Competition in business is not necessarily combat. For example, when two grocery stores compete, their entire effort is to improve their own operations, not to sabotage the rival. But this does not demonstrate a special commitment to business ethics; rather, there is little scope for combat in this line of business short of physical violence. Not all areas of business share this characteristic. Withholding information that could help everyone advance is a form of combat.
Business ideology does not prepare people to resist the temptation to combat the competition. Some forms of combat have been banned with antitrust laws, truth in advertising laws, and so on, but rather than generalizing this to a principled rejection of combat in general, executives invent other forms of combat which are not specifically prohibited. Society’s resources are squandered on the economic equivalent of factional civil war.
“Why Don’t You Move to Russia?”
In the United States, any advocate of other than the most extreme form of laissez-faire selfishness has often heard this accusation. For example, it is leveled against the supporters of a national health care system, such as is found in all the other industrialized nations of the free world. It is leveled against the advocates of public support for the arts, also universal in advanced nations. The idea that citizens have any obligation to the public good is identified in America with Communism. But how similar are these ideas?
Communism as was practiced in the Soviet Union was a system of central control where all activity was regimented, supposedly for the common good, but actually for the sake of the members of the Communist party. And where copying equipment was closely guarded to prevent illegal copying.
The American system of software copyright exercises central control over distribution of a program, and guards copying equipment with automatic copyingprotection schemes to prevent illegal copying.
By contrast, I am working to build a system where people are free to decide their own actions; in particular, free to help their neighbors, and free to alter and improve the tools which they use in their daily lives. A system based on voluntary cooperation and on decentralization.
Thus, if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists.
The Question of Premises
I make the assumption in this paper that a user of software is no less important than an author, or even an author’s employer. In other words, their interests and needs have equal weight, when we decide which course of action is best.
This premise is not universally accepted. Many maintain that an author’s employer is fundamentally more important than anyone else. They say, for example, that the purpose of having owners of software is to give the author’s employer the advantage he deserves—regardless of how this may affect the public.
It is no use trying to prove or disprove these premises. Proof requires shared premises. So most of what I have to say is addressed only to those who share the premises I use, or at least are interested in what their consequences are. For those who believe that the owners are more important than everyone else, this paper is simply irrelevant.
But why would a large number of Americans accept a premise that elevates certain people in importance above everyone else? Partly because of the belief that this premise is part of the legal traditions of American society. Some people feel that doubting the premise means challenging the basis of society.
It is important for these people to know that this premise is not part of our legal tradition. It never has been.
Thus, the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright is to “promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts.” The Supreme Court has elaborated on this, stating in Fox Film v. Doyal[4] that “The sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring the [copyright] monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the public from the labors of authors.”
We are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme Court. (At one time, they both condoned slavery.) So their positions do not disprove the owner supremacy premise. But I hope that the awareness that this is a radical right-wing assumption rather than a traditionally recognized one will weaken its appeal.
Conclusion
We like to think that our society encourages helping your neighbor; but each time we reward someone for obstructionism, or admire them for the wealth they have gained in this way, we are sending the opposite message.
Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard the welfare of society for personal gain. We can trace this disregard from Ronald Reagan to Dick Cheney, from Exxon to Enron, from failing banks to failing schools. We can measure it with the size of the homeless population and the prison population. The antisocial spirit feeds on itself, because the more we see that other people will not help us, the more it seems futile to help them. Thus society decays into a jungle.
If we don’t want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes. We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from others. I hope that the free software movement will contribute to this: at least in one area, we will replace the jungle with a more efficient system which encourages and runs on voluntary cooperation.
Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This version of this essay is part of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, 2nd ed. (Boston: GNU Press, 2010).
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire chapter are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Chapter 7.
Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free Software
There are general reasons why all computer users should insist on free software: it gives users the freedom to control their own computers—with proprietary software, the computer does what the software owner wants it to do, not what the user wants it to do. Free software also gives users the freedom to cooperate with each other, to lead an upright life. These reasons apply to schools as they do to everyone.
The purpose of this article is to state additional reasons that apply specifically to education.
First, free software can save schools money. Free software gives schools, like other users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software, so the school system can make copies for all the computers they have. In poor countries, this can help close the digital divide.
This obvious reason, while important in practical terms, is rather shallow. And proprietary software developers can eliminate this reason by donating copies to the schools. (Warning: a school that accepts such an offer may have to pay for upgrades later.) So let’s look at the deeper reasons.
Schools have a social mission: to teach students to be citizens of a strong, capable, independent, cooperating and free society. They should promote the use of free software just as they promote recycling. If schools teach students free software, then the students will tend to use free software after they graduate. This will help society as a whole escape from being dominated (and gouged) by megacorporations.