

The Danger of Name Shortening
.............................

Note that name shortening is commonplace, but in this case, it is
dangerous.  As it happens, people who use the shortened name are less
likely emphasize your freedom than people who use the full name,
GNU/Linux.

Often times, the people who refer simply to Linux rather than to
GNU/Linux, are simply using a short hand.  But there are people who
try to hide from you the part of free software that has to do with
your rights and your freedom.  Some of the people who shorten the name
to `Linux' want you to think they have a moral right to rob you, to
take from you your work and your wealth without any sort of
recompense.  They often want you to think that you have no freedom,
and no rights.  They want you to think that you are a loser who should
be robbed.

On the other hand, references to GNU/Linux almost always mean that the
person who makes that reference is concerned about his and your
freedom; and that that person is not trying to create a society in
which you or he is robbed.

New forms of attack
*******************

In the United States and Europe, the legal and institutional
environment that supports freedom is being attacked.  You, directly or
indirectly, are being attacked.

The technical battle for free software has been won.  Free software is
better.  The battle moves elsewhere.  Now it is legal and political.

We are seeing different kinds of attack.  These attacks have started
in the United States - but not only are they spreading, but everyone,
as a practical matter either does business with the US or works with
those who do.

The first attack is an attempt to increase your costs over that of
your competition.

Differential legal liability
============================

In the US, an attempt is being made to change the law on liability.

The change imposes full full legal liability on you for any damages
your software may cause.  In theory, this sounds good.  It means you
will need to purchase good liability insurance.

However, a section of the law changes the rules for those who sell
`shrink wrapped' licenses - licenses that come into effect when you
break a wrapping.  Instead of being liable, such businesses may, if
they wish, avoid all liability.  Such businesses happen to be
companies such as Microsoft.  The law, if it goes into effect in more
states in the US, will mean that their insurance costs are much lower
than yours.

The cost difference should be small enough so you can stay in
business.  But its effect is similar to a discriminatory tax or
tariff; it makes it harder for you to make a profit.

Limits to learning
==================

Another attack is to limit your learning, to limit what you, or your
employees, or other people in your country, can study, learn, and use.
The attacks use an extension of trade secrecy, patent restrictions,
and a ban on reverse engineering.

Trade secrecy
=============

In the past, a company was required to take due care and precaution to
prevent the loss of a secret.  If the secret was not well guarded, the
courts would not protect it.

The current legal campaign is to cause courts and police to guard
secrets that are not protected.

Patent restrictions
===================

A second technique is to patent a mathematical area or business
practice and either prevent you from working in that business or
require you to pay an amount that maximizes profits to the patent
holder.

Ban reverse engineering
=======================

The third technique is to forbid you - or the people you hire, or
students in your country - from studying a competitor's product.

Clearly, the original makers do not want others to study their work.
But it has long been recognized that such study is good for an economy
as a whole.  Competing businesses and the consuming public all
benefit.

Concluding Remarks
******************

Over the past 16 years, I have worked with people who shaped software
through a legal tool that gives you many freedoms: the freedoms to
copy, study, modify, and redistribute the software.

This tool shapes software technology to make it more accessible and
more empowering; it encourages people to work collaboratively, and
provides a technology for better governance.

This legal tool means that companies in the software industry compete
not to sell software itself, but to sell services associated with it,
or to sell hardware, or other solutions.  This legal framework means
that companies will provide more reliable and efficient services.

Freedom, ensured by a proper license, means that people who use
computers and telecommunications as tools can enter their industry
more easily.  It means that all users can reduce their entry and
operational costs. It means that people in poorer countries are not
shipping off their money to a rich country, but are keeping their
money in the local economy.

Moreover, as I said above, restricted-distribution software licenses
often force people to choose between violating the law and paying
money they may not have.

As a matter of good governance, a country should not force people who
are trying to do a decent job into making such decisions. Too often
an otherwise law-abiding person who lacks resources will choose to
violate the law.

Instead, a country should arrange matters such that acting in a law
abiding manner is without doubt the best action, for legal, moral, and
practical reasons.  Even if they themselves are not lawabiding, people
always hope that their neighbors will be law abiding and honest.  Free
software encourages that.

Free software empowers people who previously were kept out.

In conclusion, your opportunities to do business depend on your legal
and practical freedom to:

   * copy

   * study

   * modify, and

   * redistribute.

software under a free license.

In addition to freedom, fully free software imposes a duty.

   * Redistribute fixes and extensions to work others have done

Freedom is Key.
...............

Freedom leads to:

   * collaboration

   * access

   * empowerment

   * lower prices

   * choice

   * reliability

   * efficiency

   * security

   * fewer barriers to entry

   * fewer barriers to use

   * more opportunity

###

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                  bob a rattlesnake.com
    Rattlesnake Enterprises             http://www.rattlesnake.com

----
QOTD: I'm not a nerd. I'm socially challenged

http://www.annozero.org/
http://www.linux.it/~shalom/