WEBVTT

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Free software

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is the first battle in
the liberation of cyberspace.

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Who controls your computer? Is it you,

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or is it some big company
that's really controlling it?

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Well, what is a computer?

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A computer is a universal machine.

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It will do any computation you want it to,

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because you give it a program that says
what the computation is that you want.

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So the computer only knows
how to get out an instruction and do it,

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and get another instruction and do it.
The program has the instructions.

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It says what to do.

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By writing the right program,
you can make it do anything.

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Well... almost anything. ;-)
So who gives instructions to your computer?

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You might think
it's obeying your instructions,

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when really
it's obeying somebody else first,

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and you, only as much as
that company wants it to,

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will let it listen to you.
With software, there are two possibilities: 

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either the users control the program,

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or the program controls the users.
It's inevitably one or the other.

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So, in order for
the users to control the program,

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they need the four essential freedoms.

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And that's the definition of free software.
Free software respects the users' freedom

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and community.

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Now, we often call it “libre”,
using the French or Spanish word.

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Pronounce it as you  like.
The point is, that's what we mean.

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We don't mean it's gratis.
We're not talking about price.

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We're concerned with your freedom,
and we sometimes say “free/libre”

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to show that.

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So, freedom zero is the freedom to run
the program as you wish, for whatever purpose.

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Freedom 1 is the freedom
to study the source code

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of the program,

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and change it so it does
the computing you want it to do.

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But what is the source code? Well, every
program typically will have two forms.

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There's the form that you can read,

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and you can understand if you know the
programming language. That's the source.

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That's what programmers write and change.
Then, there's the executable, which is

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a bunch of numbers,

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which even a programmer can't figure out.
If all you get is the executable,

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it's a horrible pain in the neck
to figure out what it does,

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and even harder to change it.
So, to give you the real possibility

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to study and change it,

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they've gotta give you the
source code. That's a requirement.

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Well, with those
two freedoms, each user separately

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can make a copy and start changing it,
and make it do what she wants.

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That's individual control.

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But what if you are not a programmer?
You look at the source code,

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and you don't understand it.

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So, individual control isn't enough.

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We also need collective control,
which means any group of users are free

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to work together,

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to adapt the program to
do what they want. Of course,

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in the group some are programmers.
They're the ones who actually

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write the changes.

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But they're doing it as part of
the group, for what the group wants.

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Of course, the group doesn't have
to be everybody, so others can use it

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some other way.
They're all free to do that.

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Collective control requires
two more essential freedoms:

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Freedom two is the freedom
to redistribute exact copies,

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to make the copies and then give
them away or sell them, when you wish.

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And freedom three is similar, but it's
for your modified versions.

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You're free to make copies and give
them or sell them, when you wish.

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We do have these freedoms. When it's
free software, the users control

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the program.

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But if any of those freedoms
is missing, then the users

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don't control the program.
Instead, the program controls the users,

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and the developer controls the program.

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So, that means
this program is an instrument

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of unjust power for its developer

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over the users. 
That means the users don't have freedom.

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That's nonfree proprietary software,
which we've got to get rid of.

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Well, when you've got
proprietary software, what happens?

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Sometimes the program snoops on the user.

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Sometimes it tracks the user.

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Sometimes it restricts the user,
and stops users from doing

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what they want to do. You can
see that the Blu-ray is your enemy.

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Sometimes, the software
remotely deletes books,

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as Amazon did with “1984”,

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but sometimes the developer

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compels users to install a harmful

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upgrade by threatening to
take away other functionality

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if it's not installed, as Sony did.

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And sometimes they can even
forcibly change the software

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at a distance, as Microsoft can with
Windows through the universal backdoor.

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Sometimes, they even sabotage users,

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as Microsoft does when it tells the NSA

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about bugs in Windows, so it can
use them to attack people's computers.

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Well, what you get is,
basically: with proprietary software,

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the owner has power over the users,

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and takes advantage of
this power putting in those various

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malicious functionalities
to hurt the users.

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Of course, they don't do this because
they're sadists. They're doing it

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just for money, for greed.

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They have various
ways that they can profit

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from having this power over users,

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which does not make it
even the tiniest bit less evil.

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But they have no shame about it.

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They have conferences where they
talk about the latest ways they can

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take advantage of users

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through the power they have.
Basically, proprietary software,

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which is now — for almost all
the uses of proprietary software —

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proprietary malware,
it's software for suckers.

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So, how do you stop being a victim?

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Formerly, you had to stop
using computers, but not anymore.

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Now, you can come join us in
the free world that we've built.

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In 1983, I announced I would develop

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a completely free software
operating system called GNU.

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In 1992, we had it almost finished,

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but one piece was missing,
the kernel. Linus Torvalds in that year

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freed his kernel Linux,
which filled the last gap,

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and gave us the first
complete system you could run on a PC:

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GNU plus Linux.

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Unfortunately, having freedom at
one more point doesn't guarantee

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you'll keep it.

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There are over a thousand
different variants of GNU/Linux.

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They're called distributions.
A few of them

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are entirely free software. Most
of them have nonfree software added,

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because they're maintained by people
who aren't concerned about freedom.

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They'd rather add
convenience, but at the cost of freedom.

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So, you have to check
which is a free distro.

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To keep your freedom sometimes requires
a sacrifice; sometimes a big sacrifice

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as at Lexington. Sometimes... but in

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art campaign, they tend to be
little sacrifices.

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Anybody with a little bit of
maturity can make these sacrifices.

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For instance you want applications,
but some of them are nonfree.

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If you want freedom, you've got
to do without them. So there may be

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some inconveniences you have
to suffer for your freedom sake.

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Then many web sites send nonfree

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programs written in
JavaScript to the user's browser.

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If you don't want to run
nonfree programs, you should install

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LibreJS, which blocks,
keeps out nonfree JavaScript.

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And sometimes servers will
offer to do your computing. They say

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“Send us all your data.”
Obviously for suckers.

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Then the server does the computing,
and sends you back the results,

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but you're not supposed to think about
what's happening, cuz it's a... cloud,

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and you don't see what's going on.
Well, you should look.

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It's software as as service,
as a software substitute,

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and it takes away control
of your computing.

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So, a large fraction of the world's
web servers are running GNU slash Linux

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and other free software,

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but I think the most
important computers to put freedom in

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are your computers,
not companies' web servers.

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They deserve freedom also, but above
all it's people that deserve freedom.

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So, we need to advance. And to do that,

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we have to cross obstacles.
One of them is

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there are big companies that make a lot
of money by having control over users,

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and they don't want to
let us advance. We have to

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overcome their opposition. Another
is that the mainstream media don't

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talk about free software.

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They have a term that they use to bury

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these ethical issues.
They say “open source”

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instead. Now, it talks about
more or less the same programs,

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but with different ideas.
We, the free software activists, say

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“This is a matter of right and wrong.
Users deserve freedom. We demand freedom.”

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The people who say “open source”,
they don't want to say that. Instead,

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they say:

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“Let the users change
the software and redistribute it,

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and they'll make the code better.
They'll fix some bugs.”

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It may be true, but it's a less important
issue. If we want to keep our freedom, we

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gotta talk about freedom.

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So, say “free software”,
and you're helping us every time.

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Another obstacle is that
lots of schools teach nonfree software,

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which is basically like
teaching the kids to smoke tobacco.

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It's implanting dependence, which is
the opposite of what a school should do.

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A school should prepare citizens to live

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in a strong, capable,
independent, cooperating

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and free society, which means
teaching free software

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in school. But there's another reason
to do that: for education.

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Some kids want to become
programmers. They're curious.

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They wanna know how the programs work.
Well the one studying free software

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can understand it.

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The one who is studying a
nonfree program can't learn anything,

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because the knowledge
in the nonfree program

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is withheld, denied to the students.

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So, to uphold a spirit of education, the
school should make sure its programs

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are free.

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But there's an even more important
reason. Schools should teach the spirit

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of goodwill,

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the habit of helping other
people. So the class should say:

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“If you bring a program to class,
just as if you bring cookies to class,

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you gotta share it with everyone else.
You can't keep it to yourself.

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You got to share the source code
so other people can learn.

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So, don't bring any
proprietary software to this class.”

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The school has to set a good
example by following its own rule.

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It should bring only
free software to class, except

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as a reverse engineering exercise.

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Another obstacle is there's hardware we
don't know how to write free software for,

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because they won't tell us
how to use the hardware. That's shocking.

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They want to sell you the product,
and they won't tell you how to use it.

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They say: “Here's a
nonfree program you can use.

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Run it, and shut up. Don't bother us.”

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Well, how do we find out how to run
their hardware? With reverse engineering,

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you gotta study all those
zeros and ones to figure out

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what they really do, and
write down how to use that hardware,

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so someone else can
write a free program to do it.

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It's hard work, but it can be done. If
you wanna make a big technical contribution,

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that's what you should do. Each new area

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or activity of life
can bring with it new human rights

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that are necessary, and
the human rights depend on each other.

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If you lose one, it becomes
harder to maintain the others.

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So, nowadays computing
is so important in society

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that the freedoms of free
software are among the human rights

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that society must establish and protect.

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Thus... how to help?
Well, you can write free software.

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You can organize groups to campaign, and

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persuade schools and governments
to move to free software.

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You can help other people when
they have trouble using free software,

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or help them install it.
You can say “free software”, and spread

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the philosophical ideas.

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Moving to free software is the first
step in the liberation of cyberspace.

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But of course, we also use the internet.
We need other freedoms there,

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like network neutrality, and
putting an end

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to surveillance of people in general.