Hello, and welcome to Software Freedom Day.
I am Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement.
To explain basic ideas of Free Software.
Freedom means having control of your own life.
Having control of the activites you do in your life.
Now that we use software for some many of the things we do,
to have control of our own lives, we need control of the software that we are using,
that is doing our computing.
With any program, the are two possibilities:
either the user controls the program,
or the program controls the users.
It's always one or the other.
When the users control the program,
that's free software.
That software respects the user's freedom and community.
It's ethic, legitimate, in a way, it's made available for people to use.
When the user does not control the program,
then the program controls the user,
and the program's owner or developer controls the program.
So that non-free program puts the developer in a position
of power over the users.
And that is why it is an injustice.
So, every program is either free software,
which is distributed in a just and ethical way.
Or it is proprietary software and injust.
And we need to kick it out of our lives.
In order for a program to be free software,
it has to give us the four essential freedoms.
Freedom 0 in the freedom to run the program as you wish,
for any purpose.
Freedom 1 is the freedom to study the program source code,
and change it so it does your computing activity the way you wish.
These two freedoms give us separately control over the program.
I am free to change my copies and you are free to change your copies.
But separately control is not enough.
Most users are not programmers.
They don't know how to study and change source code.
But they deserve in participating in the control of what the program does.
That means we need collective control of the program,
as well as separately individual control.
Collective control means you are free to work with others.
To control together what that program does when you run it.
And collective control requires two more essential freedoms.
Freedom 2 is the freedom to make exact copies and distribute it to others when you wish.
And freedom 3 is the freedom to make copies of your modified versions,
and distribute it to others when you wish.
These two freedoms make it possible for users that wish to collaborate
to do so.
Because whoever makes the modified version with freedom 3,
can make copies and distribute them to others in the group.
And they, using freedom 2, can make more copies of that same version,
and distribute them to others in the group
until they will all get it.
But in addition they are free to offer copies to others,
even publishing their versions meaning offering them to everyone in general.
So, when a program carries these four freedoms,
the user controls the program and it's free software.
I should make it clear that these freedoms should be for all users of software,
both individuals and organizations, whether it's commercial use or non-commercial use.
They are all areas where we should have freedom.
And, thus, freedoms 2 and 3, when we talked about
to redistribute or to distribute modified versions,
that includes both giving away copies and selling copies.
We are not against businesses as such.
We are against letting businesses have power over people.
But non-free program gives its developer unjust power over the users.
And nowadays developers are fully aware of this power.
And they are constantly looking for ways to use that power
against the users so that they can make more money.
They do this by putting malicious features into proprietary programs.
Proprietary programs now frequently do things like spy on users,
stop users from doing what they would naturally want to do,
impose censorship on users.
They have backdoors through which the proprietors can attack the users.
There are other schemes that they use to sabotage users.
I won't go into all the details here, but look at gnu.org/proprietary
for long lists of examples that are proved by articles in the press.
If you use a proprietary program, there's a good chance it's designed to mistreat you.
In fact, since many of the most widely used proprietary programs
including proprietary operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS, Android,
have malicious functionalities in proprietary code,
so a person who uses proprietary software is almost certainly being victimized
in these ways.
Once we want to have freedom in our computing,
how do we get free software to actually use?
The first thing you need to make a computer do any good
is an operating system.
In 1983, when I started the free software movement,
there was no free operating system.
All the operating systems were proprietary,
so the only way to run a computer was with proprietary software.
As a practical plan to get us to freedom, I started developing
a free software operating system GNU.
Thousands of others have contributed to developing the GNU system.
And in 1991, it was nearly complete.
All that was missing was one component, the kernel.
In that year, Mr. Torvalds began developing Linux, a kernel.
In 1991, Linux was proprietary software,
but in 1992, he made it free.
At that point, it was possible to use Linux to fill the last gap in the GNU system.
This contribution is GNU with Linux added.
In other words, it's GNU/Linux.
In fact, when people say the use Linux, they are actually using the GNU system with Linux added.
But when the call it Linux, they are attributing our work to someone else,
which is not fair to us.
So, please, make an effort to give us credit for our work.
Please, give us equal mention when you talk about the system, which is basically GNU plus Linux.
Please, call it GNU/Linux.
A political movement for freedom frequently encounters opposition.
The Free Software Movement is no exception.
During the 1990s, as people became aware of free software,
because of the popularity of the GNU/Linux system,
there was a debate whithin the free software community
between people with different political views.
Some of us were free software activists.
We said for our freedom's sake, we must replace all proprietary software.
We got to use free software alone.
Others liked free software, but didn't agree with our political views.
They participated in the community for convenience's sake.
In 1998, some in the second group coined the term "Open Source".
as a way of referring to basically the same programs,
but without raising the issue in terms of right or wrong.
Keep in mind that if you say free software,
then you are talking about a political movement for freedom in our computing.
And if you say open source, you are covering up the issue of freedom.
They are not the same.
You are free to advocate either one or neither or something else.
I advocate free software.
I complain when people associate me with the term open source
because that stands for views that are not mine.
I hope you will give the Free Software Movement your visible support.
I am sorry to say that most of the distributions of GNU/Linux are not entirely free.
They are mostly made of free software but they contain some proprietary software as well.
If you switch from Windows or Mac OS to one of those distros, it's a big step forward,
but it does not get you all the way to freedom.
If you want to choose an entirely freedom-respecting GNU/Linux distro,
please look at gnu.org/distros for a list and more information.
The most important place to campaing for free software is in education.
All level of schools should teach only free software.
To teach people to use proprietary software is planting dependence in society.
It's pushing people to accept the rule of corporations.
Schools should never do this.
For more information, look at gnu.org/education.
Government agencies also should move to free software,
so that they too avoid being under the power of companies,
in many cases foreign companies,
surely, you do no want your government agencies to be using software
that is under the power of companies such as Microsoft or Apple or Google or Adobe,
or any other.
Look at gnu.org/government for more information.
There is a lot of other useful information in gnu.org.
gnu.org/philosophy addresses many specific questions related to free software.
gnu.org/licenses discusses free software licensing.
gnu.org/gnu discusses the history of the GNU project and the GNU operating system.
gnu.org/distros describes the various free and non-free distributions.
And gnu.org/help describes ways that you can contribute.
Many different ways and no all of them involve programming.
You don't have to feel that if you are not a programmer,
that means you can't help us. Take a look at gnu.org/help
and see which forms of help you can do.
When you write a program that you recently release to the public,
you should make it free software.
But there are many different ways to do that, many different software licenses.
Please see gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html for our guidance.
Our ways of deciding which licenses to use for a work based on
details of the situation.
In most cases, it's best to release under a copyleft license
to make sure that others can't convert your code into a proprietary program
and use it to subjugate others.