[00:05.870 --> 00:08.330]  Oh... Everyone, a man who needs no introduction.
[00:08.630 --> 00:09.690]  Oh, it's warm Pepsi.
[00:10.130 --> 00:10.690]  Is it?
[00:10.970 --> 00:11.990]  It seems to be.
[00:12.090 --> 00:13.230]  Is there any ice available?
[00:13.570 --> 00:13.970]  We'll fix it.
[00:15.150 --> 00:16.490]  Ladies and gentlemen, RMS.
[00:27.390 --> 00:29.270]  Why are you turning those lights on?
[00:29.390 --> 00:30.790]  It's too hot in here already.
[00:33.010 --> 00:35.130]  So turn them down, okay?
[00:35.890 --> 00:39.270]  You don't have to shine lights in my face to make me talk.
[00:42.990 --> 00:46.610]  Down, down, down, down, down, down.
[00:46.970 --> 00:51.210]  Now, a little more light in the audience would be good so that I don't fall asleep.
[00:54.710 --> 00:56.310]  It's okay if you sleep.
[00:57.350 --> 01:00.130]  You won't make a bunch of people unhappy if you do.
[01:01.090 --> 01:02.930]  But I shouldn't sleep here.
[01:06.750 --> 01:11.210]  Anyway, we apologize for this delay due to late arrival of equipment.
[01:12.510 --> 01:20.550]  And we expect to get you moving shortly and wish you a pleasant listen on the way to the end of the speech or wherever your final destination may be.
[01:24.350 --> 01:28.210]  So I'm going to talk about free software and the hacker community.
[01:29.170 --> 01:37.290]  First of all, I'd better explain what free software means since probably even a lot of you have not heard what it means.
[01:37.750 --> 01:41.650]  Free software means software that respects the user's freedom.
[01:42.930 --> 01:51.250]  There are four essential freedoms for the user of software, freedoms that every software user should always have.
[01:51.610 --> 01:55.930]  And these four freedoms make the definition of free software.
[01:56.970 --> 02:02.150]  Freedom zero is the freedom to run the program as you wish for any purpose.
[02:03.210 --> 02:10.010]  Freedom one is the freedom to study the source code and change it so that the program does what you wish.
[02:10.750 --> 02:14.330]  Freedom two is the freedom to help your neighbor.
[02:14.630 --> 02:20.130]  That's the freedom to make copies and distribute them to others, including publication.
[02:21.210 --> 02:26.270]  And freedom three is the freedom to contribute to your community.
[02:26.450 --> 02:33.330]  And that's the freedom to distribute your modified versions, including publication, when you wish.
[02:34.150 --> 02:35.970]  None of these is an obligation.
[02:35.970 --> 02:41.250]  You're never required to do any of these things, but the point is you're free to do them if you wish.
[02:41.810 --> 02:49.590]  And that means the software respects your freedom and respects the social solidarity of your community.
[02:51.310 --> 03:00.730]  If you use a program that doesn't give you freedom number two, you're in danger of falling into a moral dilemma at any moment.
[03:01.110 --> 03:05.050]  When your friend says, could I have a copy of that program?
[03:05.830 --> 03:10.810]  At that moment, you will be forced to choose between two evils.
[03:11.790 --> 03:16.550]  One evil is to give your friend a copy and violate the license of the program.
[03:16.890 --> 03:22.470]  The other evil is to deny your friend a copy and comply with the license of the program.
[03:23.050 --> 03:31.270]  Now, once you're in the dilemma, you should choose the lesser evil, which is to give your friend a copy and violate the license of the program.
[03:37.570 --> 03:44.670]  This is the lesser evil because it's directed at somebody who has done wrong.
[03:44.670 --> 03:52.590]  We can suppose that your friend is a good friend, a helpful person, and ordinarily would deserve your cooperation.
[03:54.110 --> 04:02.330]  Whereas, the developer of a proprietary program has deliberately attacked the social solidarity of your community.
[04:02.550 --> 04:03.690]  Now, that's wrong.
[04:04.190 --> 04:11.170]  So, if you can't help doing wrong to somebody, better it should be a wrongdoer that you do it to.
[04:12.910 --> 04:16.170]  However, to be the lesser evil does not mean it's good.
[04:16.530 --> 04:19.810]  It's never good to make an agreement and not keep it.
[04:20.030 --> 04:26.130]  Now, it may be less bad than keeping the agreement, depending on what you agreed to do.
[04:26.910 --> 04:28.570]  But it's never good.
[04:29.430 --> 04:39.930]  And an unauthorized copy of a non-free program shares most of the ethical ills of an authorized copy.
[04:39.930 --> 04:44.090]  The only one it doesn't share is that of rewarding the perpetrator.
[04:47.950 --> 04:55.150]  So, what you should really do once you have understood this dilemma is make sure you're never in it.
[04:55.990 --> 05:01.410]  Don't set foot on the path that's going to lead you someday to that dilemma.
[05:02.430 --> 05:04.370]  And there are two ways to avoid it.
[05:04.590 --> 05:06.370]  One is don't have any friends.
[05:08.250 --> 05:12.410]  That's the method suggested by the proprietary software developers.
[05:13.270 --> 05:16.830]  And the other method is don't use proprietary software.
[05:17.230 --> 05:18.830]  That's the method I prefer.
[05:19.310 --> 05:27.290]  That way, I don't have to worry about a moral dilemma if someone asks for a copy of a program I've got on my computer.
[05:27.970 --> 05:31.030]  Because I will only accept free software onto it.
[05:31.250 --> 05:40.290]  If someone offers me an attractive, convenient program on the condition that I promise not to share it with you, I will say no.
[05:40.610 --> 05:42.710]  Because that's the right thing to do.
[05:42.950 --> 05:53.430]  And I would rather forego the convenience and fun of that program than put myself in a situation where I'd be ashamed of what I had done.
[05:59.040 --> 05:59.960]  Thank you.
[06:05.820 --> 06:13.120]  But just being free to share does not mean that you're in control of your own computer.
[06:13.900 --> 06:16.100]  For that, you need freedom number one.
[06:16.240 --> 06:18.980]  You need to be able to study the program and change it.
[06:20.280 --> 06:24.280]  That's what enables you to decide what your computer does.
[06:24.280 --> 06:34.480]  If you use a program that doesn't give you freedom number one, the freedom to study the source code and change it, then the developer controls what you can do.
[06:34.700 --> 06:37.580]  And you are under the developer's power.
[06:38.260 --> 06:39.700]  This is unjust.
[06:40.160 --> 06:45.240]  This is an unjust system of subjugation.
[06:51.200 --> 06:56.760]  If you don't have freedom number one, you can't even tell for certain what the program does.
[06:57.160 --> 07:00.520]  Lots of proprietary programs have malicious features.
[07:01.000 --> 07:14.000]  Because once the developer is in a position of power, the developer faces the temptation to go one step further and start using that power specifically to mistreat others.
[07:15.320 --> 07:23.300]  So they put in spy features and features designed to restrict the user and even back doors.
[07:24.800 --> 07:27.660]  Now, spyware is quite common.
[07:28.040 --> 07:34.640]  One proprietary program that you might have heard of that spies on the user is called Windows XP.
[07:42.590 --> 07:48.750]  When the user of Windows XP, and I won't say you because I'm sure you wouldn't use a program like this.
[07:49.690 --> 07:58.870]  When the user of Windows XP searches her own files for a word, it sends a message saying what word was searched for.
[07:59.110 --> 08:00.290]  That's one spy feature.
[08:00.650 --> 08:02.830]  But there's another that we know of.
[08:03.170 --> 08:10.510]  When Windows XP asks for an upgrade, it sends Microsoft a list of all the software installed on the machine.
[08:13.390 --> 08:17.470]  Now, these spy features were not announced by Microsoft.
[08:17.470 --> 08:23.730]  People had to discover them through investigation, which was not always easy.
[08:25.730 --> 08:28.170]  There may be others which we don't know about.
[08:29.250 --> 08:32.070]  But spying is not limited to Windows.
[08:32.470 --> 08:35.310]  Windows Media Player also spies on the user.
[08:35.510 --> 08:37.350]  It reports everything the user looks at.
[08:37.590 --> 08:38.830]  Total surveillance.
[08:39.650 --> 08:46.970]  But please don't think that this is something that only Microsoft, the great Satan, would do.
[08:47.430 --> 08:52.490]  Because, in fact, RealPlayer was the first such program to do this kind of spying.
[08:52.910 --> 08:54.070]  Total surveillance.
[08:54.370 --> 08:55.930]  Reporting everything the user looks at.
[08:56.150 --> 08:58.730]  And all Microsoft did was imitate them.
[09:01.450 --> 09:02.310]  Thank you.
[09:15.230 --> 09:25.050]  By the way, I hope you all know about the worldwide boycott of Coca-Cola Company for things like murdering union organizers in Colombia.
[09:25.470 --> 09:28.110]  See the site KillerCoke.org.
[09:50.720 --> 09:53.420]  So, lots of companies spy on the user.
[09:53.600 --> 09:57.140]  And interestingly, the TiVo spies on the user in the same way.
[09:57.780 --> 09:59.900]  Reporting everything the user looks at.
[10:00.340 --> 10:06.000]  Now, this is particularly interesting because the TiVo uses a lot of free software.
[10:06.000 --> 10:09.380]  It has a small GNU plus Linux operating system in it.
[10:10.380 --> 10:17.080]  And when it was first released, a lot of people in our community applauded it for using free software.
[10:17.280 --> 10:19.720]  But it also contains non-free software.
[10:19.920 --> 10:25.440]  And it has malicious features like spying on the user and digital restrictions management.
[10:25.440 --> 10:38.560]  And this shows that to use free software, which implicitly means to use some free software some of the time, is not a sufficient target.
[10:38.980 --> 10:46.940]  The target has to be to use only software that respects your freedom so that you have full freedom.
[10:47.920 --> 10:49.900]  Anything less is insufficient.
[10:51.020 --> 10:57.380]  And the TiVo is also an example of another malicious practice that I'll talk about later.
[11:00.220 --> 11:04.080]  But malicious features go beyond spying on the user.
[11:04.460 --> 11:07.540]  There's also the functionality of refusing to function.
[11:10.320 --> 11:14.660]  Where the program says, I don't want to show you this file.
[11:14.960 --> 11:18.180]  I don't want to let you copy part of this file.
[11:18.180 --> 11:23.360]  I'm not going to print this file for you because I don't like you enough.
[11:25.700 --> 11:32.440]  This is DRM, Digital Restrictions Management, or Digital Handcuffs.
[11:32.980 --> 11:40.580]  Where the program is designed specifically to restrict you for the sake of someone else.
[11:41.480 --> 11:46.540]  It becomes a simple instrument of someone else's power over you.
[11:48.180 --> 11:51.160]  And then there are back doors.
[11:51.960 --> 11:56.160]  There was a proprietary program called Interbase, which was liberated.
[11:56.460 --> 12:00.860]  And then the users could see that it contained a back door.
[12:01.400 --> 12:02.720]  And they could fix it.
[12:03.540 --> 12:09.000]  Presumably it had the same back door when it was proprietary, but the users couldn't see it or fix it.
[12:10.220 --> 12:17.120]  Another proprietary program that has a back door that you may have heard of is called Windows XP.
[12:18.140 --> 12:24.640]  You see, when Windows XP asks for an upgrade, Microsoft can identify the user.
[12:24.900 --> 12:30.840]  Which means that they can deliver that user an upgrade designed specifically for him.
[12:30.840 --> 12:35.640]  They can take total control of that person's machine in any way they want.
[12:36.060 --> 12:39.040]  And that user has very little recourse.
[12:45.650 --> 12:50.290]  So, we know about this back door because we can deduce it from known facts.
[12:50.770 --> 12:52.790]  But there might be others.
[12:54.030 --> 13:01.290]  Microsoft was caught in 1999 having put a back door in a piece of server software for the NSA.
[13:02.150 --> 13:07.330]  And there might be back doors introduced by others that Microsoft doesn't know about.
[13:07.950 --> 13:15.230]  For instance, some programmers in India working on the development of Windows XP were arrested and accused of working for Al Qaeda.
[13:17.150 --> 13:21.690]  Trying to introduce another back door that Microsoft wasn't supposed to know about.
[13:22.550 --> 13:24.770]  Well, apparently that attempt failed.
[13:25.990 --> 13:28.190]  Was there another attempt that succeeded?
[13:28.890 --> 13:30.310]  We can't tell.
[13:33.050 --> 13:40.050]  Now, there are various kinds of malicious features that proprietary software developers can put in.
[13:40.570 --> 13:43.550]  But not all of them do so.
[13:43.850 --> 13:45.250]  Some do and some don't.
[13:45.870 --> 13:49.030]  Of course, you can't necessarily tell which is which.
[13:49.030 --> 13:55.430]  So, the result is that all proprietary software is just trust me software.
[13:56.850 --> 14:04.370]  Where you surrender to a blind faith in a developer which you know might not deserve it.
[14:05.750 --> 14:08.970]  But what are the ones that don't put in malicious features?
[14:08.970 --> 14:13.530]  Well, they may be honest, but they're still human.
[14:13.730 --> 14:14.690]  So, they make mistakes.
[14:15.130 --> 14:17.250]  And that means that their code has bugs.
[14:18.890 --> 14:34.910]  And the user of a program without freedom number one, the freedom to study and change the source code, is just as helpless confronting an unintended error in the code as she is confronting a deliberate mis-feature.
[14:37.430 --> 14:42.330]  The user of a non-free program is a prisoner of his software.
[14:44.710 --> 14:49.030]  Now, we the developers of free software are also human.
[14:49.450 --> 14:51.570]  So, our code has errors too.
[14:51.950 --> 14:54.270]  Every non-trivial program has bugs.
[14:54.570 --> 14:57.510]  The difference is that we respect your freedom.
[14:57.510 --> 15:01.930]  So, when you find errors in our code, you can fix them.
[15:03.390 --> 15:05.630]  We can't make ourselves perfect.
[15:05.910 --> 15:08.650]  We can treat you decently.
[15:20.080 --> 15:22.540]  But freedom one is not enough.
[15:23.120 --> 15:29.280]  Freedom one is the freedom to personally study and change the source code to make it do what you want.
[15:30.040 --> 15:34.520]  This is not enough because millions of computer users don't know how to program.
[15:34.840 --> 15:37.600]  So, they can't directly exercise freedom one.
[15:38.020 --> 15:44.040]  But even for programmers like me, freedom one is not enough because there's just too much software.
[15:44.580 --> 15:46.520]  In fact, there's just too much free software.
[15:47.020 --> 15:58.360]  Nobody can possibly study the source code of all the programs that she uses and master them all and personally make all the changes that she might want.
[15:58.600 --> 16:06.780]  The only way we can fully take control of our software is to do it working together, cooperating.
[16:06.980 --> 16:14.360]  And for this, we need freedom three, which is the freedom to publish or distribute your modified versions.
[16:15.160 --> 16:22.060]  With this freedom, when a few people make a change, everyone else can adopt it if they like it.
[16:22.740 --> 16:29.280]  And as a result, those millions of non-programmers get the benefit of what the programmers do.
[16:32.330 --> 16:42.110]  If there are a million users of a free program that want a certain change, by chance we'd expect a few thousand to know how to program.
[16:42.510 --> 16:46.650]  And someday a few of them will make that change and release their modified version.
[16:46.690 --> 16:49.390]  And all the million can get the benefit of it.
[16:51.730 --> 16:59.870]  So freedoms zero and two, to run the program and copy the program and distribute it, those every user can do.
[17:00.050 --> 17:02.130]  Those don't require knowing how to program.
[17:03.170 --> 17:07.090]  Freedoms one and three involve programming.
[17:07.090 --> 17:11.850]  So you can only exercise them to the extent you know how to program.
[17:11.850 --> 17:17.130]  But as people do that, everyone else gets the benefit as well.
[17:17.490 --> 17:20.350]  So these four freedoms are essential to everyone.
[17:20.430 --> 17:28.610]  And the result of these four freedoms is that the software develops democratically under the control of the users.
[17:29.610 --> 17:36.770]  Proprietary software develops under the control of its developer and gives that developer power over the users.
[17:36.770 --> 17:43.790]  Free software makes the users free and enables them to control their own lives.
[17:44.190 --> 17:45.950]  And that's what freedom means.
[17:53.660 --> 18:14.500]  So I reached these conclusions in 1983, which is why I launched the free software movement and began developing the GNU operating system, GNU's not UNIX, for the specific purpose of making it possible to use computers in freedom.
[18:15.900 --> 18:22.640]  Most of the users, and there may be around 100 million of them, of the GNU system don't know it's the GNU system.
[18:22.640 --> 18:31.620]  In 1992, when the GNU system was almost finished, the main missing component was the kernel.
[18:31.980 --> 18:35.400]  And at that point, a kernel named Linux filled that gap.
[18:36.060 --> 18:45.660]  So what people use, including me, is actually the combination of the GNU system with Linux as the kernel, the GNU plus Linux system.
[18:45.660 --> 18:53.000]  But most people are misinformed and think that the whole system is Linux and don't realize that we developed it.
[18:53.500 --> 19:15.220]  That's unfortunate because in addition to forgetting the role of the members of the GNU project, hundreds and thousands of us, they forget in the development of the system, which they think is Linux, they also forget the role of the ideals of freedom and social solidarity,
[19:16.720 --> 19:19.880]  which were the motivations for doing this work.
[19:21.160 --> 19:26.200]  Other operating systems were developed for technical motives or commercial motives.
[19:26.480 --> 19:30.460]  This one was developed for the sake of freedom and social solidarity.
[19:30.460 --> 19:33.600]  And when people forget that, it's dangerous.
[19:36.550 --> 19:41.650]  Because if people don't value their freedom, they will lose it.
[19:42.530 --> 19:47.030]  History, including the recent history of our country, shows this clearly.
[19:50.130 --> 19:50.850]  And
[19:55.340 --> 20:02.200]  when people don't value their freedom, they won't defend it.
[20:02.200 --> 20:06.000]  But in order to value their freedom, they have to know about it.
[20:06.340 --> 20:13.380]  And in the field of computing, because it's so new, we haven't had much time to teach people.
[20:13.440 --> 20:19.020]  We haven't had much time to discover what the appropriate human rights are.
[20:19.740 --> 20:24.220]  Well, I think I've identified four of them.
[20:24.220 --> 20:33.720]  The four fundamental freedoms that define free software are for human rights that every user of computers must have.
[20:37.150 --> 21:02.470]  But how are we going to teach people about this when the system that we develop for these reasons is confused with Linux, and everyone knows that the developer of Linux doesn't believe in these freedoms, that he supports, quote, open source, unquote, and that he developed Linux just to have fun.
[21:03.490 --> 21:06.070]  Well, I've got nothing against having fun.
[21:07.890 --> 21:12.970]  I expect that almost every free software developer is having fun doing it.
[21:12.970 --> 21:15.070]  And they should have fun.
[21:15.590 --> 21:17.750]  What could be more fun than programming?
[21:25.310 --> 21:48.290]  But if that's all we think about, if we don't know how to be serious as well, if we don't recognize serious goals that are so important that they're worth sacrificing some of your fun, goals like freedom and democracy, then what's going to happen?
[21:48.670 --> 21:51.830]  Well, Bush has already showed us what's going to happen.
[22:03.500 --> 22:09.080]  We used to admire the people who sacrificed their lives so we could have freedom.
[22:09.280 --> 22:17.900]  And now we're invited to sacrifice our freedom to protect us from small, unlikely dangers to our lives.
[22:18.900 --> 22:28.500]  And I think that's stupid and backwards and insults the people who fought to get us freedom in the first place.
[22:39.120 --> 22:41.560]  So how did I reach these ideas?
[22:41.880 --> 22:58.700]  What led me to conclude in 1983 that software should be free, that proprietary software is unethical and anti-social, that it was a social problem, and that we had to solve this problem by getting rid of it.
[23:01.850 --> 23:04.650]  It all goes back to the hacker community.
[23:06.010 --> 23:25.970]  In the 1970s, I participated in the hacker community, a community of programmers who were in the habit normally of sharing their work with everybody, anyone who was interested, because that was our way of life, because we were programming for the joy.
[23:27.570 --> 23:29.170]  Yes, we were having fun.
[23:29.430 --> 23:35.610]  But having fun led us to a way of life and a way of thinking about our way of life.
[23:35.610 --> 23:54.230]  having fun put together with the political ideals that were taught to us by the United States of America, and then conspicuously disregarded by the United States of America in the war in Vietnam.
[23:57.590 --> 24:04.530]  When I joined this community, we called ourselves hackers.
[24:05.090 --> 24:15.390]  And what that meant was that we were programming with joy, with gusto, with enthusiasm, and that that was what it was all about.
[24:15.390 --> 24:20.830]  We were using our intelligence in a playful way.
[24:21.970 --> 24:28.410]  Sometimes just for fun, sometimes doing useful jobs that needed to be done.
[24:28.950 --> 24:34.250]  But either way, we could still enjoy using our intelligence in a playful way.
[24:35.970 --> 24:38.090]  And that's what hacker meant.
[24:38.670 --> 24:40.570]  And that's what it still means.
[24:49.760 --> 24:54.820]  When I joined this community, it was during the Vietnam War.
[24:55.400 --> 24:56.940]  I had nightmares.
[24:57.460 --> 25:00.700]  Well, sort of like nightmares, except they weren't quite...
[25:00.700 --> 25:01.880]  they weren't asleep.
[25:02.160 --> 25:03.300]  What do you call them?
[25:03.860 --> 25:13.000]  Horrible negative fantasies of being drafted and being destroyed because I refused to call officers sir.
[25:16.010 --> 25:20.790]  I had learned to love freedom, and what I saw in front of me was the exact...
[25:20.790 --> 25:23.510]  was the perfect enemy of freedom.
[25:24.910 --> 25:29.250]  Drafting people to fight to keep one dictatorship in power instead of another.
[25:30.930 --> 25:34.010]  And doing so based on lies.
[25:35.890 --> 25:44.950]  We now know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was the excuse for sending U.S. troops to fight in Vietnam, was a fabrication.
[25:44.950 --> 25:46.530]  It was a pure lie.
[25:56.020 --> 26:03.060]  Of course, just about all of us despised the U.S. government's policies at the time.
[26:05.000 --> 26:06.580]  This was not unusual.
[26:07.060 --> 26:12.140]  What was unusual was that we had a kind of free society.
[26:12.900 --> 26:19.120]  In the artificial intelligence lab, everyone was welcome to come and use the computer.
[26:19.440 --> 26:22.080]  And the reason was the hackers were in charge.
[26:23.200 --> 26:27.600]  At every other computer facility, there were administrators in charge.
[26:27.980 --> 26:31.960]  And they made sure to have control over what anybody could do.
[26:33.540 --> 26:38.460]  The hackers, before I got there, made sure that that couldn't happen.
[26:38.760 --> 26:43.400]  By declining to implement security in the computer system.
[26:43.720 --> 26:51.180]  They realized that by implementing passwords, they would simply hand administrators tools to control everyone.
[26:52.280 --> 26:58.880]  We recognized that a computer with security was like a totalitarian police state.
[26:59.180 --> 27:03.120]  Where everything not explicitly...
[27:03.120 --> 27:06.700]  Everything you couldn't justify was forbidden.
[27:07.760 --> 27:09.640]  By default, everything's forbidden.
[27:09.900 --> 27:12.800]  Except a little space where you're allowed to do things.
[27:14.320 --> 27:15.460]  And anything...
[27:15.840 --> 27:17.480]  Take a look at their policies.
[27:17.760 --> 27:21.740]  Anything that might enable you to throw off their control, is forbidden.
[27:23.380 --> 27:28.640]  Because maintaining themselves in control, is always the first priority.
[27:29.500 --> 27:34.160]  So once you start following up this analogy, you'll see a lot of similarities.
[27:37.120 --> 27:37.780]  So...
[27:40.100 --> 27:45.340]  Back in the 70s, we didn't have to fight to defend our practice of sharing software.
[27:45.520 --> 27:46.200]  We just did it.
[27:46.540 --> 27:47.840]  We always did it.
[27:49.200 --> 27:51.680]  People shared software with us and we used it.
[27:51.800 --> 27:54.500]  We wrote software and sometimes other people wanted it.
[27:54.580 --> 27:56.160]  And we shared it with them and they used it.
[27:57.260 --> 27:58.940]  That was simply our way of life.
[28:00.680 --> 28:03.400]  We appreciated it, but we didn't have to fight for it.
[28:03.640 --> 28:05.180]  We just went on living it.
[28:05.580 --> 28:08.440]  What we had to fight was pressure to have security.
[28:10.020 --> 28:16.920]  It was in 1976 or so that everyone else said, the net is too big.
[28:17.100 --> 28:19.580]  You can't have a computer without security now.
[28:19.680 --> 28:21.140]  And we just kept on doing it.
[28:22.200 --> 28:23.740]  People would log in.
[28:24.220 --> 28:25.120]  They would...
[28:25.120 --> 28:30.680]  They'd heard that there was a command you could give to set the system to shut down.
[28:31.120 --> 28:34.160]  So they would type the command and it would work.
[28:34.160 --> 28:38.300]  It would say, system shutdown scheduled in N minutes.
[28:38.660 --> 28:40.520]  And then someone else would cancel it.
[28:41.020 --> 28:43.760]  Well, the other users didn't want it to go down.
[28:44.060 --> 28:45.400]  So they cancelled it.
[28:45.780 --> 28:52.560]  But the point is, there was no security stopping anybody in the world from logging in on our machine and doing this.
[28:54.160 --> 28:55.920]  But the users were there.
[28:56.220 --> 29:02.520]  And when the shutdown wasn't supposed to happen, they cancelled it.
[29:05.260 --> 29:11.800]  If there was a shutdown for a good reason, like system maintenance, then the users understood and they didn't cancel it.
[29:16.390 --> 29:22.150]  And sometimes people said, what if somebody inserts a bug into your code?
[29:23.330 --> 29:26.950]  And I said, well, they can't possibly insert as many as I do.
[29:34.310 --> 29:38.390]  So I guess I'll just fix that bug like I fixed the other ones.
[30:04.460 --> 30:15.100]  So one of the things that hackers occasionally did in their spirit of cleverness was try to break security on other machines which had security.
[30:15.900 --> 30:20.260]  But that's because on the other machines, the hackers weren't in charge.
[30:21.560 --> 30:24.000]  On our machine, the hackers were in charge.
[30:24.000 --> 30:28.720]  So we just didn't implement the security and there was no need to ever break it.
[30:29.680 --> 30:34.340]  So our machine is probably the only one whose security was never broken.
[30:45.560 --> 30:54.120]  And in 1980 or so, some journalists found out about our community security and they misunderstood the word hacker.
[30:54.320 --> 30:56.400]  They thought it meant breaking security.
[30:57.020 --> 31:01.220]  And we've been struggling against that confusion ever since.
[31:01.780 --> 31:05.780]  Telling people that those who break security are crackers.
[31:06.980 --> 31:14.620]  And that to be a hacker means to amuse yourself by using your intelligence playfully.
[31:14.620 --> 31:17.240]  Doing any kind of thing.
[31:17.480 --> 31:19.180]  Doesn't have to be with computers.
[31:19.960 --> 31:25.460]  You know, you can spring a surprise party on your friend.
[31:25.680 --> 31:26.800]  That could be a hack.
[31:27.080 --> 31:29.100]  You can write music.
[31:29.100 --> 31:29.940]  That's a hack.
[31:32.320 --> 31:39.900]  I believe multiple composers have written palindromic musical compositions.
[31:39.900 --> 31:52.220]  The one I know is by Guillaume de Machaut, who lived in the 1300s and wrote a piece whose name is basically, My End is My Beginning.
[31:54.280 --> 31:56.200]  It's a three-part piece.
[31:56.600 --> 32:03.120]  The top two parts are each other's mirror image and then the base part is its own mirror image.
[32:05.880 --> 32:09.980]  Except for the accidentals, which help it sound good.
[32:10.960 --> 32:17.100]  And since he was a great composer, he made it sound good, as well as being a hack.
[32:21.270 --> 32:23.150]  I'm told that J.S.
[32:23.290 --> 32:26.570]  Bach did something similar, but I don't think I've ever heard that piece.
[32:28.630 --> 32:32.390]  However, those are not the only composers that are hackers.
[32:32.390 --> 32:35.290]  John Cage, I would say, was a hacker.
[32:35.770 --> 32:41.030]  He wrote a celebrated piece which has no notes and consists of silence.
[32:41.530 --> 32:47.750]  Now, I would say that that piece has zero musical value, but it has some hack value.
[32:59.380 --> 33:08.520]  So, the hacker community and the way we cooperated taught me to appreciate the free software way of life.
[33:09.200 --> 33:21.100]  So that when that community died in the early 80s, I was like the frog that was suddenly thrown into the hot water and jumped out.
[33:21.940 --> 33:27.980]  Other people just took it for granted that when you used computers, you were under the power of the developers.
[33:27.980 --> 33:30.460]  How else could it be, they asked?
[33:31.780 --> 33:33.300]  How could you complain?
[33:33.740 --> 33:38.040]  What else could there be except lords bullying you?
[33:38.300 --> 33:46.440]  I guess they must be like most of the commoners in Europe in the 10th century.
[33:46.440 --> 33:49.680]  What could there be except lords bullying you?
[33:50.300 --> 33:54.680]  The idea that there could be any other way of life never occurred to them.
[33:56.380 --> 34:02.280]  But I've had the good fortune to experience a different way of life.
[34:02.520 --> 34:05.000]  A way of life based on freedom.
[34:05.600 --> 34:09.860]  And when it was taken away from me, I decided to fight.
[34:13.530 --> 34:17.930]  I've always been particularly good at saying no.
[34:27.820 --> 34:33.780]  But when I launched the free software movement, I didn't realize...
[34:33.780 --> 34:43.520]  I launched it in a context of more or less democracy and more or less respect for human rights.
[34:43.520 --> 34:51.720]  I didn't realize how much those things could be destroyed globally.
[34:52.120 --> 34:53.860]  How vulnerable they were.
[34:56.100 --> 35:00.180]  Using computers is just one area of life.
[35:00.420 --> 35:01.580]  It's not all of life.
[35:02.280 --> 35:05.640]  Shocking as that statement might seem coming from me.
[35:10.990 --> 35:19.590]  And when democracy is made a joke by computers in voting machines,
[35:24.430 --> 35:42.110]  by expensive requirements for people to vote, by lying to people, by fraudulently denying them the right to vote, by throwing away their ballots, by not letting them get ballots, what are we going to do?
[35:43.710 --> 35:57.070]  When human rights are trampled arrogantly by a government who then gives promotions to the people who are responsible as a way of spitting at people who value freedom, what are we going to do?
[35:57.770 --> 35:58.890]  I don't know.
[36:01.470 --> 36:04.490]  I can't see much hope for the United States.
[36:05.830 --> 36:10.430]  I can't imagine how the United States can recover freedom and democracy.
[36:13.290 --> 36:16.950]  I certainly can't see how the Democratic Party would do it.
[36:26.940 --> 36:32.720]  But I'm used to carrying on despite discouragement, and that's what I do.
[36:39.130 --> 36:42.390]  There was always a certain tendency for the U.S.
[36:42.530 --> 36:45.230]  government to be too subservient to business.
[36:45.730 --> 36:49.970]  But back in the 60s and 70s, it wasn't that strong.
[36:50.210 --> 36:57.230]  Very often, laws were passed to restrict businesses because lots of people wanted that.
[36:57.230 --> 37:11.110]  And nowadays, though, democracy has become so weak and the media industrial complex so powerful that the U.S.
[37:11.230 --> 37:14.790]  government offers very little resistance to what large companies want.
[37:15.050 --> 37:19.750]  In particular, anti-trust law has been nearly abolished.
[37:21.890 --> 37:25.230]  Mergers of large companies happen all the time.
[37:25.770 --> 37:38.790]  And not only that, we see conspiracies of large companies being formed to restrict and oppress the public.
[37:40.090 --> 37:46.590]  Conspiracies such as the one that controls the format of DVDs.
[37:47.610 --> 37:52.150]  The one that implements treacherous computing.
[37:53.690 --> 38:04.230]  And then there is the axe, AACS, which is designed to forbid analog outputs for playing video.
[38:07.990 --> 38:10.340]  These conspiracies ought to be prosecuted.
[38:10.970 --> 38:19.610]  All the companies involved with them ought to be prosecuted for conspiring to restrict the public.
[38:20.270 --> 38:25.550]  And such conspiracies should not be allowed to exist anywhere in the world.
[38:46.810 --> 38:52.890]  And part of the reason is that they don't allow people to hack.
[38:56.680 --> 39:06.260]  These conspiracies have the goal of making it impossible for us to understand and control the machines that we use.
[39:07.320 --> 39:11.760]  Because those machines are supposed to control us, not we them.
[39:16.580 --> 39:26.440]  So people who want to hack on them, that is, figure out what they do, change them, make them do other interesting things, are supposed to be forbidden.
[39:31.310 --> 39:36.130]  Now this is not the worst thing about those conspiracies, but it's symptomatic.
[39:37.550 --> 39:51.210]  The people who are trying to restrict the public almost invariably turned to restricting the public's ability to understand and control their machinery.
[39:53.610 --> 40:00.130]  The TiVo pioneered a technique for doing this, which I call TiVoization.
[40:02.230 --> 40:12.130]  The TiVo contains a small GNU slash Linux operating system, including several programs released under the GNU General Public License.
[40:12.550 --> 40:18.970]  That license requires them to distribute the source code to the users, and I believe they do.
[40:18.970 --> 40:27.930]  And then the users have the right to change it, and compile it, and install their changed versions in the TiVo.
[40:29.470 --> 40:31.410]  Whereupon the TiVo doesn't run.
[40:32.150 --> 40:39.990]  The TiVo has a special mechanism designed to detect that the software has been changed and shut down.
[40:39.990 --> 40:44.410]  It will only run versions that were authorized by the maker.
[40:53.580 --> 41:02.420]  Which means that Freedom 1 nominally exists, but practically speaking does not.
[41:02.740 --> 41:04.520]  It has become a sham.
[41:06.700 --> 41:13.120]  In GPL version 3, we're going to forbid TiVoization.
[41:14.540 --> 41:15.960]  We're not...
[41:22.350 --> 41:25.050]  We will not forbid DRM.
[41:26.610 --> 41:29.910]  People will still have freedom number one.
[41:30.070 --> 41:33.690]  The freedom to modify the sourceware to do whatever they want.
[41:33.970 --> 41:37.750]  And freedom 3, the freedom to publish those modified versions.
[41:37.750 --> 41:54.890]  If the developers of a product like the TiVo want to implement spyware and DRM, sending back reports on what you watch, stop not providing any way to copy the recordings out of the machine, they can do so.
[41:55.070 --> 41:58.170]  They will still have the freedom to do so, as they should.
[41:58.170 --> 42:08.190]  What they will not be able to do is release those in such a way as to deny you the freedom to undo what they did.
[42:08.490 --> 42:11.370]  Because you also deserve freedom number one.
[42:13.050 --> 42:13.770]  children 0 to zero.
[42:13.770 --> 42:13.790]  They will be free to say, I'm very...
[42:13.790 --> 42:18.710]  They can change it to restrict using them to do that.
[42:19.190 --> 42:26.690]  For them to not protect them, they can change it to spider...
[42:26.690 --> 42:28.370]  They can reverse this in fewchen prayers.
[42:28.510 --> 42:29.450]  For them to protect 'em.
[42:47.200 --> 42:55.000]  It means the freedom to utilize the program for any kind of social purpose, including inflicting it on others.
[42:55.520 --> 42:56.840]  That's not freedom.
[42:57.020 --> 42:57.720]  That's power.
[42:59.440 --> 43:01.680]  Freedom zero means just literally.
[43:02.040 --> 43:06.180]  You're free to run the program and use it to do whatever job you like.
[43:07.960 --> 43:12.020]  And so, of course, are manufacturers like those who make the TiVo.
[43:12.120 --> 43:14.800]  They're free to run the programs and do whatever they like.
[43:14.800 --> 43:20.000]  But they're not free to impose their purposes on your use of the program.
[43:20.780 --> 43:23.780]  Because that's where you are supposed to have freedom.
[43:24.100 --> 43:27.220]  And their freedom has to end where yours begins.
[43:38.910 --> 43:45.890]  So I'd like to urge you to look at the website of our new campaign against DRM.
[43:46.050 --> 43:50.510]  It's called defectivebydesign.org.
[43:51.510 --> 43:55.610]  Because products with DRM are defective by design.
[43:55.890 --> 43:57.010]  That's what DRM is.
[43:57.170 --> 43:59.630]  It's making the things defective to restrict you.
[44:01.070 --> 44:08.030]  This is a grassroots campaign of various kinds of protests and actions.
[44:08.430 --> 44:12.030]  Go to the site, sign up, and participate in the next action.
[44:12.030 --> 44:14.530]  And the one after that, and the one after that.
[44:14.710 --> 44:26.630]  The more of you there are, the more effect we will have in creating a political debate about the ethical legitimacy of these conspiracies to restrict the public.
[44:31.120 --> 44:37.520]  Our other websites include GNU.org and FSF.org.
[44:37.640 --> 44:42.560]  GNU.org for the GNU system and FSF.org for the Free Software Foundation.
[44:43.840 --> 44:49.440]  You can join the Free Software Foundation as a way of financially supporting our work.
[44:51.100 --> 44:57.940]  It costs $60 a year for a student and $120 a year for a non-student.
[44:58.160 --> 45:05.140]  You can do it through the website or if you don't want to do e-commerce, you can get a card from me which you can mail in.
[45:10.010 --> 45:15.930]  Outside, we have copies of the book Free Software, Free Society available.
[45:18.230 --> 45:19.510]  Is Novalis here?
[45:20.670 --> 45:21.670]  Have you seen him?
[45:22.270 --> 45:23.190]  He's downstairs.
[45:23.610 --> 45:24.110]  Which floor?
[45:25.290 --> 45:25.810]  What?
[45:27.610 --> 45:28.610]  I can't hear you.
[45:28.710 --> 45:29.090]  Where is he?
[45:31.070 --> 45:34.310]  He's in the main mezzanine on the second floor.
[45:35.350 --> 45:37.630]  So, that's where you can go.
[45:37.790 --> 45:40.670]  There are probably some other things available too.
[45:41.150 --> 45:48.070]  So, now before I ask for questions, I will present my other identity.
[46:56.320 --> 47:02.260]  I am Saint Ignucius of the Church of Emacs.
[47:04.000 --> 47:06.920]  I bless your computer, my child.
[47:14.480 --> 47:25.780]  Emacs started out as a text editor which became a way of life for many users because they could do all their work without ever exiting from Emacs.
[47:27.400 --> 47:33.260]  And then it became a religion when somebody started the news group alt.religion.emacs.
[47:34.840 --> 47:41.580]  And today, in the Church of Emacs, we have a great schism between two rival versions of Emacs.
[47:41.800 --> 47:45.980]  And we also have saints, but fortunately no gods.
[47:46.120 --> 47:47.800]  Instead of gods, we worship an editor.
[47:50.300 --> 47:55.220]  To be a member of the Church of Emacs, you must pronounce the confession of the faith.
[47:55.540 --> 48:02.000]  You must say, there is no system but GNU and Linux is one of its kernels.
[48:07.600 --> 48:12.340]  The Church of Emacs has certain advantages compared with other churches I won't name.
[48:12.660 --> 48:18.120]  For instance, to be a saint in the Church of Emacs does not require celibacy.
[48:26.810 --> 48:30.490]  But it does require living a life of moral purity.
[48:30.970 --> 48:39.390]  You must exercise any evil proprietary operating systems that have possessed any of the computers under your control.
[48:40.710 --> 48:44.930]  And then install a wholly free operating system,
[48:48.190 --> 48:50.950]  and only install free software on top of that.
[48:51.470 --> 49:00.510]  If you make this vow and you live by it, then you too will be a saint and you may someday have a halo if you can find one because they don't make them anymore.
[49:03.760 --> 49:10.660]  And sometimes people ask me whether it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use the other editor, VI.
[49:12.060 --> 49:16.200]  Well, it's true that VI, VI, VI is the editor of the beast.
[49:24.790 --> 49:29.610]  But the use of a free version of VI is not a sin, it's a penance.
[49:32.290 --> 49:41.510]  And sometimes people ask me whether my halo is really an old computer disk.
[49:42.030 --> 49:43.670]  This is no computer disk.
[49:43.790 --> 49:44.730]  This is my halo.
[49:45.530 --> 49:48.670]  But it was a computer disk in a previous existence.
[49:49.910 --> 49:51.590]  So now, thank you.
[49:52.410 --> 49:55.010]  And I will answer your questions.
[50:05.470 --> 50:06.770]  This is too hot.
[50:13.430 --> 50:21.570]  Now, I am half deaf, so when you speak to me, you need to speak loud and clear and slowly.
[50:24.310 --> 50:24.790]  Okay.
[50:25.090 --> 50:30.490]  But even with a microphone, you still have to speak loud and clear and slowly, because otherwise I won't hear you.
[50:32.430 --> 50:35.550]  So I guess people can just line up over here to ask questions.
[50:35.850 --> 50:35.870]  Hi.
[50:36.050 --> 50:37.250]  Thanks for your great talk.
[50:37.590 --> 50:42.090]  My question for you is, what is your opinion about proprietary services on the web?
[50:42.330 --> 50:45.690]  Well, I don't know what that means, proprietary services.
[50:45.890 --> 50:50.570]  The concept of proprietary software doesn't transplant to a service.
[50:51.270 --> 50:54.710]  It doesn't... I can't see how you would adapt it or what it would mean.
[50:55.530 --> 51:01.670]  So in this case, I mean control of your own data when it's running on a service that's not controlled by you.
[51:01.670 --> 51:03.810]  Oh, well, that's obviously not respecting your freedom.
[51:04.070 --> 51:11.930]  But, you know, first of all, you can't trust important data to a corporation in the U.S.
[51:18.270 --> 51:23.830]  This is why, for instance, I don't use my credit card to buy things.
[51:24.790 --> 51:29.390]  I don't want a database to know what I bought or where I was.
[51:31.370 --> 51:32.990]  But, you know, things like your email.
[51:34.290 --> 51:40.290]  A few years ago, I read about somebody, I think he was a lawyer who defended people that the U.S.
[51:40.290 --> 51:41.470]  government doesn't like.
[51:41.770 --> 51:42.750]  And so the U.S.
[51:42.870 --> 51:47.350]  government asked his ISP to lose his account.
[51:47.890 --> 51:49.250]  And it did so.
[51:49.710 --> 51:58.410]  And he was never able to get his mail or his mailing list, his list, his address book back from them.
[51:59.250 --> 52:00.810]  You can't trust.
[52:04.310 --> 52:05.390]  Thank you very much.
[52:06.850 --> 52:25.590]  Now, if you are... there are people who say that in a few years, we won't use our computers to do things that our computers are perfectly capable of doing, like editing files and computations and so on, that we'll do all these things with websites.
[52:25.950 --> 52:27.450]  Well, it seems awfully dumb.
[52:29.790 --> 52:31.310]  And I'm not going to do it.
[52:31.850 --> 52:34.210]  Now, other people, I can't stop them.
[52:34.350 --> 52:36.550]  But I think it's a really stupid thing to do.
[52:36.690 --> 52:39.530]  And every time someone talks about it, we should say so.
[52:39.870 --> 52:46.670]  And, of course, there's a practical reason that then you won't be able to do anything without a network connection.
[52:46.810 --> 52:47.550]  What good is that?
[52:48.410 --> 52:58.750]  But more important than this practical problem, you simply can't have control over what a program does unless you're running your copy.
[52:59.530 --> 53:04.770]  If you're running a copy that belongs to someone else, then, of course, he controls it and not you.
[53:05.010 --> 53:06.590]  And it has to be that way.
[53:06.770 --> 53:07.130]  Right?
[53:07.210 --> 53:14.990]  If everybody's running Google's copy of a certain program, well, we can't all have control of what Google's copy does, right?
[53:15.550 --> 53:16.910]  That would be ridiculous.
[53:17.410 --> 53:24.130]  But on the other hand, if we don't have control of the copy we're running, we don't have control of our computing.
[53:24.830 --> 53:28.230]  So the solution is, have the copy on your own machine.
[53:28.350 --> 53:29.450]  It'll be your copy.
[53:29.590 --> 53:33.390]  And then you'll be the one who can be in control, assuming it's free software.
[53:34.390 --> 53:35.590]  First of all, thanks for coming.
[53:36.390 --> 53:38.030]  And I know everybody's going to kill me.
[53:38.250 --> 53:41.370]  But could you explain the key concepts of copy left?
[53:41.790 --> 53:43.450]  Oh, copy... OK.
[53:43.710 --> 53:48.730]  Any license that grants the four freedoms is a free software license.
[53:49.150 --> 53:52.530]  So there are two big categories of free software licenses.
[53:53.010 --> 53:58.430]  According to how they grant freedom three, the freedom to publish modified versions.
[53:58.890 --> 54:03.590]  Some say you can distribute a modified version and you can make it proprietary.
[54:03.970 --> 54:09.590]  And some say you can distribute a modified version, but it has to be under this license.
[54:10.890 --> 54:12.170]  That's copy left.
[54:14.710 --> 54:20.750]  So copy left is a technique for making sure that all versions of the program are free.
[54:21.350 --> 54:25.570]  And therefore, it's a way of ensuring that all users get the four freedoms.
[54:25.950 --> 54:34.410]  Without copy left, you can release the program as free software, but by the time it gets to the users, middlemen could have made it non-free.
[54:35.070 --> 54:38.090]  Now, of course, that may or may not happen.
[54:38.470 --> 54:42.770]  People can insist on using only the free version, and then they'll get the free version.
[54:43.550 --> 54:44.930]  And then they'll have freedom.
[54:45.210 --> 54:49.850]  But many people may be seduced by the temptation of an improved non-free version.
[54:50.370 --> 54:52.010]  Consider, for instance, Apache.
[54:52.910 --> 54:57.410]  Apache is very popular, and its license is free, but not copy left.
[54:58.250 --> 55:09.530]  And when you see the figures about the fraction of machines on the net, servers on the net that are using Apache, well, that counts the modified non-free version.
[55:10.350 --> 55:15.710]  And the fraction that are running a free version of Apache is considerably smaller.
[55:16.850 --> 55:25.950]  So it is a real problem today that non-free modified versions can result in users not really having freedom.
[55:26.390 --> 55:30.810]  Now, my goal was specifically to give users freedom.
[55:30.830 --> 55:41.110]  So I developed the technique of copy left to make sure they really would get the same freedom that the program, when it got to your hands, would come with the same freedom that it had when it left mine.
[55:43.450 --> 55:43.930]  Okay.
[55:44.070 --> 55:47.450]  I'm sure you've heard this before, but I've got to ask, what distro do you run?
[55:47.810 --> 55:49.290]  I run Ututo.
[55:50.090 --> 55:50.570]  Okay.
[55:50.830 --> 55:54.370]  Which I chose because it is entirely free software.
[55:55.190 --> 56:12.070]  You know, the extent to which our community has lost track of freedom can be measured by looking at the fact that there are hundreds of distributions of the GNU plus Linux system and nearly all of them contain non-free software or recommend non-free software.
[56:12.710 --> 56:23.830]  For years, there was literally no place I could tell people to look for a free version of GNU plus Linux because all the distributions I knew of had non-free software in them.
[56:24.250 --> 56:28.390]  Now, there are a handful of distributions that are entirely free.
[56:28.630 --> 56:30.730]  You can see the list on GNU.org.
[56:31.090 --> 56:32.630]  And one other question real quick.
[56:33.050 --> 56:34.750]  I got to ask, when's H.E.R.D.
[56:34.870 --> 56:35.170]  coming out?
[56:35.630 --> 56:37.530]  Well, who knows?
[56:37.830 --> 56:42.690]  But it doesn't make that big a difference because there is a free kernel we can use.
[56:43.390 --> 56:52.890]  So, you know, having... I'd like to see the GNU kernel get into use, but it's not one of the high priorities of our community.
[56:53.230 --> 56:58.430]  Now, it turns out that there are some serious problems with the design of Mach and to make H.E.R.D.
[56:58.590 --> 57:02.130]  really work and, sad to say, be secure.
[57:03.730 --> 57:05.490]  We need a new microkernel.
[57:06.050 --> 57:13.130]  Now, there are projects we're hoping to find one from, but at this point things are not looking good for that.
[57:13.290 --> 57:16.890]  But it's not... that's not a disaster.
[57:17.370 --> 57:22.870]  Which kernel we use as long as it's free is not a crucially important question.
[57:22.870 --> 57:23.610]  Yeah.
[57:24.110 --> 57:31.750]  Whether any given part of the system is the program that was developed by the GNU project, that's not crucial.
[57:32.370 --> 57:40.950]  What's crucial is that it be a system that respects our freedom and that the users understand this so that they will defend our freedom.
[57:41.750 --> 57:42.610]  Thank you.
[57:44.950 --> 57:45.590]  Hi.
[57:46.190 --> 57:54.530]  I'm intrigued by how a freedom-loving hacker like yourself came to produce an impressive legal document like the GPL.
[57:54.750 --> 58:00.630]  Well, you know, laws and freedom are not directly in contradiction.
[58:00.870 --> 58:06.050]  Of course, laws can be used to oppress people, and we see that more and more today.
[58:06.390 --> 58:10.610]  But the Bill of Rights is a legal document too.
[58:11.150 --> 58:13.670]  Just because it's not respected by the U.S.
[58:13.830 --> 58:15.430]  government doesn't take away...
[58:21.360 --> 58:25.480]  doesn't take away its... its virtue.
[58:25.810 --> 58:26.350]  Yes.
[58:26.460 --> 58:33.730]  And so I was looking for a way to guarantee freedom for every user of the software that I wrote.
[58:34.120 --> 58:36.160]  And what could I use to do that?
[58:36.260 --> 58:39.420]  There was only one thing I could use, and that was copyright law.
[58:39.640 --> 58:40.760]  So that's what I used.
[58:41.390 --> 58:43.620]  Did you decide to employ a lawyer right off the bat?
[58:43.760 --> 58:45.310]  Or did you give that a stab on your own?
[58:46.580 --> 58:49.340]  I worked with a lawyer to write this license.
[58:49.980 --> 58:55.340]  I don't remember precisely when I began working with that lawyer and so on.
[58:56.220 --> 58:56.880]  Thank you.
[58:58.080 --> 59:09.230]  And that's something about what happened in 1984 and 85, and I, you know, my memory of precisely when what happened is too vague now.
[59:11.800 --> 59:12.680]  Hi.
[59:12.680 --> 59:34.640]  I'm curious how you would address the propensity of software licensed under the GPL to grow very monolithically and as sort of one large application because developers, based on the the structuring of the license are afraid to break it out into small interactions of single purpose.
[59:34.640 --> 59:35.300]  I don't think that's true.
[59:35.680 --> 59:37.140]  I mean, I don't know what you mean.
[59:38.230 --> 59:48.770]  So given the debacle over the GNU compiler collection and the introduction of introspective frameworks to... Oh, yeah.
[59:48.920 --> 01:00:03.340]  In that one case, we do not want to do anything that might risk authorizing non-free add-ons to GCC because our goals are not primarily technical.
[01:00:03.810 --> 01:00:06.810]  Remember, the goal of the GNU project is not a technical goal.
[01:00:07.000 --> 01:00:07.600]  It's freedom.
[01:00:08.340 --> 01:00:14.620]  And so we don't make technical decisions based solely on technical goals.
[01:00:14.760 --> 01:00:16.100]  It would be a mistake to do so.
[01:00:16.440 --> 01:00:24.540]  Well, the reason I mention this, at least as I've identified it as something of a problem, is going back to... It's not a problem.
[01:00:24.850 --> 01:00:25.810]  Well, okay.
[01:00:26.060 --> 01:00:37.700]  So going back to what you said about Freedom One and Freedom Three and how these require programming skills and programming skills, given the tools we have now are still relatively difficult for people to obtain and maintain.
[01:00:37.700 --> 01:00:37.720]  I don't know.
[01:00:37.720 --> 01:00:38.480]  I don't believe you.
[01:00:38.810 --> 01:00:39.810]  I think you're mistaken.
[01:00:40.100 --> 01:00:43.980]  I think programming is difficult because it's inherently difficult.
[01:00:44.560 --> 01:00:56.260]  And it's true that some programming platforms require certain kinds of care, like don't walk off the edge over there, you'll fall down 10 floors.
[01:00:57.000 --> 01:00:58.980]  But... Except that you don't die.
[01:00:59.220 --> 01:01:01.600]  So it's... That's an exact... It's like in a video game.
[01:01:01.720 --> 01:01:02.580]  Don't walk off there.
[01:01:02.620 --> 01:01:04.800]  You'll fall down 10 floors and lose this life.
[01:01:05.040 --> 01:01:07.620]  But the point is that... Yes, it's true.
[01:01:07.620 --> 01:01:11.810]  Some of them are more like that and some of them are more protective.
[01:01:12.020 --> 01:01:18.660]  But the difficulty of writing a program to do something complicated is the same regardless of the platform.
[01:01:19.520 --> 01:01:20.000]  Okay.
[01:01:20.180 --> 01:01:24.350]  Then I'd like to know how you would factor that with an article or a speech.
[01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:25.000]  I forget which.
[01:01:25.120 --> 01:01:25.580]  With what?
[01:01:26.000 --> 01:01:27.480]  An article or a speech.
[01:01:27.660 --> 01:01:40.200]  I read it online so I forget which it is that you mentioned about the benefit behind using the Emacs editor in that if secretaries, you know, start using it as just a word processor and then they start to use macros.
[01:01:40.200 --> 01:01:46.960]  Yes, because Emacs... In Emacs it happens... See, you keep presenting things as if they contradicted each other and they don't.
[01:01:47.180 --> 01:01:49.500]  Which is a rather unfriendly thing to do.
[01:01:51.580 --> 01:02:00.700]  Emacs offers the possibility of writing fairly simple, easy programs which are nonetheless useful.
[01:02:01.260 --> 01:02:09.960]  And thus beginners can use this to take their first steps in programming because these programs are useful and easy to write.
[01:02:10.180 --> 01:02:15.180]  It's not that they're easy to write because Emacs makes the difficult easy.
[01:02:15.460 --> 01:02:17.400]  Rather, these things are just easy.
[01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:23.080]  But in the context of Emacs they're also useful to the person who might write them.
[01:02:23.300 --> 01:02:27.310]  And so this could encourage a person to take a few beginning steps.
[01:02:27.640 --> 01:02:31.000]  Now, this is not going to make hard programs easy.
[01:02:31.220 --> 01:02:39.000]  But it might enable a person to gain some confidence and that person may or may not go on to learn harder kinds of programming.
[01:02:39.310 --> 01:02:42.580]  But whether or not the person does so, I think it's still a good thing.
[01:02:45.020 --> 01:02:45.580]  All right.
[01:02:45.840 --> 01:02:46.080]  Thank you.
[01:02:52.170 --> 01:02:59.010]  What would you say to Bill Gates in response to his initial comments regarding the $100 laptop if he were standing right next to you?
[01:02:59.130 --> 01:03:02.370]  I never... I don't pay attention to him, so I don't know what he said.
[01:03:03.250 --> 01:03:03.970]  Bad things.
[01:03:08.070 --> 01:03:09.730]  Well, I'm not surprised.
[01:03:10.190 --> 01:03:20.090]  Anything that doesn't... that isn't a tool for him to increase his power over the rest of society, he will say some kind of bad thing about.
[01:03:21.870 --> 01:03:24.750]  You just have to start... learn to ignore these people.
[01:03:26.650 --> 01:03:31.590]  You know, don't ignore the threat that they make, but don't pay too much attention to what they say.
[01:03:32.630 --> 01:03:35.230]  Do you think freedom is the highest good?
[01:03:36.950 --> 01:03:40.050]  I can't say that there is a highest good.
[01:03:40.830 --> 01:03:48.610]  Freedom is tremendously important because it's an essential part of having a good life.
[01:03:51.130 --> 01:03:51.930]  Okay.
[01:03:51.930 --> 01:03:59.310]  Do you... do you think that freedom should be framed in a positive or negative way?
[01:03:59.310 --> 01:04:00.370]  I don't understand.
[01:04:00.810 --> 01:04:04.390]  I mean, I... my idea of... I think of freedom as something positive.
[01:04:04.830 --> 01:04:04.930]  Okay.
[01:04:04.930 --> 01:04:05.590]  Something good.
[01:04:06.470 --> 01:04:06.670]  Okay.
[01:04:06.850 --> 01:04:07.210]  No...
[01:04:07.210 --> 01:04:08.870]  I'm not sure what the question means, though.
[01:04:08.930 --> 01:04:12.190]  Well, a negative conception of freedom is sort of like the Bill of Rights.
[01:04:12.330 --> 01:04:14.030]  Here are the... here is the domain...
[01:04:14.030 --> 01:04:15.270]  I wouldn't call that negative.
[01:04:15.510 --> 01:04:17.410]  I think that's wrong to call that negative.
[01:04:17.950 --> 01:04:30.410]  But freedom... it's a mistake to take all of the important possible problems that life can have and squeeze them into the framework of freedom.
[01:04:31.030 --> 01:04:37.090]  For instance, starvation is very bad, but it's not an issue of freedom.
[01:04:37.310 --> 01:04:39.890]  Not directly, it's an issue of having enough food.
[01:04:40.710 --> 01:04:54.830]  Now, there's a crucial difference here, which is that people could not... could have not enough food for no particular person's fault.
[01:04:55.550 --> 01:05:00.350]  But anytime somebody doesn't have freedom, it's because somebody has subjugated him.
[01:05:00.450 --> 01:05:03.050]  So there's got to be somebody who has done wrong.
[01:05:04.190 --> 01:05:09.270]  Now, we could say it's our moral duty to help provide food to the people who are hungry.
[01:05:09.430 --> 01:05:10.510]  Well, I would agree with that.
[01:05:10.590 --> 01:05:11.370]  I think we should.
[01:05:11.370 --> 01:05:20.390]  But although we may be able to solve their problem, the problem is not necessarily anybody's fault, directly.
[01:05:20.810 --> 01:05:25.530]  But a problem where someone doesn't have freedom is always because somebody took it away.
[01:05:25.850 --> 01:05:37.590]  And this means that although we may not always be able to provide everyone with enough food, we certainly always can respect other people's freedom.
[01:05:37.730 --> 01:05:39.350]  There's nothing ever to stop us.
[01:05:40.490 --> 01:05:50.810]  This means that we can say... we can't say we shall... we must always give everyone enough food, because sometimes it might be impossible.
[01:05:51.110 --> 01:05:56.990]  But we can... we can say we shall always respect others' freedom because it is always possible.
[01:05:57.950 --> 01:06:04.890]  So if two people are in a room and there is one bun, they should divide it equally or...?
[01:06:04.890 --> 01:06:07.830]  That's an artificial unrealistic situation.
[01:06:08.670 --> 01:06:23.090]  What I've learned is that these artificial moral dilemmas often are unrelated to real life, because in real life, things are always more complicated than that.
[01:06:23.370 --> 01:06:26.930]  I don't know what I would say about that situation.
[01:06:27.090 --> 01:06:35.670]  And I'd probably try to find out more details, hoping that some of those details might suggest a resolution might suggest a resolution.
[01:06:35.670 --> 01:06:45.850]  You know, the other thing is that when you describe these artificial moral dilemmas, you... they're so abstract that they don't give us much to go on.
[01:06:47.250 --> 01:06:55.330]  Whereas in real life, there would be lots and lots of details that might suggest some way to resolve the situation.
[01:06:59.070 --> 01:07:06.650]  I don't know, therefore... I mean, I'll just say I'm stumped by that artificial moral dilemma, but I'm not sure it relates much to reality.
[01:07:06.870 --> 01:07:19.670]  Well, I think what the example tries to illustrate, and I apologize for the inadequacy of my example, is when two freedoms that people have... But they're not freedoms.
[01:07:19.670 --> 01:07:23.270]  They're important interests, but they're not freedoms.
[01:07:23.690 --> 01:07:24.070]  Okay.
[01:07:24.390 --> 01:07:27.010]  So what is a freedom then?
[01:07:27.410 --> 01:07:30.830]  Freedom means not being subjugated by others.
[01:07:31.910 --> 01:07:32.370]  Okay.
[01:07:32.870 --> 01:07:38.130]  Other... the other ethical issues, no matter how important they are, are of a different kind.
[01:07:38.750 --> 01:07:45.730]  When I say that the issue of starvation is not directly an issue of freedom, that's not to minimize it.
[01:07:45.830 --> 01:07:47.470]  It's just to say it's different.
[01:07:47.690 --> 01:07:49.130]  It's a different kind of issue.
[01:07:49.290 --> 01:07:55.390]  And trying to squeeze these two different kinds of issues into a single framework is distorting.
[01:07:55.570 --> 01:07:56.110]  Okay.
[01:07:56.370 --> 01:08:03.890]  So if I want the freedom to eat that piece of bread, but someone happens to own it, is that freedom?
[01:08:03.970 --> 01:08:05.750]  I think that's distorting the situation.
[01:08:06.090 --> 01:08:06.150]  Okay.
[01:08:06.290 --> 01:08:06.870]  That's fine.
[01:08:07.010 --> 01:08:07.770]  I'm just asking.
[01:08:12.290 --> 01:08:13.170]  Hi, Richard.
[01:08:13.830 --> 01:08:19.430]  What becomes of independent media when more and more they are forced to become their own brand?
[01:08:19.990 --> 01:08:21.230]  Their own brand?
[01:08:22.410 --> 01:08:23.450]  I don't understand.
[01:08:23.950 --> 01:08:33.330]  Whether it's the Italian government shutting them down or the U.S. government 501c3 charter asking them to make a choice of whether they're going to be not-for-profit or non-profit or for-profit.
[01:08:33.610 --> 01:08:34.630]  I don't know.
[01:08:34.750 --> 01:08:39.950]  I mean, I don't... I don't know enough about these... you're talking about specific issues and I don't know about them.
[01:08:40.050 --> 01:08:44.070]  Well, the independent media movement was supposed to be open source and free and autonomous and grassroots.
[01:08:44.070 --> 01:08:48.430]  I don't do open source, but I mean, I'm not in favor of censorship.
[01:08:48.790 --> 01:08:54.690]  And I don't just mean... I'm not just against official censorship labeled as such.
[01:08:54.910 --> 01:09:07.450]  I'm against systems that achieve 90% of the effect of censorship without formally shutting... without formally silencing people, such as we have in the U.S.
[01:09:08.750 --> 01:09:13.810]  But I don't know what more to say about cases I never heard of.
[01:09:19.870 --> 01:09:36.370]  Getting back to the fun side of things, the explosion in the capabilities of technology, the speed of processors and things like now have allowed people to approach problems that never before they thought they could actually do, you know, like make crazy games on their cell phones and things.
[01:09:36.650 --> 01:09:44.810]  I'm wondering what you think are interesting problems that are before us now that you think are the most interesting that could be solved computationally?
[01:09:44.910 --> 01:09:44.990]  You know, I don't know.
[01:09:44.990 --> 01:09:45.470]  I don't know.
[01:09:45.650 --> 01:09:47.990]  I don't have time to think about questions like that.
[01:09:48.110 --> 01:09:48.790]  And I don't.
[01:09:49.010 --> 01:09:54.210]  Oh, that was my other question, which is, are you working now full time just on working on this stuff for licensing and on freedom?
[01:09:54.430 --> 01:09:55.670]  Or do you ever code anymore?
[01:09:55.930 --> 01:09:58.030]  I have very little time for programming.
[01:09:58.350 --> 01:10:07.470]  I do a little bit of work on Emacs and that's it because there is a job that has to be done and that is activism.
[01:10:07.950 --> 01:10:12.730]  And we need thousands of people to do it and first of all, I better do it.
[01:10:12.930 --> 01:10:13.370]  Thank you.
[01:10:20.530 --> 01:10:31.050]  The thing that I find a little confusing about the issue of free software is how exactly does it reward the developer besides the somewhat... It's a silly question.
[01:10:31.210 --> 01:10:33.850]  No, no, just... please let me finish the question.
[01:10:34.470 --> 01:10:42.370]  How does it reward the developer besides the somewhat abstract idea of having fun while developing the piece of software?
[01:10:42.550 --> 01:10:43.050]  I don't know.
[01:10:43.210 --> 01:10:48.010]  Let's ask each developer why he... there are over a million free software contributors.
[01:10:48.330 --> 01:10:56.450]  We could ask each one what rewards he personally gets, whether the motivation why he contributes.
[01:10:56.990 --> 01:11:00.010]  But I don't think it's a terribly important question.
[01:11:00.690 --> 01:11:07.090]  The fact is that lots of people are contributing to free software and they have many different motives.
[01:11:07.290 --> 01:11:11.510]  It's a mistake to look for one simple answer to everybody's motives.
[01:11:11.750 --> 01:11:18.950]  Okay, but for a developer that works in a capitalistic society, doesn't it relegate development of free software to... This is totally silly.
[01:11:19.170 --> 01:11:20.970]  We're all in a capitalistic society.
[01:11:20.970 --> 01:11:25.070]  Doesn't it relegate development of software to a part-time job?
[01:11:25.550 --> 01:11:26.030]  If you do...
[01:11:26.030 --> 01:11:26.570]  Sometimes, yes.
[01:11:26.790 --> 01:11:27.590]  And sometimes, no.
[01:11:27.770 --> 01:11:35.130]  Again, do you... Are you trying to impose the false supposition that there's a problem?
[01:11:35.650 --> 01:11:37.750]  That's what this argument amounts to.
[01:11:37.870 --> 01:11:38.030]  Excuse me?
[01:11:38.390 --> 01:11:38.570]  I'm sorry.
[01:11:38.570 --> 01:11:42.610]  You are trying to conjure a problem out of thin air.
[01:11:42.870 --> 01:11:48.110]  We don't have a problem, but you're trying to challenge me to explain the problem.
[01:11:48.370 --> 01:11:49.410]  No, no.
[01:11:49.430 --> 01:11:49.810]  Let me...
[01:11:49.810 --> 01:11:53.050]  You're trying to challenge me to solve the problem which doesn't exist.
[01:11:53.650 --> 01:11:55.030]  Let me give an example.
[01:11:55.590 --> 01:12:02.070]  Suppose I decide that I need to work four hours a day for a company to support my bills.
[01:12:03.110 --> 01:12:03.470]  I have... Then do.
[01:12:03.910 --> 01:12:04.230]  Okay.
[01:12:04.450 --> 01:12:08.070]  And I have, whatever, eight hours left to develop free software.
[01:12:08.070 --> 01:12:09.390]  Well, that's nice.
[01:12:09.610 --> 01:12:10.150]  Thank you.
[01:12:10.510 --> 01:12:10.870]  All right.
[01:12:11.950 --> 01:12:12.790]  So then that's...
[01:12:16.470 --> 01:12:22.310]  Then... So then free software is just going to be on the level of a hobby for everybody.
[01:12:22.630 --> 01:12:23.410]  Well, I don't know.
[01:12:23.670 --> 01:12:24.550]  I mean, maybe it is.
[01:12:24.650 --> 01:12:25.330]  Does that matter?
[01:12:25.530 --> 01:12:26.890]  I mean, it...
[01:12:26.890 --> 01:12:32.170]  It might prevent you from... Given that we're doing a great job, I don't see why that should be treated as a problem.
[01:12:32.530 --> 01:12:36.590]  Well, it's nice to be self-congratulatory, but nevertheless, doesn't...
[01:12:36.590 --> 01:12:40.590]  Some software might require a full-time commitment from a person, and then how is it possible?
[01:12:40.590 --> 01:12:41.070]  Maybe so.
[01:12:41.570 --> 01:12:42.370]  I don't know.
[01:12:42.610 --> 01:12:43.610]  I don't care.
[01:12:44.030 --> 01:12:46.470]  You see, the point is, this is all secondary.
[01:12:48.090 --> 01:12:53.930]  Free software makes the world a better place, and proprietary software makes the world a worse place.
[01:12:54.110 --> 01:13:01.570]  So obviously, we should have no proprietary software, and then we should try to make as much free software as people find useful.
[01:13:01.890 --> 01:13:02.110]  All right.
[01:13:02.210 --> 01:13:02.870]  Thank you.
[01:13:02.870 --> 01:13:09.290]  If you have a proposal for how to help us make more free software, that could be a useful thing.
[01:13:10.030 --> 01:13:19.170]  However, clearly, what we want is zero proprietary software, because every proprietary program is a predatory system.
[01:13:19.350 --> 01:13:21.350]  So, in other words, no compromises.
[01:13:21.650 --> 01:13:36.610]  Either completely free software, or it doesn't matter, even if it is of slightly... I'd rather have no software than proprietary software, because a proprietary program divides people and keeps them helpless.
[01:13:37.110 --> 01:13:47.750]  And not only that, if my neighbors are using a proprietary program, well, usually that means that they are making a promise not to share with me.
[01:13:47.970 --> 01:13:49.810]  And that is hurting me.
[01:13:49.990 --> 01:13:51.890]  That's degrading my community.
[01:13:51.990 --> 01:13:54.810]  So, it's not just their business alone.
[01:13:54.810 --> 01:13:56.150]  It's affecting me, too.
[01:13:56.390 --> 01:13:59.630]  I want this proprietary software to disappear.
[01:14:00.210 --> 01:14:02.770]  And I am working for that purpose.
[01:14:02.950 --> 01:14:06.850]  I don't know if we'll ever get there, but that's what I see as the ideal goal.
[01:14:07.210 --> 01:14:09.010]  No proprietary software.
[01:14:09.590 --> 01:14:13.230]  And then, of course, I hope we'll make as much free software as we can.
[01:14:13.530 --> 01:14:16.650]  There are businesses that hire people to write free software.
[01:14:17.190 --> 01:14:25.710]  In France, a month ago, the organization of French free software companies says that they have 10,000 employees.
[01:14:26.490 --> 01:14:28.210]  Obviously, they are not all programmers.
[01:14:28.710 --> 01:14:32.270]  In software companies, only a minority of people are programmers.
[01:14:32.590 --> 01:14:35.050]  But that still sounds like a fair number of programmers.
[01:14:35.850 --> 01:14:41.350]  So, apparently, people are getting paid to write free software.
[01:14:42.170 --> 01:14:43.770]  But indeed, not everybody.
[01:14:43.990 --> 01:14:50.090]  A lot of us do it as sort of when our other work permits.
[01:14:50.750 --> 01:14:53.930]  I can't write free software as much as I might like to.
[01:14:54.170 --> 01:14:56.170]  I have to do my activism instead.
[01:14:58.350 --> 01:14:59.070]  Thanks a lot.
[01:15:02.310 --> 01:15:02.390]  Okay.
[01:15:02.490 --> 01:15:12.010]  Stepping just a little bit away from software, but still in terms of freedom, how do you view issues like the Creative Commons and how they handle generating freedoms in publications?
[01:15:12.010 --> 01:15:12.610]  I'm sad.
[01:15:12.770 --> 01:15:14.830]  I'm very disappointed with Creative Commons.
[01:15:15.730 --> 01:15:23.150]  The basic idea of the free software movement is that there are certain freedoms that people are entitled to.
[01:15:24.050 --> 01:15:31.930]  And then after I reached that conclusion, I thought, what can I do to enable people to have those freedoms?
[01:15:32.510 --> 01:15:34.530]  Well, I could write free software.
[01:15:34.730 --> 01:15:36.510]  That's the method I thought of.
[01:15:38.490 --> 01:15:41.350]  Creative Commons doesn't do that.
[01:15:41.870 --> 01:15:47.070]  Creative Commons doesn't have any position about what freedoms people ought to have.
[01:15:47.590 --> 01:15:51.090]  It doesn't want to have such a position.
[01:15:51.390 --> 01:16:00.610]  If you look at all the Creative Commons licenses and take the intersection of what they all allow, it's the empty set.
[01:16:03.850 --> 01:16:11.310]  So then in that case, do you support traditional copyright approach to other stuff like that?
[01:16:11.390 --> 01:16:11.530]  No.
[01:16:11.710 --> 01:16:17.410]  I think that there is a certain minimum freedom that people should have for all kinds of works.
[01:16:17.710 --> 01:16:27.490]  And that is... Well, for works that are used to do practical jobs, I believe they should be free in the same sense that software should be free.
[01:16:27.770 --> 01:16:34.590]  So this includes reference works, educational works, and software, and recipes, and some other things.
[01:16:35.290 --> 01:16:38.970]  For other kinds of works, I don't think that they all have to be free.
[01:16:39.250 --> 01:16:42.470]  But I think that there is one freedom that everybody should have.
[01:16:42.650 --> 01:16:49.610]  And that is the freedom to non-commercially redistribute exact copies of the work.
[01:16:49.790 --> 01:16:52.510]  For any published work, you should have that right.
[01:16:53.570 --> 01:16:54.250]  Thank you.
[01:16:59.090 --> 01:17:05.590]  I just want to personally thank you, because I've used so much free software and I've tried to contribute myself to free software.
[01:17:06.070 --> 01:17:09.190]  Thank you for the new project and free software foundation.
[01:17:10.550 --> 01:17:12.510]  I just wanted to ask what your thoughts were.
[01:17:13.350 --> 01:17:22.590]  You know, there's been... I think commercial companies have tried to figure out ways to attack open source and try to keep it... Well, open source was designed to be easy to attack.
[01:17:22.770 --> 01:17:22.970]  Right, right.
[01:17:22.970 --> 01:17:24.150]  That's why I don't support it.
[01:17:24.310 --> 01:17:29.330]  The one thing that I want to ask about it was, I was just curious what your comments were or what your thoughts were about the SCO case.
[01:17:29.690 --> 01:17:36.170]  I knew that it hasn't been very successful in putting a deferment into free software or anything like that.
[01:17:36.270 --> 01:17:38.610]  Well, I never thought that SCO was a big threat.
[01:17:39.530 --> 01:17:52.470]  And the reason is, even if SCO had won, all they would have won was the ability to pull certain features out of Linux, which is one free program in the GNU plus Linux system.
[01:17:53.050 --> 01:17:58.470]  And so it would have been unfortunate for those who want those features, but it would not have been crippling.
[01:17:59.090 --> 01:18:00.830]  That's what was clear all along.
[01:18:01.210 --> 01:18:02.650]  And yeah, that was one of my thoughts.
[01:18:02.810 --> 01:18:10.550]  I was wondering, because I'm sure there's a few things that people have been doing for years now, because this case has been around for a while, to audit the code.
[01:18:11.150 --> 01:18:13.630]  Do you know of any types of tools?
[01:18:13.830 --> 01:18:14.770]  I don't know.
[01:18:15.010 --> 01:18:17.950]  In any case, I've never been involved with the development of Linux.
[01:18:18.870 --> 01:18:19.450]  Well, right.
[01:18:19.630 --> 01:18:21.350]  That's right, because you're attacking the Linux kernel.
[01:18:21.970 --> 01:18:22.850]  Linux is the kernel.
[01:18:23.190 --> 01:18:23.350]  Right.
[01:18:23.510 --> 01:18:29.610]  So the point is, if that's not my department, other people have developed Linux and work on it.
[01:18:29.610 --> 01:18:30.590]  You'd have to ask them.
[01:18:31.190 --> 01:18:31.930]  Thank you.
[01:18:35.270 --> 01:18:35.910]  Hi.
[01:18:36.430 --> 01:18:55.050]  I'm afraid I might be introducing a bit of a chicken or the egg paradox here, but I was wondering what your thoughts were on proprietary software as a catalyst for free software development in the terms of competing with current offerings in what the proprietary software... Well,
[01:18:55.050 --> 01:19:04.590]  you know, it's true that the existence of social problems can motivate people to make efforts to try to solve them, but I don't think that makes them good.
[01:19:06.550 --> 01:19:11.430]  Yeah, you know, diseases can motivate people to do medical research.
[01:19:11.970 --> 01:19:15.590]  I think it's better if the diseases don't happen, you know.
[01:19:18.810 --> 01:19:19.530]  Point taken.
[01:19:20.530 --> 01:19:21.130]  Thank you.
[01:19:27.270 --> 01:19:33.690]  You've really explained a lot today, and you've done it very well, and your work and everything that you're doing is just great.
[01:19:34.630 --> 01:19:40.050]  And I guess I'm going to be the only one to ask a non-computer related question, but I've been dying to ask you this question.
[01:19:40.170 --> 01:19:40.970]  I've seen you talk many times.
[01:19:40.970 --> 01:19:41.430]  Could you get to it?
[01:19:41.430 --> 01:19:41.930]  Absolutely.
[01:19:43.130 --> 01:19:45.790]  How can I grow such a rocking beard like yours?
[01:19:47.690 --> 01:19:48.710]  I don't do it.
[01:19:48.790 --> 01:19:50.610]  I don't fertilize it or anything.
[01:19:50.610 --> 01:19:51.710]  It just grows.
[01:19:52.950 --> 01:19:54.550]  So it's all natural then?
[01:19:55.270 --> 01:19:55.910]  I guess.
[01:19:58.170 --> 01:19:58.830]  Thank you.
[01:20:06.510 --> 01:20:08.250]  I just had a quick question.
[01:20:08.410 --> 01:20:12.890]  I'm not real computer literate, and I'm here with my son, but it makes me crazy.
[01:20:13.070 --> 01:20:14.170]  It may not be apropos.
[01:20:14.510 --> 01:20:28.390]  When you speak of freedom, what about the fact that my mother, his grandmother, can't use a cell phone anymore, can't change a channel, and can't operate a DVD player because everything has become so complex, they've lost the ability to enjoy what's being produced?
[01:20:28.650 --> 01:20:34.010]  Well, I have nothing specific to say about those things.
[01:20:34.250 --> 01:20:48.950]  I don't use those things either, but... And to some extent, we're talking about physical objects, and changing a physical object isn't quite so easy as changing a program.
[01:20:49.330 --> 01:20:51.310]  You can change a program by editing it.
[01:20:51.390 --> 01:20:53.890]  You can't change a physical object by editing it.
[01:20:54.310 --> 01:20:58.110]  You have to cut things and solder things and so on.
[01:20:58.810 --> 01:21:06.590]  But to the extent that software is involved, if it's free software, the users are in control.
[01:21:07.570 --> 01:21:15.650]  So to the extent that it's software involved, the users will be able to get what they want because they're in charge.
[01:21:17.050 --> 01:21:19.550]  But it's not totally a matter of software.
[01:21:19.870 --> 01:21:25.530]  So, you know, partly... I can't say that free software will solve this problem a hundred percent.
[01:21:26.890 --> 01:21:27.870]  Okay, thank you.
[01:21:30.570 --> 01:21:31.170]  Hello.
[01:21:31.990 --> 01:21:38.550]  Noam Chomsky said in some of his work on propaganda that the religion of capitalist society is anti-communism.
[01:21:38.670 --> 01:21:42.770]  And that's one of the reasons we see a lot of censorship in the media is they're censoring anti-communist ideas.
[01:21:43.050 --> 01:21:49.330]  I'm wondering, is this anti-communist religion still a problem for free software?
[01:21:49.570 --> 01:21:52.030]  And if so, why when communism is dead?
[01:21:52.730 --> 01:21:56.810]  Well, first of all, free software has very little to do with communism.
[01:21:59.210 --> 01:22:04.170]  Let me talk... Let me answer.
[01:22:04.310 --> 01:22:07.370]  Free software does not have much resemblance to communism.
[01:22:07.670 --> 01:22:16.190]  After all, communism, as we saw it, was a kind of dictatorship where central planning would tell everybody what to do.
[01:22:16.970 --> 01:22:24.890]  And this is not much like the free software community where everybody is free and everybody just decides what to do and does it.
[01:22:25.350 --> 01:22:28.450]  You couldn't get two things that are more opposite.
[01:22:29.550 --> 01:22:39.470]  However, you persistently see power-hungry bastards calling us communists.
[01:22:39.630 --> 01:22:44.070]  Now, what would lead them to say something as absurd as that?
[01:22:45.290 --> 01:22:51.650]  The reason is that we're in the way of their plans to control everyone.
[01:22:51.930 --> 01:22:55.630]  They're setting up a system which resembles communism.
[01:22:55.830 --> 01:22:57.010]  It's a dictatorship.
[01:22:59.070 --> 01:23:03.690]  Someone who uses Windows is under the power of Microsoft.
[01:23:04.090 --> 01:23:06.450]  Microsoft makes a decision at the top.
[01:23:06.650 --> 01:23:07.830]  Other people carry it out.
[01:23:08.090 --> 01:23:09.570]  They impose it on other people.
[01:23:10.170 --> 01:23:13.650]  And these people have basically no choice.
[01:23:14.410 --> 01:23:18.290]  They have to keep paying and taking what they get.
[01:23:19.470 --> 01:23:24.330]  That's a lot like a Stalinist system.
[01:23:26.910 --> 01:23:28.210]  Command economy.
[01:23:30.290 --> 01:23:33.810]  And they don't respect private property at all.
[01:23:33.810 --> 01:23:43.410]  Microsoft and many other companies that make proprietary software say that you can't own a copy of their software.
[01:23:44.170 --> 01:23:48.830]  They believe in private property only as long as it all belongs to them.
[01:23:49.690 --> 01:23:52.370]  That's how they respect private property.
[01:23:54.610 --> 01:24:00.570]  Whereas with free software, your copy really belongs to you.
[01:24:00.950 --> 01:24:03.090]  We respect private property.
[01:24:03.250 --> 01:24:03.870]  They don't.
[01:24:04.410 --> 01:24:12.690]  So, of course, the fact that their insults are the direct opposite of the truth never stopped them before.
[01:24:13.990 --> 01:24:24.010]  It's exactly what you expect to see when you look at Bush and his cronies and the corporations that are Bush's masters and so on.
[01:24:24.110 --> 01:24:28.630]  You see over and over that their lies become more arrogant every year.
[01:24:32.330 --> 01:24:41.410]  So, the reason they do it is nothing more than they think it might hurt us.
[01:24:42.110 --> 01:24:44.790]  They think that they might be able to get away with it.
[01:24:45.470 --> 01:24:47.410]  And it doesn't have to be true.
[01:24:47.850 --> 01:24:48.710]  Not for them.
[01:24:49.590 --> 01:24:51.790]  And they're right they might get away with it.
[01:24:51.850 --> 01:24:53.210]  And they're right it might hurt us.
[01:24:53.250 --> 01:25:00.670]  Because the media is so bad at pointing out when the things that they say are totally the opposite of the truth.
[01:25:00.670 --> 01:25:03.270]  They might get away with it.
[01:25:03.810 --> 01:25:08.830]  Bush has a policy of sticking with his lies no matter how long.
[01:25:09.030 --> 01:25:12.190]  And he does it because he'll fool a lot of people.
[01:25:14.510 --> 01:25:31.610]  A year or so ago, I saw a poll saying that almost half of Americans still believed that Saddam Hussein had had weapons of mass destruction and was working with Al-Qaeda even though these had both been conclusively disproved.
[01:25:32.310 --> 01:25:33.850]  And the reason is that the U.S.
[01:25:34.070 --> 01:25:37.430]  media don't cover these things enough to teach most Americans.
[01:25:38.810 --> 01:25:40.870]  Some managed to find this out.
[01:25:41.210 --> 01:25:50.910]  But Bush is right in believing that he will fool, successfully fool a lot of people if he just sticks to the lie and never admits it was wrong.
[01:25:54.310 --> 01:25:54.710]  Yes.
[01:25:54.990 --> 01:25:55.390]  Hello.
[01:25:55.570 --> 01:25:58.190]  And I wanted to thank you very much for the speech you gave here today.
[01:25:58.290 --> 01:26:01.250]  And I wanted to thank you for the works that you've contributed to the community at large.
[01:26:01.450 --> 01:26:03.150]  Now that's out of the way.
[01:26:04.890 --> 01:26:15.330]  I've only started myself to exercise Freedom One, to begin to look at the free software that I use and to begin to change it, fix it, and do as I please with it in those regards.
[01:26:15.610 --> 01:26:24.510]  What I was wondering is that most of my existence as a person, I like to say as a person who hacks, is mostly in activism.
[01:26:24.510 --> 01:26:25.770]  I stand for issues.
[01:26:25.770 --> 01:26:26.830]  I speak strongly on them.
[01:26:26.930 --> 01:26:37.930]  I was wondering, because you seem to be a fine example of this, you've most likely often considered the question of exercising Freedom One versus activism in general, versus speaking out.
[01:26:38.030 --> 01:26:48.090]  I was wondering how you came to the balance of actually writing software versus activism and how you would suggest to a beginning person such as myself to go about doing this.
[01:26:48.170 --> 01:26:53.130]  I was involuntarily self-promoted into management, is what happened.
[01:26:53.330 --> 01:26:53.830]  I see.
[01:26:56.370 --> 01:27:00.350]  This, you know, I started the GNU project.
[01:27:00.630 --> 01:27:04.150]  Once at the beginning, the GNU project was me and one other person.
[01:27:04.270 --> 01:27:06.210]  So mostly what I did was write code.
[01:27:06.590 --> 01:27:13.490]  But then as there got to be more and more people, to a larger extent, the GNU project required some management.
[01:27:13.490 --> 01:27:14.630]  So I had to do it.
[01:27:14.790 --> 01:27:16.710]  I started the Free Software Foundation.
[01:27:16.710 --> 01:27:17.950]  I'm the president of it.
[01:27:18.070 --> 01:27:21.310]  That means I have responsibilities in managing it.
[01:27:22.230 --> 01:27:29.530]  So, and then people started inviting me to give these speeches, which clearly are important.
[01:27:30.150 --> 01:27:32.050]  So, you know, this takes time.
[01:27:32.310 --> 01:27:34.590]  And people started sending me lots of emails.
[01:27:35.030 --> 01:27:39.050]  Sometimes they say, what should I do about this situation?
[01:27:39.210 --> 01:27:40.830]  Obviously, I should give them advice.
[01:27:41.110 --> 01:27:43.110]  It just started taking more and more time.
[01:27:43.110 --> 01:27:45.290]  So I found other people to do the programming.
[01:27:46.490 --> 01:27:46.970]  I see.
[01:27:47.050 --> 01:27:50.610]  So you're saying it's more of a happenstance situation that you fell into speaking more than anything else?
[01:27:51.150 --> 01:27:54.370]  Yeah, although speaking is not most of my time.
[01:27:54.550 --> 01:27:55.210]  Yeah, I understand.
[01:27:55.270 --> 01:27:57.690]  You know, speaking today is a couple of hours.
[01:27:57.850 --> 01:28:00.150]  This is the first speech I give in this week.
[01:28:00.150 --> 01:28:07.310]  So, it's, you know, different.
[01:28:07.570 --> 01:28:09.690]  Some days, I give two speeches.
[01:28:09.690 --> 01:28:18.590]  That may mean six hours spent speaking, and only four or five hours, six hours spent reading my, and answering my mail.
[01:28:18.890 --> 01:28:21.190]  It's, it varies.
[01:28:21.210 --> 01:28:27.510]  But the point is, it's, it's not a matter of some, some decision I made in an arbitrary way.
[01:28:27.670 --> 01:28:29.190]  I'm just responding to circumstances.
[01:28:29.850 --> 01:28:30.810]  I understand.
[01:28:31.210 --> 01:28:33.910]  But if you're good at speaking, do it.
[01:28:34.110 --> 01:28:35.350]  It's very important.
[01:28:35.630 --> 01:28:43.910]  Because if we could give everybody free software today to do all the jobs they want to do, tomorrow, they'd have freedom.
[01:28:44.110 --> 01:28:46.650]  But they might not still have it five years from now.
[01:28:47.090 --> 01:28:50.550]  Because people would offer them attractive proprietary software.
[01:28:50.830 --> 01:28:54.710]  And if they haven't learned to value their freedom, they could lose it easily.
[01:28:55.050 --> 01:28:57.310]  The fool and his freedom are soon parted.
[01:28:58.090 --> 01:29:11.870]  So, we need, above all, to teach, if we want to establish freedom in a lasting way, what we need, above all, is to teach people these ideas so that they'll learn to value their freedom.
[01:29:12.950 --> 01:29:13.730]  I understand.
[01:29:13.730 --> 01:29:18.370]  And as much as I could read the words on the written page to hear your response, I'd rather hear it from you.
[01:29:18.410 --> 01:29:19.490]  And I thank you very much for your time.
[01:29:21.390 --> 01:29:22.730]  I'm glad you agree.
[01:29:24.310 --> 01:29:31.550]  This next gentleman will have the last question and then we'll be moving into Pintop North so that we can prepare for the next person.
[01:29:36.280 --> 01:29:39.500]  This question is regarding your ideas about censorship.
[01:29:40.240 --> 01:29:56.240]  I mean, I have a... If people actually realized that they could do all the things that the average computer user does, like run a spreadsheet program, do their taxes, check their email, and they realized that they could do that on a computer that's run,
[01:29:56.520 --> 01:29:58.400]  that's like 10 years old.
[01:29:59.000 --> 01:30:02.200]  I mean, and don't you think that would hurt the computer industry?
[01:30:02.540 --> 01:30:03.220]  Who cares?
[01:30:04.060 --> 01:30:05.080]  Like Intel?
[01:30:05.580 --> 01:30:11.240]  I mean, basically, I don't agree... I'm not against the...
[01:30:11.980 --> 01:30:15.420]  I'm not against the manufacture of computers, right?
[01:30:15.540 --> 01:30:16.420]  I use computers.
[01:30:16.580 --> 01:30:17.720]  I want someone to make them.
[01:30:17.720 --> 01:30:20.340]  I hope that they will make real computers.
[01:30:20.720 --> 01:30:24.940]  There is a plan now to stop making real computers.
[01:30:25.100 --> 01:30:27.640]  You see, a computer is a universal machine.
[01:30:27.880 --> 01:30:35.680]  A machine that we can program to do whatever we want, to imitate any other possible machine, so we only need one.
[01:30:36.500 --> 01:30:43.600]  Now, this characteristic of being able to be programmed to do any computation is what they're trying to take away.
[01:30:44.000 --> 01:30:46.240]  That's what treacherous computing is all about.
[01:30:46.440 --> 01:30:52.900]  To arrange that their jobs that are computers of the future can't be programmed to do, at least not by us.
[01:30:53.280 --> 01:30:55.380]  And thus, they won't really be computers.
[01:30:55.700 --> 01:30:57.280]  Now, that, I think, would be bad.
[01:30:57.400 --> 01:30:59.980]  I want the computer industry to make real computers.
[01:30:59.980 --> 01:31:03.440]  But as long as they do, I don't criticize that.
[01:31:03.640 --> 01:31:06.920]  I'm happy if they make computers and other people buy them.
[01:31:07.280 --> 01:31:14.100]  But I am not going to regard it as the purpose of existence to give that industry success.
[01:31:14.820 --> 01:31:16.360]  Or any other industry.
[01:31:16.700 --> 01:31:23.440]  You know, I'm not against making cars or chairs or tables or light bulbs or microphones.
[01:31:23.720 --> 01:31:29.760]  But I'm not going to say that it would be a tragedy if people wanted less of them and bought less of them.
[01:31:30.020 --> 01:31:35.700]  I don't see that maximizing the volume of a certain industry is a social goal.
[01:31:36.020 --> 01:31:42.200]  In any case, that conflicts with the idea of free enterprise, which is basically saying, all right, you can make it.
[01:31:42.280 --> 01:31:43.040]  They can buy it.
[01:31:43.420 --> 01:31:45.140]  We'll see how much they want to buy.
[01:31:45.340 --> 01:31:45.700]  Go ahead.
[01:31:46.140 --> 01:31:46.300]  Wait.
[01:31:46.480 --> 01:31:51.060]  So, do you think that this is, like, more than just, like, Microsoft making a lot of money?
[01:31:51.140 --> 01:32:02.120]  Do you think that there's a conscious plot to actually, like, in, like, the latest new version of Windows, as a divergence away from, like, real understanding of how an operating system works?
[01:32:02.320 --> 01:32:03.120]  Do you think that this is, like... Okay.
[01:32:03.120 --> 01:32:05.640]  I don't know what you mean by real understanding.
[01:32:05.640 --> 01:32:10.320]  Like, a divergence away from command-based operating systems to, like...
[01:32:10.760 --> 01:32:10.760]  Okay.
[01:32:10.760 --> 01:32:11.120]  I don't know about that.
[01:32:11.460 --> 01:32:18.540]  I mean, after all, graphical environments a lot of people like and a lot of people don't like command lines.
[01:32:18.700 --> 01:32:24.640]  So, I'm not going to attribute any malice to the desire to support graphical interfaces.
[01:32:25.180 --> 01:32:36.980]  On the other hand, we know that Microsoft says the next version of Windows is going to require this, this, and this in a computer, so you all better make this, this, and this in your computers.
[01:32:37.360 --> 01:32:39.700]  We know that Microsoft does this.
[01:32:39.820 --> 01:32:42.600]  It just imposes this on computer makers.
[01:32:43.060 --> 01:32:45.260]  So, this is not speculation.
[01:32:46.280 --> 01:32:51.600]  You can... I think it's public knowledge what they insist computers do.
[01:32:51.860 --> 01:32:56.460]  And the next version of Windows is going to insist on some kind of treacherous computing.
[01:32:56.980 --> 01:33:05.500]  So, we know that Microsoft is imposing participation in a plot to restrict us.
[01:33:08.000 --> 01:33:12.660]  But I wouldn't argue that having graphical environments is part of a plot.
[01:33:12.820 --> 01:33:15.200]  Graphical environments are useful for a lot of people.
[01:33:15.360 --> 01:33:18.480]  I don't like it myself, but that doesn't make it bad.
[01:33:28.750 --> 01:33:32.330]  And that's why we have graphical environments in free software, too.
[01:33:32.650 --> 01:33:34.050]  A lot of users want that.
[01:33:34.670 --> 01:33:42.390]  I pushed and pushed and pushed for people to develop graphical environments, because I know... I want those users to have freedom, too.
[01:33:43.170 --> 01:33:45.130]  Not just users with my tastes.
[01:33:52.380 --> 01:33:55.420]  We'll be sending RMS over to area D.
[01:33:55.840 --> 01:33:57.140]  Way back there.
[01:33:57.380 --> 01:33:57.900]  Way back there.
[01:33:58.040 --> 01:33:59.000]  So, please don't flood the stage.
[01:33:59.040 --> 01:34:00.320]  Go back there instead.
[01:34:00.640 --> 01:34:00.840]  Yes.
[01:34:01.480 --> 01:34:05.000]  We will be kicking off with Europe has hackers, too.