RMS interview (long)

Sat Apr 6 12:41:51 EST 2002

Hi guyZ,

Some food for thought, as always. 

I wonder how difficult a Speakup-enabled (or Speakup-like-enabled)
Hurd kernel would be? 

Interview with Richard M. Stallman

                                                          April 4th, 2002
                                                                J. Corbet

     The GNU manifesto states "An initial kernel exists but many more
     features are needed to emulate Unix." What was that kernel, and
     what happened to it? 

   It was called TRIX, and was developed by someone at MIT (I don't
   remember who). I think that I eventually concluded it was not really
   usable as a starting point. One factot was that it ran only on an
   obscure machine, and would have required porting before we could even
   try to develop it further.

     The GNU Project's kernel now, of course, is the Hurd; it is
     evidently getting close to ready for more widespread distribution.
     Free operating systems based on other kernels are now widely used;
     what will Hurd-based systems offer that will make them attractive
     relative to the others?

   The Hurd offers the power of a microkernel-and-servers architecture.
   For instance, you can run two copies of the Hurd at the same time,
   debug the new one using the old one, even gradually switch from one
   version to another. You can even use GDB to debug the file system
   while the system is running--thread-specific breakpoints allow you to
   debug the file system's activity for certain files, while the same
   file server runs normally when GDB opens the source files of the file
   system.

   These servers do not in general require special privileges. As an
   ordinary user you can write a new file system and attach it to a file
   name in your directory. Then anyone who accesses that file name talks
   to your file system. The file system can emulate the behavior of a
   single file, or the behavior of a directory.

   One user-level benefit is that a command analogous to `su' can give
   root privileges to your existing jobs, including your Emacs. Another
   command can take root privileges away again. So you don't have to
   start a separate Emacs under your `su', which lacks your usual buffers
   etc. You can also assume several user identities at once for access
   purposes, adding and deleting them at will.

   We hope to provide an extremely simple and convenient system for
   package installation and deinstallation, using specially written file
   systems for /bin and other such directories.

     The release of a Hurd-based system will, in a way, represent the
     achievement of the GNU project's goals, set almost twenty years
     ago. What comes next? Will the project go into a maintenance mode,
     or are there interesting new initiatives in the works?

   Our initial goal, a free Unix-like operating system, was achieved by
   the GNU/Linux system almost a decade ago--but just because a system is
   working, that doesn't mean it is finished. We have done a lot to
   improve GNU and GNU/Linux since then, such as developing GNOME,
   rewriting GNU libc to support GNU/Linux, and funding the start of
   Debian. More of this remains to be done: for instance, DotGNU aims to
   extend GNU facilities in a direction that many users are likely to
   want; GNU Classpath and GCJ are developing a free platform for running
   Java programs, while DotGNU is working to replace Microsoft.NET. The
   Trillium speech generation software has been donated to the FSF and is
   now being ported and improved under the GNU aegis.

   Beyond the operating system, we also hope to provide free application
   software for all the jobs users want. The point isn't that all these
   applications must be GNU programs; a good free program is sufficient
   for the job, no matter who developed it. Rather, our mission is to
   forward this development.
   "Our initial goal, a free Unix-like operating system, was achieved by
   the GNU/Linux system almost a decade ago--but just because a system is
   working, that doesn't mean it is finished."

     Also from the Manifesto: "Unix is not my ideal system, but it is
     not too bad." What is your ideal system at this point, and how do
     you see getting there? 

   I don't have grandiose ambitions in the area of technical changes. I
   would like to see the whole system made more coherent through use of
   Scheme as an extension language (supporting other popular scripting
   languages too by translating them into Scheme). I would like to see
   full and thorough support for internationalization.

   At a higher level, I would like to see all the activities and
   customizations that non-wizards might want to use available in GUI
   form.

     Is it your belief that "high-paying organizations" (i.e.
     proprietary software vendors) should be banned?

   I would not ban high salaries, but I think they should have a high tax
   bracket. As for making software proprietary, I really don't care
   whether it is legal as long as in practice it is rare enough to have
   no significant impact on society.

     Some companies have adopted a hybrid business model where
     proprietary software products are used to help fund free software
     development. In your view, is this an appropriate way to raise the
     money to pay for free software projects?

   Proprietary software is antisocial, so developing it is wrong. In most
   cases, the user of proprietary software is expected to promise not to
   share with anyone else. It's wrong to make that agreement, wrong to
   keep it if you have made it, and especially wrong to lure someone else
   into making such a promise. Using part of the proceeds of this
   antisocial activity for a worthy cause cannot justify it.

   We can easily identify the practical harm such companies do. When
   major institutions in our community develop non-free software, they
   tell the public that non-free software is ok. This weakens our
   community's resolve to maintain our freedom, and that weakness hurts
   our chances of surmounting each of the various obstacles that we face:
   hardware with secret specs, non-free tools and libraries such as Sun's
   Java platform, software patents, the DMCA, and the proposed SSSCA.
   When they make it tough to obtain free software for a certain job,
   will we persevere, or will we give in? Those who are willing to take
   the easy way out and use non-free software will not help us prevail.

   Often a change in a company's public message is the first sign we get
   that it is thinking of jettisoning its principles on this issue. The
   idea that free software has an ethical importance disappears, and
   often the term "free software" disappears as well. It is replaced by
   statements that appeal only to the practical convenience their
   software offers.

   The usual cause of this change is accepting outside investment from
   people who are not dedicated to free software. Many a free software
   company has been maimed or destroyed by a VC ambush, though I can't
   give you a body count. For instance, Cygnus Support was started with
   its founders' money, and was profitable and growing for several years
   as a free software company; then it accepted investment from people
   who did not care about free software, and they decided to start
   developing non-free programs. (We were lucky that Red Hat acquired
   Cygnus and rereleased them free software, but you can't count on being
   rescued that way.) Although Cygnus continued developing free software
   as well, it was no longer a free software company; our community had
   lost its biggest example of business success. If you are running a
   free software company, beware outside investors!

   In contrast, I think it is acceptable to do what MySQL AB and
   TrollTech do: release under the GPL, but sell alternative licenses
   permitting proprietary extensions to their code. My understanding is
   that all the code they release is available as free software, which
   means they do not develop any proprietary softwre; that's why their
   practice is acceptable. The FSF will never do that--we believe our
   terms should be the same for everyone, and we want to use the GPL to
   give others an incentive to develop additional free software. But what
   they do is much better than developing proprietary software.

     What system do you run on your desktop and/or laptop now? Who was
     its distributor? 

   I use Debian GNU/Linux.

     The large commercial tax programs require, for their production and
     maintenance, vast armies of lawyers and accountants to ensure that
     all the rules are followed. They also come with a warranty: if a
     bug in the program leads to tax penalties, the vendor will pay
     those penalties. It has said that this kind of software can never
     be free, since the users must pay for the lawyers, accountants, and
     warranty. In a society based on free software, how can such
     programs be developed and supported?

   If warranties are so important, the same people who now pay for the
   right to use the program (to get the warranty) might pay the same
   amount specifically for a warranty. The same company might thus
   develop the same program as free commercial software with a business
   model of selling a warranty for it.

   Alternatively, the IRS could release this software. Or it could
   provide a back end which does the calculations, so that others could
   develop interfaces for that back end, without risk that the
   calculations might go wrong.

     How will the FSF respond if the SSSCA becomes law in the U.S.?

   We are responding already--by helping to organize grass roots groups
   in several cities to oppose the proposed SSSCA and the existing DMCA.
   (I think they chose the unpronounceable new name CBDTPA on purpose to
   discourage people from talking about the bill, so we need not let them
   saddle us with it. Why let them make the rules?) Please visit
   digitalspeech.org if you want to help.

   As for what we will do if such a law is adopted, it depends on the
   details of the law actually passed, so I cannot say. In the worst
   case, we will depart the US, saying "We shall return," and fight for
   freedom in other countries.

   We think the SSSCA will be defeated; the bill is extreme. That's when
   the real battle will begin. The SSSCA is likely to be followed by a
   series of slightly weaker laws that will pretend to be "balanced" by
   comparison. We must use this occasion to build organizations to face
   the next wave of attacks. Whether they call it the SSSCA, or the
   CBDTPA, or the SS-SA, or the @%&#!A, we have to defeat it every time.

   The USA is not the only battleground: the Free Trade Agreement of the
   Americas (FTAA) may extend DMCA-style anti-circumvention provisions
   from the southern tip of Chile to the northern territories of
   Canada--that is what the US demands. If you live in the Americas,
   please work to oppose the FTAA, particularly this April when it is
   debated again. The immediate battle here is that the USA is pushing to
   accelerate adoption by 2003 when the current slate is for 2005. Let's
   at least try to keep the schedule for 2005 so we have more time to
   fight.

     There is, for example, some disagreement (among the copyright
     holders) over whether run-time loading of modules into the kernel,
     Linux, requires that the modules have a GPL-compatible license. As
     the creator of the GPL, do you feel that Linux kernel modules fall
     within the boundary?

   They clearly are covered by the GPL; modules for Linux are extensions
   of Linux, so under the GPL these modules must be free.

   However, anything the copyright holders of Linux give permission for
   in use of Linux is certainly permitted, regardless of what the GPL by
   itself would say. The license used on a program is legally a statement
   of what the copyright holders permit. Any statements they make that
   they permit this or that, once others rely on them, have the same
   legal force.

     How about MySQL AB's claim that some uses of the MySQL server over
     a network connection constitute a derived work?

   Progress Software put out a press release that suggested MySQL AB was
   making such a claim, but that was not so. The GPL violation involved
   static linking of non-free (at the time) code with the mySQL code and
   distributing the result as a single binary.

   As far as I know, the GPL violation by Progress involved static
   linking of MySQL with non-free code.

     Code can remain in active use far longer than many of us would
     expect. Is the prospect of GPL-licensed code moving into the public
     domain something to worry about?

   No. Even in 1997, copyright lasted a very long time. According to the
   laws in effect then, the early versions of GNU Emacs would go into the
   public domain 50 years after I die. So what? Newer versions of Emacs
   have major contributions by other people, most of them considerably
   younger.

     Do you see the (seemingly continuous) extension of copyright terms
     as a good thing for GPL-licensed software or not?

   I am surprised you would even entertain the notion that some minor
   secondary benefit could outweigh the great harm done by the Mickey
   Mouse Copyright Act. I supported the Eldred vs Reno case at the
   beginning, and still do.

     In an earlier message, you said: "People often describe our work as
     "open source", but that is actually the slogan of another movement
     which was formed specifically to reject our views." Can you please
     explain why you believe the OSI was formed for that purpose?

   Its founders said so, and if you compare www.opensource.org with the
   views of the free software movement in www.gnu.org/philosophy, you can
   see it for yourself. The free software movement is based on an ethical
   stance: that users are morally entitled to the freedom to share and
   change software, that non-free software is unethical and wrong. The
   open source movement rejects this basic view; it does not say or even
   hint that software should be free (or "open source"). It does not
   raise this as an ethical issue at all.

   Some say that omission is just a strategem, that "open source" is a
   "marketing campaign" for free software, but I believe the open source
   movement is sincere and I take it at its word. Some of the OSI's
   leaders have told me they really don't believe that software morally
   ought to be free. As for Linus Torvalds, who is regarded as an open
   source celebrity, he recently condemned all political ideals, saying
   that anyone who would do without a tempting non-free program for the
   sake of his freedom is "thinking with his gonads". And here I thought
   that gonads had to do with sex.

   For the open source movement, non-free software is a less than ideal
   solution to a problem. For the free software movement, non-free
   software is the problem, and replacing it with free software is the
   solution.

   This is not to say that the open source movement is evil. Nearly all
   open-source software is also free software; they have convinced many
   people and companies to develop free software, and that is a
   contribution to the free software community. However, while
   contributing to our community in that way, the open source movement
   weakens the community in another way: by spreading an attitude that is
   less than firm, they undermine our resolve to win and keep our
   freedom.

     Occasionally one hears rumors of work on version 3 of the GPL. Is
     there such an effort afoot? If so, what sort of changes to the GPL
     are anticipated? 

   We are working on GNU GPL version 3 now. The changes will only be in
   details, of course. Most are just clarifications, but one substantive
   change will make the GPL compatible with some additional free software
   licenses.

   Probably the most substantial change would [give a] program's
   developer a way to insist that an ASP running the program and offering
   access to the public must make the source code for the program
   available for public download. Some developers have been unwilling to
   release software under the GNU GPL without this provision.

     What, in your opinion, is the free software community's greatest
     accomplishment so far?

   The GNU/Linux system, and other free operating systems, make it
   possible to use a computer without proprietary software. That was our
   initial goal, and that is our major accomplishment.

   Now we have to defend this accomplishment, and extend it to the full
   range of software that users want.

     ...its biggest disappointment?

   Our greatest failure lies in the widespread practice of adding
   non-free software to the GNU/Linux system: device drivers, libraries,
   applications, or whatever. The result is backsliding to partly-free
   systems, which convey to the users and the public the short-term
   thinking that freedom and community are less important than getting
   some job done today.

     ...and what is the biggest threat to free software in the future,
     and what should we be doing about it?

   The biggest direct threats to free software are laws that prohibit
   release or use of free software for certain jobs.

   The DMCA has been used to prohibit free software for a narrow range of
   jobs which are, however, important to many users, such as reading an
   e-book or playing a DVD movie. Software patents, monopolies covering
   ideas that can be used in software, can prohibit free software in all
   areas. The proposed SSSCA, designed to ban all software inconvenient
   that the movie companies find inconvenient, could do even more harm.

   What we need to do about it is organize politically. We must all offer
   some of our precious time to defend our freedom from the SSSCA, and
   win back the freedom that the DMCA and software patents took from us.
   So please help to organize an anti-DMCA anti-SSSCA group in your area.
   Try to recruit people with experience from other grass-roots
   campaigns, and listen to their advice. Above all, recognize that this
   is more important than whatever technical job you are employed to do
   today. See digitalspeech.org for discussion groups and other
   information useful for organizing an effort in your area.

   At a deeper level, though, the biggest threat to the future of free
   software is the idea that non-free software is acceptable. When people
   adopt that view, it saps their determination; they are less likely to
   make an effort to protect and extend free software. This weakens our
   abiity to resist any external threat or solve any difficult problem.

-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3  | I choose you to take up all of my time.
Email: davros at ycardz.com | I choose you because you're funny and kind
                         | I want easy people from now on.
                         | --the Nields