Philosophy of the GNU Project

This directory describes the philosophy of the Free Software Movement, which is the motivation for our development of the free software operating system GNU.

We also keep a list of Organizations that Work for Freedom in Computer Development and Electronic Communications.

About Free Software

Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs from material objects--such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software users should be able to make use of them.

• What is Free Software?
• Why Software Should Not Have Owners
• Why Software Should Be Free (This is an older and longer essay about the same topic as the previous one)
• Why Free Software Needs Free Documentation
• Selling Free Software Can Be OK!
• Categories of Free and Non-Free Software
• Free Software is More Reliable!
• Is `Open Source' Synonymous With `Free Software'?
• Linux, GNU, and Freedom
• Regarding Gnutella
• Why Schools Should Use Exclusively Free Software
• MyDoom and You
• 15 Years of Free Software

About the GNU Project

• Initial announcement of the GNU Project
• The GNU Manifesto
• Brief history of the GNU Project
• The GNU Project, a longer and more complete description of the project and its history.
• What is the Free Software Foundation?
• Why GNU/Linux?

Licensing Free Software

• General information on licensing and copyleft
• A list of specific free software licenses
• Frequently Asked Questions About the GNU General Public License (GPL)
• Why You Should Not Use the Library GPL for Your Next Library
• Copyleft
• Why Copyleft?
• Releasing Free Software if You Work at a University
• Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism
• Censorship envy and licensing
• The X Window's Trap
• The Problems of the Apple License
• The BSD License Problem
• The Netscape Public License Has Serious Problems
• The Free Software Movement and UDI
• Is Microsoft the Great Satan?
• The Microsoft Antitrust Trial and Free Software
• On the Microsoft Verdict
• Microsoft's New Monopoly
• The Problems of the Plan 9 License
• The New Motif License
• Using the GNU FDL
• The GNU GPL and the American Way
• The GNU GPL and the American Dream
• Enforcing the GNU GPL
• Freedom or Power?
• We Can Put an End to Word Attachments
• Free But Shackled - The Java Trap
• Fighting Software Patents - Singly and Together
• Software Patents and Literary Patents, by Richard M. Stallman, speaking of patenting artistic techniques, US patent (6,935,954) covers making game characters start to hallucinate when (according to the game) they are being driven insane. That is getting pretty close to the hypothetical examples cited in this article.

Laws and Issues

• Don't Let 'Intellectual Property' Twist Your Ethos, by Richard M. Stallman.
• The Curious Incident of Sun in the Night-Time, by Richard M. Stallman.
• Opposing Digital Rights Mismanagement, by Dr. Richard M. Stallman, answers a few common questions about DRM.
• Why We Need "Free Software" Voting Machines
• World Summit on the Information Society
• FSF's Position on W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent Policy rewritten
• Comments from Richard Stallman on the ICLC's rejection of the IP Enforcement Directive
• Richard Stallman has written a review of Boldrin and Levine's "The case against intellectual property."
• SCO, GNU, and Linux, by Richard Stallman, discusses how SCO's lawsuit against IBM pertains to the work of the GNU project. Please see the FSF SCO Response Page for more details on this subject.
• That's fighting talk a slightly modified version of the article, originally published in The Guardian of London by Richard Stallman and Nick Hill.
• Ebooks: Freedom Or Copyright a slightly modified version of the article, originally published in Technology Review in 2000, by Richard Stallman
• The introduction by Lawrence Lessig to Free Software, Free Society: The Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman is available for reading.
• Misinterpreting Copyright is another essay by Richard Stallman about the flaws in popular defenses of copyright law.
• Can you trust your computer?, a work by Richard Stallman about the so-called "trusted computing" initiatives.
• FSF's Brief Amicus Curiae in the Eldred v. Ashcroft Supreme Court case
• Science must `push copyright aside', another work of Richard Stallman that appeared in the Nature Webdebates in 2001, explains how copyright is impeding progress in scientific research.
  • You may also be interested in The Public Library of Science, which is dedicated to making scientific research freely available to all on the Internet.
  • A related article describes how the principal scientific organizations of Germany have issued a joint declaration in support of the provision of free scientific information over the Internet.
• FSF's Statement in Response to Proposed Revised Final Judgment in Microsoft vs. United States, submitted to the US Department of Justice under the Tunney Act.
• In Felten v. RIAA, scientists are asking a court to rule that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not prohibit them from publishing their research.
• EFF "Intellectual Property: MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) DVD Cases" Archive
• Reevaluating Copyright: The Public must prevail
• The Right to Read: A Dystopian Short Story by Richard Stallman
• Eldred v. Reno is about a lawsuit to overturn a law that extends copyright by 20 extra years.
• Encryption software volunteers needed in countries without export control.
• How to Protect the Right to Write Software (independent of whether it's free or not)
• The Right Way to Tax DAT
• How to Protect the Freedoms of Speech, Press, and Association on the Internet
• Patent Reform Is Not Enough
• Saving Europe from Software Patents
• Boycott Amazon!
• Why We Must Fight UCITA
• A world with UCITA may allow fine print to outweigh the right thing by Ed Foster <gripe@infoworld.com>
• Freedom-Or Copyright? by Richard Stallman
• Sequential Innovation, Patents, and Imitation is a paper that presents a mathematical model showing how patents can impede progress in fields like software.
• Copyright versus community in the age of computer networks: is a verbatim transcript of a talk by Richard Stallman at the Logiciel Libre Conference in July 2000.
• Harm from the Hague.
• An English translation of the famous decision of the District Court of Munich (Germany) regarding the enforceability and validity of the GPL. The translation was done by the Oxford Internet Institute.
• Did You Say "Intellectual Property"? It's a Seductive Mirage. An essay on the true meaning of the phrase "Intellectual Property", by Richard M. Stallman
• Free Software and (e-)Government - an article from The Guardian, by Richard Stallman (originally published under the title "Second Sight").
• Free Software and Sustainable Development - A short article by Richard Stallman regarding the use of proprietary software in cultural development.
• Soft sell. An article by Richard M. Stallman published in The Guardian.
• Patent absurdity. An article by Richard M. Stallman published in The Guardian.
• The Anatomy of a Trivial Patent, by Richard M. Stallman.

Terminology and Definitions

• Confusing Words which You Might Want to Avoid
• "Open Source Software" or "Free Software"?
• Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software
• Richard Stallman wrote letter to the editor of Dr. Dobb's Journal in June which further explains the distinction between the Free Software and Open Source movements.
• Categories of Free and Non-Free Software

Upholding Software Freedom

• The Free Software Community After 20 Years, With great but incomplete success, what now?
• Thank You, Larry McVoy by Richard M. Stallman

GIFs

• Why there are no GIF files on GNU web pages, While this story is a historical illustration of the danger of software patents, these particular patents are now no longer a concern. For details of our website policies regarding GIFs, see our web web guidelines.

Motivation

• Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator

Speeches and Interviews (in reverse chronological order)

• Jonathan Roberts interviews Richard Stallman and others on free software.
• Bill Xu interviews Richard Stallman on DRM. You can also read it in Chinese.
• Eben Moglen, “Free Software and Free Media”, at the Jefferson Market Library in New York, New York, May 3, 2006 for the Metropolitan NY Chapter of the Internet Society
• Richard Stallman interviewed by Justin Podur on "Free Software as a Social Movement", 01 December 2005
• Richard Stallman interviewed by Federico Biancuzzi for ONLamp.com, 22 September 2005
• Presentation of the goals and philosophy of the GNU operating system by Richard Stallman in University of Pittsburgh, April 7th 2005
• Richard Stallman's interview with Timothy R. Butler, 31 March 2005.
• Transcript of a speech given by Richard M. Stallmanat National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, 17 February 2004.
• Richard Stallman's interview with NetEconomie.com (In French) 10 December 2004
• Transcript of a panel presentation, “New developments in patent practice: assessing the risks and cost of portfolio licensing and hold-ups”, given by Daniel B. Ravicher as the executive director of the Public Patent Foundation on Wednesday, November 10, 2004, at a conference organized by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) in Brussels, Belgium
• Synopsis of a speech given by Richard M. Stallman about software patents on 14 October 2004.
• Web page with interviews/audio/video from speeches in Madrid (May 2004) given by Richard M. Stallman (site is in Spanish)
• Transcript of a speech given by Prof. Eben Moglen at Harvard on 23 February, 2004.
• Transcript of a speech given by Richard M. Stallmanat WSIS, 16 July 2003.
• Transcript of a speech given by Richard M. Stallman, 21 April 2003.
• Audio recording of a speech, Software Freedom and the GNU Generation, given by Bradley M. Kuhn 22 April 2003.
• Audio recording of a speech, Software Patents:Obstacles to software development, given by Richard M. Stallman at the University of Cambridge, England 25th March 2002. A transcript of the speech is also available.
• Richard Stallman's interview, Perché l'open source non è tutto, in italian, to the Mytech website, 22 April 2003. (The title reads, Because Open Source is not all.)
• Audio recording of a speech, Copyright vs Community in the age of computer Networks, given by Richard M. Stallman at Queen Mary University of London, England 12th Feb 2002.
• Audio recording in French of a speech, l'éthique du système GNU/Linux et de la communauté des logiciels libres, les tâches à accomplir et les risques à envisager, given by Richard M. Stallman at CNIT à la Défense, Paris, France. 27th Jan 2002.
• Audio recordings and a partial transcript of the conference given by Richard M. Stallman to the French National Assembly on 20th November 2001.
• Transcript of the speech, The Danger of Software Patents by Richard M. Stallman given at Government Model Engineering College, India on 24th July 2001. Also, the MEC has posted an audio recording and transcript at their website.
• Richard Stallman's interview with Louis Suarez-Potts in May of 2001.
• Audio recording of a speech, Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation, given by Richard M. Stallman at New York University. A transcript of the speech is also available.
• Transcript of a speech, Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks, given by Richard M. Stallman at MIT.
• Audio recording of a speech, Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks, given by Richard M. Stallman at MIT.
• Audio recording of a speech, The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System, given by Richard M. Stallman at ArsDigita University.
• Audio recording of a speech, The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System, given by Richard M. Stallman at Auditorium Smelt, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
• Audio recording of a speech, The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System, given by Richard M. Stallman at LinuxTag 2000.
• Audio recording of a speech, The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System, given by Richard M. Stallman at the University of Cincinnati.
• Interview from Linux Magazine in July 1999 with Richard Stallman
• Transcription (in French) of a speech that Richard Stallman gave in 1998 at the University of Paris.
• English translation of a speech that Georg Greve gave in 1998 at the GNU/Linux Cluster "CLOWN" in Germany (German original)
• BYTE Interview in July 1986 with Richard Stallman
• A speech that Richard Stallman gave in 1986 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden
• An index of French recordings at audio-video.gnu.org is also available.

Third Party Ideas

These articles give other people's philosophical opinions in support of free software, or related issues, and don't speak for the GNU project -- but we more or less agree with them.

Many of the Organizations that Work for Freedom in Computer Development and Electronic Communications also have philosophical opinions in support of free software, or related issues.

• How Vista Lets Microsoft Lock Users In by Cory Doctorow. Note : We think it is a mistake to use the enemy's favorable-sounding propaganda terms such as "trusted computing" to describe a malicious plan.
• A couple of lessons on the hazards of proprietary software, describes hazards of proprietary software.
• Multiple doctors cut off from records by Dr. Notes , an example of how proprietary software gives the developers unjust power over the users.
• Jimmy Wales explains why Free Knowledge requires Free Software and Free File Formats in this paper. He also exposes why Wikipedia needs to be free software.
• Software patents under the magnifying glass. In this article the author uses arguments based on lambda calculus to show why software cannot be patented.
• Free gadgets need free software, an editorial reporting a firmware "upgrade" that removes the ability to record radio broadcasts.
• Lakhani and Wolf's paper on the motivation of free software developers says that a considerable fraction are motivated by the view that software should be free. This was despite the fact that they surveyed the developers on SourceForge, a site that does not support the view that this is an ethical issue.
• Groklaw sends a Dear Darl letter; a group from the free software and open source community has put together a response to SCO CEO Darl McBride's Open Letter to the Open Source Community.
• Hardware Central. We disagree with one aspect of this article's conclusion: It's not legitimate for Microsoft to help Disney and the RIAA impose Digital Restrictions Management on you, any more than it is legitimate for Disney and the RIAA to try it. The full power of computing should be available to you, not just to the owners of information.
• The Brazilian Federal Goverment sponsored a national Free Software Movement in Brazil. This article is in Brazilian Porteguese.
• The SCO Sue Me Petition has overwhelmed its inceptor and the petition is no longer taking votes. The author of the petition, John Everitt, was expecting only several responses but instead he had thousands of participants. In the last available public communication about the petition, he urged people to help FSF in any way possible.
• Senator Alberto Conde's answer to CESSI regarding Bill E-135/02-03 which proposes use of Free Software in the public sector for the province of Buenos Aires. The bill has been submitted by Senator Alberto Conde himself.
• Some economists argue that copyright and patents fail to promote the progress that they supposedly exist to promote.

  This article takes a narrowly economic view of its subject, measuring social alternatives only by what goods are available for what price, assuming that you the citizen are a mere consumer and place no value on your freedom in itself. It also uses the misleading term "intellectual property", which is misleading because it lumps copyrights and patents together. The article also lumps them together, which it can get away with because it ignores the (different) social issues that copyrights and patents raise.

  Despite those flaws, it is significant. If one can judge copyright to be harmful even on narrow economic terms, disregarding the ethical wrong of stopping people from sharing, it can only be more harmful once we consider the ethics as well.

• Sincere Choice explains the dishonesty of Microsoft's "Software Choice" program.

  We don't completely agree with Sincere Choice, since it says that proprietary software is just as legitimate as free software. We firmly disagree: software should be free. However, if you know people who have been taken in by "Software Choice", please refer them to the Sincere Choice site.

• Two articles by Duncan Campbell describe how NSA backdoors were hidden in proprietary software programs: "Only NSA can listen, so that's OK" and "How NSA access was built into Windows". Both are clear demonstrations of how users of proprietary software can often be unaware of what they are actually running.
• "Copyright C.P.U." by Harry Hillman Chartrand is a good summary of the history of copyright.
• Malla Pollack's "What is Congress Supposed to Promote?" explains how the United States' government's recent tendencies to provide maximum control to copyright holders defies the justification for establishment of copyright set out in the constitution.
• Mikael Pawlo's "Software lemon law with bitter taste" explains how a "lemon law" for software could threaten free software development.
• Peruvian Congressman Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez wrote a letter to a Microsoft manager after they wrote expressing concern about the country's pending Free Software in Public Administration bill. It does an excellent job of allaying concerns about free software often raised by Microsoft and others. The English translation of the letter is here.
• British historian Thomas Macaulay had ideas about copyright in 1841 which still hold true today.
• Chilling Effects is a collection point for cease and desist notices concerning online activity -- we invite visitors to enter C&Ds they have received or sent. The website collects the C&Ds in a searchable database and hyperlinks them to explanations of the legal issues.
• Coding is a Crime, by Shannon Cochran, is a commentary on the indictment of Jon Johansen on felony charges for helping write DeCSS.
• The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public Domain., by James Boyle, also available here.
• Intellectual Property: The Attack on Public Space in Cyberspace, by Howard Besser, describes how various industries are using their leverage with copyright to make fewer locations on the Internet less and less public.
• Wipout is holding a counter-essay contest to the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) own student contest. It aims to raise awareness about the ways in which protection of intellectual property may negatively impact our daily lives.
• Technology and the corruption of copyright, by Joshua S. Bauchner
• "Locating Copyright Within the First Amendment Skein,", by Neil W. Netanel, argues that the United States court system has been wrong in its dated assumption that fair use eliminates the conflict between copyright law and the First Amendment.
• Richard Stallman co-signed a joint statement responding to comments by Craig Mundie of Microsoft.
• In Patent Reform Now!, Don Marti calls for free software supporters to nominate Richard M. Stallman to US Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Public Advisory Committee.
• Copyrighting fire
• Read Them And Weep, by Simson Garfinkel, talks about the pending bills that would give information owners sweeping new powers, and restrict the activities of users.
• Applying Copyleft To Non-Software Information, by Michael Stutz.
• Only the Free World Can Stand Up to Microsoft, by Tom Hull.
• The Free Music Philosophy, by Ram Samudrala.
• Record companies argue for more copyright power by saying they are the support of the musicians. This article shows how record companies really treat musicians.
• The Manifesto: Piracy is Your Friend, by Jaron Lanier.
  Note that the GNU Project recommends avoiding the term piracy since it implies that sharing copies is somehow illegitimate.
• A primer on the ethics of ``Intellectual property'', by Ram Samudrala.
• Is Self-Interest Sufficient to Organize an Free Economy? by Loyd Fueston.
• The Free Science Campaign is a campaign for the freedom to distribute scientific work.
• People, places, things and ideas by Kragen Sitaker
• The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights by Roderick T. Long
  The Free Software Movement does not endorse Libertarianism, and we do not agree entirely with that article. But it is useful for refuting one specific argument that is made in favor of proprietary software.
• Articles in Spanish about free software issues
• Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright
• The Death and Rebirth of Plagiarism by Rodney Riegle. (We don't entirely agree with this article--we think there is no harm in asking people to make some extra effort to write ``footnotes'' to give credit.)
• Save the Web is a website devoted to protecting Internet users rights in Europe.
• Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation? by Frank, Gilovich, and Regan.
• Development, Ethical Trading, and Free Software by Danny Yee.
• THE BALLAD OF DENNIS KARJALA: A political comment in the form of a broadside ballad by Timothy R. Phillips.
• Shaping Collaborative ICT Development and Initiatives for Global Prosperity by Robert J. Chassell
• Competitive Advantages of Free Software by Alexandre Oliva.
• Patent grant under the GPL.
• The Concept of Copyright Fights for Internet Survival by John Markoff.
• The Real Purpose of Copyright by John N. Berry III.
• Copyrighting Fire! (Humor) by Ian Clarke.
• The Future Brings "Infirmation Technology" by Andy Oram.
• The Free Protocols Foundation is an independent public forum, dedicated to the support of patent-free protocols.
• Software Libre and Commercial Viability by Alessandro Rubini
• Information liberation by Brian Martin. We urge people to avoid using the term intellectual property and to instead speak about copyrights, patents, and/or trademarks.
• Seat Sale, a satire about copyright.
• A gallery of examples demonstrating how outrageous and absurd the Digital Millenium Copyright Act is.
• Frankentoons by Joel Kahn.
• A book review of Digital Copyright.
• Live and let license by Joe Barr.
• Piecepack is a set of boardgame pieces which everyone is free to use in creating or playing various types of games.
• Eastern Gianozia has put together a tongue-in-cheek look at Software Patents and DRM.
• Here is an interesting allegory (in Spanish) comparing Free Software to a dining experience.
• Free Software and Scouting
• Patents Are An Economic Absurdity: This article adopts as a premise the popular view that free trade is desirable. We don't always agree - beyond a certain point, free trade gives businesses too much power, allowing them to intimidate democracy. But that is a different matter.
• In Defense of Napster and Against the Second Homesteading Rule
• Against Intellectual Property, Spring 2001, Journal of Libertarian Studies (PDF)
• Penguin in the Pew, Free Software from a Christian perspective.
• A Comparative Ethical Assessment of Free Software Licensing Schemes by Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter
• The SIM.ONE hardware project has created free (as in freedom) computer design specifications.
• Not available online, but as early as 1960 Bernard Galler wrote a letter to the editor of the Communications of the ACM (vol.3, no.4, pp.A12-A13), saying in part (mentioning price, but clearly implying freedom):

  ... it is clear that what is being charged for is the development of the program, and while I am particularly unhappy that it comes from a university, I believe it is damaging to the whole profession. There isn't a 704 installation that hasn't directly benefited from the free exchange of programs made possible by the distribution facilities of SHARE. If we start to sell our programs, this will set very undesirable precedents.

  (Thanks to Nelson Beebe for the reference.)

Miscellaneous

• Philosophy Humor. We don't have to be serious all the time.

Translations of These Documents

• Unofficial Korean translations of many of these documents
• Translations of the GNU Manifesto
• Translations of the term ``free software''
• Translations of the GNU GPL
• Translations of the GNU LGPL
• Translations of the GNU FDL