Free software is a human right. Freedom to run the software. Freedom to study and change the software. Freedom to redistribute. Freedom to redistribute with changes.
The four freedoms that define free software have become essential human rights that must never be taken away from anyone except as a punishment for wrongdoing. Human rights depend on each other; if you lose one human right it becomes hard to defend the others. [...] With non-free software all your other human rights become hard to defend.
This is what Richard Stallman declared in his session "Brave GNU World" at the RightsCon Southeast Asia conference on 25 March 2015 in Manila, Philippines.
Listening to Mr. Stallman speak is like sitting in my computer 101 class. A lot can be said about what he said, but for me, his talk is not only informing about the basics, but it imparts and emphasises the value of "freedom" and a call to everyone to exercise "collective control" over our computing environment - programmer or not.
It is not a smear campaign against brands, but is simply saying: We know what you're doing and you must stop and give us back our right to control our use of technology and our right to privacy.
(Huge thanks for this video to Hamada Tadahisa from JCA-NET/JCafe)
Some snippets of things I heard and learned
A call to schools to teach free software. Teaching proprietary software is implanting dependence, which runs counter to the social mission of schools. Teaching proprietary software is like teaching kids to smoke.
What do malicious proprietary software/hardware do?
| Proprietary software/hardware | Spy functionality | Digital handcuffs (aka Digital Restrictions Management) | Backdoors | Censorship |
| Microsoft Windows | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Apple Mac OS | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| iOS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ (deletes programs) | ✔ (censors application) |
| Google Android | ✔ (force installs or deletes applications) | |||
| Adobe Flashplayer (gratis but it is not free) | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Angry Birds | ✔ (sends geolocation to companies) | |||
| Amazon | ✔ | ✔ (stops people from sharing or selling books they already paid for) | ✔ (backdoor for deleting books) | |
| Smart phones | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Uber | ✔ |
GNU is the name of an adorable animal in Africa and is a geeky recursive name of a free Unix-like operating system: "GNU is Not Unix."
If you are a user of a free Unix-like system call it GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux not only Linux. Check GNU/Linux system distributions at www.gnu.org/distros
How to help the free software movement
- Write free software if you are a programmer.
- Organise a campaign for free software.
- Persuade schools and governments to move to free software.
- Help other users shift to using free software.
- Say "free software", not open-source software, to emphasise that the free software movement is about freedom and not just free (as in gratis).
GNU privacy guard (https://www.gnupg.org/) allows computer users to encypt data or emails you send over the internet.
F-Droid (https://f-droid.org) source for free software for the Android platform.
GNU Social (https://gnu.io/) peer-to-peer social network, an alternative to Facebook.
Lastly, I love Ubuntu because it brought the GNU/Linux system closer to computer users, but I urge Ubuntu to not take the same path of proprietary software of spying on their users and forming alliances with systems that don't promote freedom.