What is Free Software?
- GNU/Linux, *BSD, Apache, PHP
- not freeware / shareware; not free as in beer but free as in speech
- GPL; software that guarantees the right to copy, modify and redistribute
- puts control over software into the public, into the community
- allows better software development model; 'Cathedral and the Bazaar', E. Raymond
- society needs information that is truly available to it, that it can use, not just read
- are we in an 'information age'? Information is power?
- S. Luke's threefold conception of power
- we are in the 'logic age'. Control over information is power.
- proprietary software takes control over information out of society's hands
- FS ensures control remains in society's hands
- Example: developing nations
- freedom to tailor for themselves without relying on one company
- empowers users to do more with information technology
- Example 2: governments
- cost savings again
- freedom to know security of system and to be independent of one company
- freedom to develop projects of social significance, e.g. AGNULA & EC
- Example 3: equal opportunities
- open file formats
- ability to modify/create software to be suitable for any need
- DRM is restricting and closing digital information through signing, encrypting or compiling
- Simple example: encrypt an e-book to restrict access through payments
- Large example: 'trusted computing' and Palladium
- In the context of Free Software, DRM and 'trusted computing' are problematic:
- A central authority will sign software as 'trusted' - who? Microsoft? Sun?
- Hardware may not work with unsigned software - what of freedoms in GPL?
- What of advantages to developing nations, governments and the disabled?
- There are also more general worries with DRM:
- No escrow arrangements for unmaintained DRM technologies
- Blacklisting information will conflict with freedom of speech
- In summary, proprietary DRM and trusted computing will put control over information into hands of corporations and (possibly) governments, rather than in society
- Patents allow control not only over information, but over how information can conceivably be used and controlled (threefold power)
- Other arguments against patents (innovation, economics, open markets)
- Fighting patents in the EU
