Various governments in the developing world are slowly but surely waking up to the advantages that free software can provide both in terms of monetary savings as well as otherwise. One example of this new way of thinking is the Kerala state government's decision to use Linux in all the government run schools in the state. In fact this trend is so prominent that even national dailies have started dedicating valuable column space for bringing the latest going ons in the free software community.
One example of such a leading Indian English language newspaper is "The Hindu" . This Indian national newspaper boasts of a readership of over 4.5 million and has cultivated an image of providing balanced and unbiased news. Recently they concluded a series of surveys about the social aspects and the aspirations of the Indian populace in association with CNN-IBN television channel (the Indian subsidiary of CNN). I am an avid reader of this leading Indian English daily.
Today when I came across the interview of Richard.M.Stallman on The Hindu, it left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling. So without further ado and completely pleading ignorance about any copyright issues, here is the transcript of the interview of Richard.M.Stallman as published in The Hindu newspaper dated August 31st 2006.
Transcript of the interview with RMS
Richard Stallman is the famous for his brushes with authority. In the 1970's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he reset the system passwords to null strings because he didn't like restricted computer access. He went on to found the free software movement and the GNU Project, which saw him author the General Public Licence (GPL) that defined the four basic rights of computer users. A million programmers now reputedly contribute to free software. And now, after 15 years, GPL is ready for its next version, GPLv3. Stallman has drafted it with legal counsel from Eben Moglen, professor of law and history of law at Columbia University. Excerpts from an interview with Anand Sankar on the sidelines of the 4th International GPLv3 Conference held at Bangalore.
Transcript of the interview with RMS
Richard Stallman is the famous for his brushes with authority. In the 1970's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he reset the system passwords to null strings because he didn't like restricted computer access. He went on to found the free software movement and the GNU Project, which saw him author the General Public Licence (GPL) that defined the four basic rights of computer users. A million programmers now reputedly contribute to free software. And now, after 15 years, GPL is ready for its next version, GPLv3. Stallman has drafted it with legal counsel from Eben Moglen, professor of law and history of law at Columbia University. Excerpts from an interview with Anand Sankar on the sidelines of the 4th International GPLv3 Conference held at Bangalore.
Q. What are the main changes in GPLv3 and why are they necessary ?
RMS: Various changes are proposed for various reasons, so there is no general reason. There are different kinds of reasons. First of all, some changes have to do with fighting against software patents. GPLv3 has an explicit patents licence and it has limited kind of patent retaliation. Consider if Company A is running a version of a GPL-covered program on which they have made improvements and they get a software patent for the technique that it will feature, and then someone else, B, makes similar improvements on that program, then A can't sue B. If they do, then they lose the right to continue maintaining that program. So it is a way in which we can prevent treachery to the community.
We have made the results of GPL as uniform as possible, independent of national copyright law variations. We have defined two new terms, propagate and convey, instead of copy and distribute.
Q. The new version takes DRM (Digital Rights Management) head on. India might also go ahead with an amendment to the Copyright Act of 1957. What consequences will it have ?
RMS: The media companies are trying to take total power over the public. They want to publish books, movies and music in formats that are encrypted and that are designed for the sole purpose of controlling the public. So their idea is that nobody should be allowed to or able to make a player, except with their approval.
The companies want to modify GPL-covered free software to restrict the user. The next thing they want to do is ensure we users cannot change the program again.
And this brings them in direct conflict with GNU GPL, which says you are free to change the program and redistribute it and the next person too has freedom to make the changes he wants to make.
Q. Do you feel that the Kerala (an Indian state) Government's decision to start using free software in schools is something that the rest of the country will follow ?
RMS: If you teach students to use proprietary software you are teaching them to be helplessly dependent on a particular company. And that is not good for society as a whole. So, the schools should not do it. What the Kerala government is doing is the right thing and all other states in India should be doing this.
Q. There are a lot of misconceptions about free software. What kind of an economic model does an entrepreneur look at when he starts out with free software ?
RMS: I want to ask you why that question is worth asking. First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. Importantly even if a person has to make a living, he doesn't have to make a living from everything he does.
Lots of people develop free software in their free time and there are people who have to make a living and they do make a living.
To jump from, this person is not rich and therefore has to work, to this person can't write free software because he is not paid to write it, is an error.
There are over a million contributors to free software, a substantial fraction is getting paid and a majority are volunteers.
I suspect the reason people bring up this question of economics as a secondary detail is because they are labouring under the misconception that the free software community is impossible, unless the developers are getting paid.
Q. Catering to local needs is a stated goal of free software but GPL itself has not been officially translated into local languages. Your comments.
RMS: We are trying to write the text in such a way that its results are as uniform as possible in all countries. And for the same reason, uniformity of results, we are not translating it. Every translation would be an opportunity to make a mistake. And any mistake could be a disaster. Free software must be written in English and the reason is it is the language understood by programmers around the world. Obviously to have that in other languages is a good thing. So, we have encouraged others to publish translations that are clearly marked unofficial and we link to them from our site. You can use it as a guide if you don't read English.
For more information on the GNU project visit gnu.org.
Update (2nd September 2006): A reader of this blog has kindly pointed out the online version of the interview (which I couldn't find earlier and hence the reason for this transcript) as well as another interview with RMS carried on the Financial Express (an Indian newspaper).
RMS: Various changes are proposed for various reasons, so there is no general reason. There are different kinds of reasons. First of all, some changes have to do with fighting against software patents. GPLv3 has an explicit patents licence and it has limited kind of patent retaliation. Consider if Company A is running a version of a GPL-covered program on which they have made improvements and they get a software patent for the technique that it will feature, and then someone else, B, makes similar improvements on that program, then A can't sue B. If they do, then they lose the right to continue maintaining that program. So it is a way in which we can prevent treachery to the community.
We have made the results of GPL as uniform as possible, independent of national copyright law variations. We have defined two new terms, propagate and convey, instead of copy and distribute.
Q. The new version takes DRM (Digital Rights Management) head on. India might also go ahead with an amendment to the Copyright Act of 1957. What consequences will it have ?
RMS: The media companies are trying to take total power over the public. They want to publish books, movies and music in formats that are encrypted and that are designed for the sole purpose of controlling the public. So their idea is that nobody should be allowed to or able to make a player, except with their approval.
The companies want to modify GPL-covered free software to restrict the user. The next thing they want to do is ensure we users cannot change the program again.
And this brings them in direct conflict with GNU GPL, which says you are free to change the program and redistribute it and the next person too has freedom to make the changes he wants to make.
Q. Do you feel that the Kerala (an Indian state) Government's decision to start using free software in schools is something that the rest of the country will follow ?
RMS: If you teach students to use proprietary software you are teaching them to be helplessly dependent on a particular company. And that is not good for society as a whole. So, the schools should not do it. What the Kerala government is doing is the right thing and all other states in India should be doing this.
Q. There are a lot of misconceptions about free software. What kind of an economic model does an entrepreneur look at when he starts out with free software ?
RMS: I want to ask you why that question is worth asking. First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. Importantly even if a person has to make a living, he doesn't have to make a living from everything he does.
Lots of people develop free software in their free time and there are people who have to make a living and they do make a living.
To jump from, this person is not rich and therefore has to work, to this person can't write free software because he is not paid to write it, is an error.
There are over a million contributors to free software, a substantial fraction is getting paid and a majority are volunteers.
I suspect the reason people bring up this question of economics as a secondary detail is because they are labouring under the misconception that the free software community is impossible, unless the developers are getting paid.
Q. Catering to local needs is a stated goal of free software but GPL itself has not been officially translated into local languages. Your comments.
RMS: We are trying to write the text in such a way that its results are as uniform as possible in all countries. And for the same reason, uniformity of results, we are not translating it. Every translation would be an opportunity to make a mistake. And any mistake could be a disaster. Free software must be written in English and the reason is it is the language understood by programmers around the world. Obviously to have that in other languages is a good thing. So, we have encouraged others to publish translations that are clearly marked unofficial and we link to them from our site. You can use it as a guide if you don't read English.
For more information on the GNU project visit gnu.org.
Update (2nd September 2006): A reader of this blog has kindly pointed out the online version of the interview (which I couldn't find earlier and hence the reason for this transcript) as well as another interview with RMS carried on the Financial Express (an Indian newspaper).
Ciaran O'Riordan points out to the transcript of the entire presentation (not the interview) given by Richard.M.Stallman at the 4th international GPLv3 conference held on 23rd August at Bangalore.
14 comments:
"First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. Importantly even if a person has to make a living, he doesn't have to make a living from everything he does."
Ehhh... Right ok! So I can just send you my bills then? He is basically saying: If you make a living on making software, you are doing something you shouldn't be making money on doing.
No wonder why so many people thinks he's a commie.
As a person who got into Linux about 4 years ago, I have grown to appreciate it with each passing year....And being a Keralite, I must say it was heartening to see that the state government decided to switch to Linux....no longer bound by WIndows and provides students with the choice and i believe all if not most will eventually switch to Linux...yes it takes a while to get going but the true community spirit brought about as a result of GPL is Linux's greatest strength..so well done to the Kerala government and I hope that others follow suit..glad that we are at the forefront
of the new revolution..:-)
I agree with RMS. You can't eat money. Money is a secondary transaction device that's there as a trust within a state of laws, not as a total necessity, or sharing could be looked at as a highly fast mental form of money. If most people are doing it for free then props to technology and maybe just maybe money is outdated in some way or form and we should look at the actual product gained, not the transaction method.
I've written a reply to RMS' question about economic models.
RMS answered the question "Can poor people also write free software?" or "Will free software be written even if there is no money in it?" That was not the question. The question was what economic incentives exist for entrepreneurial developers to choose free software.
It's an important question because, if the incentives are week, free software will always lag behind proprietary and the efforts of free software developers will be subsumed into a program of developing proprietary code rather than a program of empowering users. Empirically, this is what's happening. RMS has missed the boat on this important question.
-t
First of all there are many people who don't have to make money. Importantly even if a person has to make a living, he doesn't have to make a living from everything he does.
I will agree that I do not have to make money, but I do need to provide food and shelter for myself and my family. Generally, money is the way you do that. Barter is another option, but money is really just bartering for an intermediate item that has an agreed value for most everyone.
There is work time and free time. Work time is used to provide for the needs of myself and my family. Free time is used for whatever. There are only so many hours in the day. The more time I spend working to meet my physical needs, the less I have for free time. If I can have my work time provide for my physical needs and also have that be time spent working on free software, that would meet two needs rather than just one. Now I can spend time with my family or resting or doing whatever. It has not so much to do with wealth as with time management. If I can take care of two things at once (physical needs and developing free software) why not do that. If I have to relegate my free software time to free time, that hurts free software and myself.
Question: What kind of an economic model does an entrepreneur look at when he starts out with free software ?
RMS: Arm...@#& ...some bullshit..*&%...some crap too...
Public: Mr. RMS, the question is about an "entrepreneur", not about a programmer nor one do program in his free time. Let me repeat the question to you...
I really wonder why everybody is so fond of bashing RMS. Is there a sinster agenda here ?
For christ's sake, he is doing it for everybody's good. I definitely do not want to be in a situation where I do not own the music or movies I buy. I am all for anti-DRM stance of the new licence GPLv3. Just wondering where GNU would have been if there was no RMS and his persistent efforts in the face of all this opposition.
See, this is the problem with the general public, they are sheep.
There are a lot of misconceptions about free software. What kind of an economic model does an entrepreneur look at when he starts out with free software ?
The question itself is a misconception! Free software is not about money. It is about freedom. An entrepreneur should look at the free software model only if it can benefit him monetarily - that is very rare. She can possibly make money by being a service provider. The only other incentive is cost savings on development. If your software satisfies a relatively large market demand, you can license your initial code under the GPL and hope that developers contribute and improve the initial codebase. The GPL does not deny you the right to ask for money, it just denies you from withholding your modifcations.
The real answer to the question is - there is no "strong" economic model for a single entrepreneur to start out with free software. That belongs to the biggies of the IT service sector. If you are an entrepreneur look elsewhere
The school system run by the Government in Kerala may have also been swayed by this memo sent by the
Free Software User Group -Kochi (http://puggy.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi). Read here at
http://puggy.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/mass-memo.html
To the first question, RMS gives an answer related to how patents may be awarded for changes made to GPL software. However, the owner of the patent will be prevented from enforcing against other parties that make similar changes to the same GPL'ed software.
If this is the case, what is the need to patent any changes made to GPL'ed code? Isn't this just a licensing device to discourage the use of software patents in the first place?
This is a comment made by Anonymous:
Ehhh... Right ok! So I can just send you my bills then? He is basically saying: If you make a living on making software, you are doing something you shouldn't be making money on doing.
RMS doesn't believe it's wrong to make money writing free software; he explicitly states that a significant fraction of free software developers are paid. He also says that the free software community has benefited greatly and will continue to benefit in the future from the efforts and contributions of unpaid hobbyists and volunteers.
Don't forget, too, that many commercial businesses benefit from their use of free software in accordance with the GPL.
As for thomas lord's comment, many people develop free software for enjoyment, for prestige, for the feeling of making a contribution to the community, and to advance projects on which their own projects or livelihood depend. Those are quite strong incentives, even though they don't involve money. Only a layman's faulty understanding of economics says that money is the only effective motivator.
Free software is most emphatically not losing out or being subsumed by proprietary software. It is thriving. To take an example that was a classic weak spot of Linux, it seems that 3d desktop eye candy will be in the hands of non-tweaker, non-programmer Linux users around the same time Microsoft ships Vista.
It's true that most people still use proprietary software in some form. It's also true, however, that most businesses with any serious IT are significantly dependent on free software. Neither is being buried or destroyed by the other.
This is exactly where entrepreneurs should be looking is directly at free software. It would be good to start your business now, while people still doubt. The best part is the huge savings on not buying propreitary software products, and not being dependant on proprietary products where the service monopoly company could go out of business.
If you want to ask about how to make a business out of free software, RMS isn't really the person to ask. Why not ask someone who is currently doing it?
Then look at areas where people do not have free software yet. Try to think of ideas yourself. Free Software is like free marketing, since you have a market of free software zealots already.
Here is the video from the GPL conference
http://www.techmag.biz/indians_should_oppose_changes_iplaws
On a different tack, I think the free software "movement" can be framed in a context of having arisen to balance a severe imbalance created by Microsoft, and the planet's perhaps unavoidable "support" of that corporation and its founder. If there had been viable competition with MS from an earlier stage of the "computer revolution", and hence much more affordable alternatives to Windows and its apps--and these alternatives would almost neccessarily have been commercial--then there wouldn't be as great of a need for free software as there is now. I think it's not neccessary to set up such strong polarities: Free versus commercial. Because the polarity is really: Free versus Microsoft.
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