Comment Articles

Twenty years of free software: What now?

Richard Stallman

Published: 06 Jan 2004 10:55 GMT

It was twenty years ago on Monday that I quit my job at MIT to begin developing a free software operating system, GNU. While we have never released a complete GNU system suitable for production use, a variant of the GNU system is now used by tens of millions of people who mostly are not aware it is such. Free software does not mean "gratis"; it means that users are free to run the program, study the source code, change it, and redistribute it either with or without changes, either gratis or for a fee.

My hope was that a free operating system would open a path to escape forever from the system of subjugation which is proprietary software. I had experienced the ugliness of the way of life that non-free software imposes on its users, and I was determined to escape and give others a way to escape.

Non-free software carries with it an antisocial system that prohibits cooperation and community. You are typically unable to see the source code; you cannot tell what nasty tricks, or what foolish bugs, it might contain. If you don't like it, you are helpless to change it. Worst of all, you are forbidden to share it with anyone else. To prohibit sharing software is to cut the bonds of society.

Today we have a large community of users who run GNU, Linux and other free software. Thousands of people would like to extend this, and have adopted the goal of convincing more computer users to "use free software". But what does it mean to "use free software"? Does that mean escaping from proprietary software, or merely installing free programs alongside it? Are we aiming to lead people to freedom, or just introduce them to our work? In other words, are we working for freedom, or have we replaced that goal with the shallow goal of popularity?

It's easy to get in the habit of overlooking this distinction, because in many common situations it makes no difference. When you're trying to convince a person to try a free program, or to install the GNU/Linux operating system, either goal would lead to the same practical conduct. However, in other situations the two goals inspire very different actions.

For instance, what should we say when the non-free Invidious video driver, the non-free Prophecy database, or the non-free Indonesia language interpreter and libraries, is released in a version that runs on GNU/Linux? Should we thank the developers for this "support" for our system, or should we regard this non-free program like any other -- as an attractive nuisance, a temptation to accept bondage, a problem to be solved?