The essay below was written in 2002 as part of my degree in IT Programming. Although in some respects dated, in others it may seem current or even prescient. It was largely inspired by the famous programmer Richard Stallman, a key pioneer of 'free software' which Stallman explains with the motto 'as in free speech, not free beer'. I hope you enjoy it!
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This essay begins by describing the rise of Linux, or GNU/Linux as we shall see it should be called, and showing its relevance beyond the software industry. It also contains a sympathetic treatment of Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation and his creation of 'copyleft', but looks beyond Stallman's own aims and achievements towards a consideration of the wider sociological trends, which will effect virtually all of us in the coming century. Chief among these is the resolution, in practice, of problems associated with 'intellectual property'.
Most non-expert computer users run PCs at work and at home, although a significant minority, especially in the arts and humanities, prefer the Mac. But its aesthetic and design features have consistently kept its price too high for a portion of the buying public. Meanwhile, by concentrating on software, Microsoft aided the proliferation of ever-cheaper IBM-compatible clones, making Microsoft software the obvious choice for businesses (and home users) needing word-processing and other integrated software. The concepts of proprietary software, and software integrated with hardware, were so ingrained through the Apple-Microsoft two-party structure that many remained unaware that a PC doesn't actually have to run a Microsoft OS, even if they understood the difference between the OS and the applications running under it.
Ironically, Microsoft's concentration on software, and creation of the market conditions for cheap hardware, created the conditions for Linux's success. Finally, people could run virtually cost-free software on their PCs. But what is Linux? To answer this, we need to go back to the mid-1980s when famous programmer Richard Stallman decided to start developing a free operating system. In 1984 he founded the Free Software Foundation, an ambiguous name which uses the slogan 'free speech not free beer' to clarify its purpose. Free means non-proprietary: Stallman didn't believe in the concept of software ownership. He wanted to be free to modify the programs running on his own computer, and for other users to be free to modify his own work.
There were personal and career factors involved in this decision. Stallman had worked at MIT from 1971 as a part of a 'hacker' culture imbued with a free spirit of simultaneous cooperation and individuality, and a strong flavour of 1960s non-conformity. But by the 1980s, he saw that business attitudes were affecting the programming culture in distressing ways. Hackers were taking high-paid industry and research posts that involved secrecy and cut-throat competition; old machines were replaced by ones that only ran proprietary software. Consequently, some of his old programs were now redundant, whilst others 'belonged' to companies, so that he had no further claim to their development#. This induced him to devote his future work to the cause of non-proprietory software, founding the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
Stallman decided to develop an OS that was functionally identical to Unix (but independently-coded), alongside applications that could run under Unix. He###Ñ began with a modification of his own famous Emacs word-processor, sales of which brought him income as the GNU project gained collaborators and developed high-standard free code. However, by the early 1990s it was still not an autonomous OS. Primarily, it was lacking a kernel - the code that handles basic OS functioning such as the keyboard operation. This was provided by a Norwegian student, Linus Torvalds, again aided by the free cooperation of hackers worldwide.
In the 1990s non-expert users became increasingly dissatisfied with the innumerable glitches in Windows and Microsoft applications, and resentful of Bill Gates' draconian business style and enormous wealth. This was also reflected in the legal cases relating to Microsoft's violation of antitrust (i.e. anti-monopoly) laws in the United States. Linux was developed by purist hackers, and uses the command-line, which non-specialists haven't used since the early days of MS-DOS; but, if Linux could devel###„op an attractive GUI and sufficient applications, it could prove to be a dangerous rival to Microsoft.
In 1998, certain advocates of Linux began adopting the term 'open source'. This has the apparent advantage of avoiding the obvious ambiguity of 'free software'. But the deeper reason was almost certainly that Linux was fast becoming a competitive 'product'. The open source method of software development has so many advantages that programmers can advocate it without espousing Stallman's radical vision. Businesses are naturally unsettled by a project that places ethics ahead of profit-at-all-costs, and various programmers wanted a 'gentler' approach that wouldn't scare off business (certain businesses had been indicating this for a number of years).
The present moment is critical for the future of GNU: it risks being dismissed as merely the precursor of 'Linux', the OS of the future. Stallman emphasises that Linux should be called GNU/Linux to show its inseparability from its historical development, although this inseparability is something certain people in the OSM wish to play down. This may seem like pedantry or political in-fighting, but Stallman points out that whereas factionalism usually springs from a disagreement about the means required to bring about shared ends, Linux' situation is the reverse. The Open Source movement and the Free Software Foundation are totally different bodies. The OSM is wholly pragmatic in purpose, pointing out that collaborative development is far more efficient than a proprietary development policy. The FSF agrees with that, but upholds the ideals embodied in the GPL (Gnu General Public License) and the associated concept of copyleft.
Stallman describes the motivations behind the GPL as follows:
“My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software which forbids cooperation, and thus make society better. That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written the way it is- as a copyleft. All code added to a GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file.” (Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism, by RMS http://www.free-soft.org/literature/papers/gnu/pragmatic.html)
The GPL is quite technical, and the FSF has developed several variations of it, but they are all rooted in copyleft, which is meant to be the opposite of copyright. Stallman has described his position as 'pragmatic idealism', and his main evidence for the practicality of his ideals is the enormous success of GNU/Linux itself. Torvalds himself developed the Linux kernel under the GPL which means it can't ever be adapted as proprietary software. Free software enthusiasts regard the development of copyleft as Stallman's greatest act, surpassing even his software programming. It has powerful enemies: one of the biggest news items this year was an acrimonious confrontation between Stallman and Ransom Love, chief executive of Caldera# who said that Stallman's principles were impeding the 'success' of Linux. Stallman vigorously maintained that the success of the GNU project is solely a matter of spreading freedom and enabling collaboration among computer users, irrespective of financial transactions. During this exchange Stallman described Love as a 'parasite', and Love answered this seriously, rather than as mere abuse.
The remainder of the essay explores the nature of this parasitism, and argues that, beyond the subjective appeal to programmers of collaboration and freedom, copyleft is likely to become increasingly important to human society.
Operating Systems, or Who Owns the Interface?
In his even-handed treatment of the OS wars Neal Stephenson (Stephenson 1999) speaks of the culture of 'interface', and how GUIs and other interfaces allow people to abdicate responsibility in various ways. Bill Gates' success derived from this insight. Having acquired the basis of MS-DOS in the 1970s, he set out make it universal. MS-DOS and its Windows remake were never great OSs, but people needed them, because of the way Microsoft insisted on intertwining applications, like Word, with its OS. If Windows is superseded by Linux, it might come to be thought that its fault was just to have been not very good, whereas its true fault was to have insisted on owning the interface.
Much of the working world involves profiting from 'interfaces'. For example, the music business is notorious for being in the hands of highly-paid middle-men who neither understand nor like music, but 'mediate' between the artist and the public. Mediation is of course the function of the media and even politically-unsophisticated people are aware that, for example, Rupert Murdoch's ownership of newspapers and huge television networks might influence their content. Apparently even in ancient Egypt a class of propietary arithmeticians took a cut of every transaction in which their skills were required.
The monopoly of the Catholic church was broken when Martin Luther sparked the Reformation, rejecting the priesthood's mediation, its 'operating system' for a holy life. Much of our subsequent history has featured unsuccessful attempts to replace hierarchies with communities. This was hampered by a confusion about the real problem: despite the human dislike of priests, tax-collectors and other 'middle-men', their activities are often necessary. Usually the problem is the system itself which causes resentment through involving us in transactions which (if consumer reactions are to be believed) disenfranchise rather than empower. So the fundamental issues in the commercialisation of operating systems concern the ethical, or anti-ethical, foundations of our systems in general. But this involves the uncomfortable realisation that there is no necessary connection between scientific knowledge and virtue.
Science without Conscience
Professor Olver of Queen Mary University London posed the question 'who does the air belong to?', suggesting as a possible answer: 'everyone'. To those of humanistic, idealistic or religious backgrounds, the usual answer would be 'nobody owns it', just as obviously as nobody owns the sun, the word 'red', or the human genome. However there is no possibility of fruitful debate, because there is:
Thus, there is no language in which the opponents might reach an 'agreement'.
Frequently, pragmatism even compels law and science to serve its ends. Stallman has struck one of the few counterblows: from conscientious academe back into law and business practice. The FSF sets an important precedent for a possible social development where individuals and businesses may be inspired to work in more collaborative, non-proprietary ways. Others whose career involves mental creativity, like musicians, may draw legal and moral support if such developments occur.
Indeed artists have often been compelled to suffer under their 'interface' or renounce their art, but have been powerless to improve their situation. Uniquely among principled intellectuals, programmers are essential to the working world and have the power to affect the law. All science as such is amoral; ethics itself will only have a reality in the future, rather than a mere name, if a sufficient number of those with technical skill, like programmers, put ethics beyond both the pleasure and the profit of work, as RMS explicitly has.
If it proves possible for hackers to make a living from free software, this will have repercussions for business practice at large. It will also challenge the dull thinking that universalises the concept of 'property', which is justified in commerce, but not in the intellectual sphere. If understood, this would also refute the clichés of propertarian politics (both left and right), offering an escape from the mass apathy and frustration which currently alienate so many people from work and state. This can legitimately be hoped for, as we become increasingly involved in 'intellectual property' issues through the all-pervasive nature of computer systems and such pending crises as human and non-human genetic patenting.
Alternatively, enormous wealth and 'intellectual property' may be concentrated in a few corporations, where hackers will work at programs designed to make their own profession redundant, in the drive towards full automation. In this 'Brave New World', biomedical software conglomerates might model your genetic information on proprietary software whilst deciding on appropriate upgrades for you.
Due to the ubiquity of software, programmers have the opportunity to sell and disseminate free software programs. Therefore, with GNU/Linux currently hovering on the threshold of commercial viability, the public's understanding and support of free software will play a significant part in its own future.
© James North 2001
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This essay begins by describing the rise of Linux, or GNU/Linux as we shall see it should be called, and showing its relevance beyond the software industry. It also contains a sympathetic treatment of Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation and his creation of 'copyleft', but looks beyond Stallman's own aims and achievements towards a consideration of the wider sociological trends, which will effect virtually all of us in the coming century. Chief among these is the resolution, in practice, of problems associated with 'intellectual property'.
Most non-expert computer users run PCs at work and at home, although a significant minority, especially in the arts and humanities, prefer the Mac. But its aesthetic and design features have consistently kept its price too high for a portion of the buying public. Meanwhile, by concentrating on software, Microsoft aided the proliferation of ever-cheaper IBM-compatible clones, making Microsoft software the obvious choice for businesses (and home users) needing word-processing and other integrated software. The concepts of proprietary software, and software integrated with hardware, were so ingrained through the Apple-Microsoft two-party structure that many remained unaware that a PC doesn't actually have to run a Microsoft OS, even if they understood the difference between the OS and the applications running under it.
Ironically, Microsoft's concentration on software, and creation of the market conditions for cheap hardware, created the conditions for Linux's success. Finally, people could run virtually cost-free software on their PCs. But what is Linux? To answer this, we need to go back to the mid-1980s when famous programmer Richard Stallman decided to start developing a free operating system. In 1984 he founded the Free Software Foundation, an ambiguous name which uses the slogan 'free speech not free beer' to clarify its purpose. Free means non-proprietary: Stallman didn't believe in the concept of software ownership. He wanted to be free to modify the programs running on his own computer, and for other users to be free to modify his own work.
There were personal and career factors involved in this decision. Stallman had worked at MIT from 1971 as a part of a 'hacker' culture imbued with a free spirit of simultaneous cooperation and individuality, and a strong flavour of 1960s non-conformity. But by the 1980s, he saw that business attitudes were affecting the programming culture in distressing ways. Hackers were taking high-paid industry and research posts that involved secrecy and cut-throat competition; old machines were replaced by ones that only ran proprietary software. Consequently, some of his old programs were now redundant, whilst others 'belonged' to companies, so that he had no further claim to their development#. This induced him to devote his future work to the cause of non-proprietory software, founding the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.
Stallman decided to develop an OS that was functionally identical to Unix (but independently-coded), alongside applications that could run under Unix. He###Ñ began with a modification of his own famous Emacs word-processor, sales of which brought him income as the GNU project gained collaborators and developed high-standard free code. However, by the early 1990s it was still not an autonomous OS. Primarily, it was lacking a kernel - the code that handles basic OS functioning such as the keyboard operation. This was provided by a Norwegian student, Linus Torvalds, again aided by the free cooperation of hackers worldwide.
In the 1990s non-expert users became increasingly dissatisfied with the innumerable glitches in Windows and Microsoft applications, and resentful of Bill Gates' draconian business style and enormous wealth. This was also reflected in the legal cases relating to Microsoft's violation of antitrust (i.e. anti-monopoly) laws in the United States. Linux was developed by purist hackers, and uses the command-line, which non-specialists haven't used since the early days of MS-DOS; but, if Linux could devel###„op an attractive GUI and sufficient applications, it could prove to be a dangerous rival to Microsoft.
In 1998, certain advocates of Linux began adopting the term 'open source'. This has the apparent advantage of avoiding the obvious ambiguity of 'free software'. But the deeper reason was almost certainly that Linux was fast becoming a competitive 'product'. The open source method of software development has so many advantages that programmers can advocate it without espousing Stallman's radical vision. Businesses are naturally unsettled by a project that places ethics ahead of profit-at-all-costs, and various programmers wanted a 'gentler' approach that wouldn't scare off business (certain businesses had been indicating this for a number of years).
The present moment is critical for the future of GNU: it risks being dismissed as merely the precursor of 'Linux', the OS of the future. Stallman emphasises that Linux should be called GNU/Linux to show its inseparability from its historical development, although this inseparability is something certain people in the OSM wish to play down. This may seem like pedantry or political in-fighting, but Stallman points out that whereas factionalism usually springs from a disagreement about the means required to bring about shared ends, Linux' situation is the reverse. The Open Source movement and the Free Software Foundation are totally different bodies. The OSM is wholly pragmatic in purpose, pointing out that collaborative development is far more efficient than a proprietary development policy. The FSF agrees with that, but upholds the ideals embodied in the GPL (Gnu General Public License) and the associated concept of copyleft.
Stallman describes the motivations behind the GPL as follows:
“My work on free software is motivated by an idealistic goal: spreading freedom and cooperation. I want to encourage free software to spread, replacing proprietary software which forbids cooperation, and thus make society better. That's the basic reason why the GNU General Public License is written the way it is- as a copyleft. All code added to a GPL-covered program must be free software, even if it is put in a separate file.” (Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism, by RMS http://www.free-soft.org/literature/papers/gnu/pragmatic.html)
The GPL is quite technical, and the FSF has developed several variations of it, but they are all rooted in copyleft, which is meant to be the opposite of copyright. Stallman has described his position as 'pragmatic idealism', and his main evidence for the practicality of his ideals is the enormous success of GNU/Linux itself. Torvalds himself developed the Linux kernel under the GPL which means it can't ever be adapted as proprietary software. Free software enthusiasts regard the development of copyleft as Stallman's greatest act, surpassing even his software programming. It has powerful enemies: one of the biggest news items this year was an acrimonious confrontation between Stallman and Ransom Love, chief executive of Caldera# who said that Stallman's principles were impeding the 'success' of Linux. Stallman vigorously maintained that the success of the GNU project is solely a matter of spreading freedom and enabling collaboration among computer users, irrespective of financial transactions. During this exchange Stallman described Love as a 'parasite', and Love answered this seriously, rather than as mere abuse.
The remainder of the essay explores the nature of this parasitism, and argues that, beyond the subjective appeal to programmers of collaboration and freedom, copyleft is likely to become increasingly important to human society.
Operating Systems, or Who Owns the Interface?
In his even-handed treatment of the OS wars Neal Stephenson (Stephenson 1999) speaks of the culture of 'interface', and how GUIs and other interfaces allow people to abdicate responsibility in various ways. Bill Gates' success derived from this insight. Having acquired the basis of MS-DOS in the 1970s, he set out make it universal. MS-DOS and its Windows remake were never great OSs, but people needed them, because of the way Microsoft insisted on intertwining applications, like Word, with its OS. If Windows is superseded by Linux, it might come to be thought that its fault was just to have been not very good, whereas its true fault was to have insisted on owning the interface.
Much of the working world involves profiting from 'interfaces'. For example, the music business is notorious for being in the hands of highly-paid middle-men who neither understand nor like music, but 'mediate' between the artist and the public. Mediation is of course the function of the media and even politically-unsophisticated people are aware that, for example, Rupert Murdoch's ownership of newspapers and huge television networks might influence their content. Apparently even in ancient Egypt a class of propietary arithmeticians took a cut of every transaction in which their skills were required.
The monopoly of the Catholic church was broken when Martin Luther sparked the Reformation, rejecting the priesthood's mediation, its 'operating system' for a holy life. Much of our subsequent history has featured unsuccessful attempts to replace hierarchies with communities. This was hampered by a confusion about the real problem: despite the human dislike of priests, tax-collectors and other 'middle-men', their activities are often necessary. Usually the problem is the system itself which causes resentment through involving us in transactions which (if consumer reactions are to be believed) disenfranchise rather than empower. So the fundamental issues in the commercialisation of operating systems concern the ethical, or anti-ethical, foundations of our systems in general. But this involves the uncomfortable realisation that there is no necessary connection between scientific knowledge and virtue.
Science without Conscience
Professor Olver of Queen Mary University London posed the question 'who does the air belong to?', suggesting as a possible answer: 'everyone'. To those of humanistic, idealistic or religious backgrounds, the usual answer would be 'nobody owns it', just as obviously as nobody owns the sun, the word 'red', or the human genome. However there is no possibility of fruitful debate, because there is:
- no a priori intellectual context: the concept of 'property' developed in connection with specific circumstances of ownership and production , and all subsequent talk of intellectual property, was tentative and metaphorical (at best). Since the 'information age' has ushered in wholly new circumstances, the solution was never going to come by correctly 'interpreting' ancient laws, but deciding afresh what is appropriate for the future. Those capable of doing this hold...
- an irreconcilable difference of ethics: some individuals and organisations with money and power have qualms about making law and academe serve their own agendas; others do not. Moreover, even the well-intentioned are hampered by bureaucratic and impersonal systems that make the whole considerably less than the sum of its parts.
Thus, there is no language in which the opponents might reach an 'agreement'.
Frequently, pragmatism even compels law and science to serve its ends. Stallman has struck one of the few counterblows: from conscientious academe back into law and business practice. The FSF sets an important precedent for a possible social development where individuals and businesses may be inspired to work in more collaborative, non-proprietary ways. Others whose career involves mental creativity, like musicians, may draw legal and moral support if such developments occur.
Indeed artists have often been compelled to suffer under their 'interface' or renounce their art, but have been powerless to improve their situation. Uniquely among principled intellectuals, programmers are essential to the working world and have the power to affect the law. All science as such is amoral; ethics itself will only have a reality in the future, rather than a mere name, if a sufficient number of those with technical skill, like programmers, put ethics beyond both the pleasure and the profit of work, as RMS explicitly has.
If it proves possible for hackers to make a living from free software, this will have repercussions for business practice at large. It will also challenge the dull thinking that universalises the concept of 'property', which is justified in commerce, but not in the intellectual sphere. If understood, this would also refute the clichés of propertarian politics (both left and right), offering an escape from the mass apathy and frustration which currently alienate so many people from work and state. This can legitimately be hoped for, as we become increasingly involved in 'intellectual property' issues through the all-pervasive nature of computer systems and such pending crises as human and non-human genetic patenting.
Alternatively, enormous wealth and 'intellectual property' may be concentrated in a few corporations, where hackers will work at programs designed to make their own profession redundant, in the drive towards full automation. In this 'Brave New World', biomedical software conglomerates might model your genetic information on proprietary software whilst deciding on appropriate upgrades for you.
Due to the ubiquity of software, programmers have the opportunity to sell and disseminate free software programs. Therefore, with GNU/Linux currently hovering on the threshold of commercial viability, the public's understanding and support of free software will play a significant part in its own future.
© James North 2001