free-software-to-save-the-world.md 11KB
title: Free software to save the world
date:
description:
tags: [ 'free', 'software', 'foss', 'ethics' ]
draft: true
During the past few years, I've been focused on free software a lot. At first, it seemed to me like a weird thing for hippies and hipsters (which it still is for most people, let's not deny it).
A couple of years later (which is around now), I've became quite involved in free software communities. I have a few diverse contributions to my counter, and I'm currently working at CozyCloud, after a quick (but intense) internship at Matrix.org (as you might have guessed, both work on free software projects). And this world doesn't cease to amaze me.
Disclaimer: In this post, I'll share my opinion and experience on free software. I'm not stating it as an absolute truth, and you're absolutely free to disagree with it. I'd even be glad to discuss it if that's the case, either on Twitter or by email at blog@brendanabolivier.com.
Now I guess some readers don't know what free software is, or might not understand some expressions I'll be using in this post (plus I'm really stubborn in my way to use them, ask my flatmate). So here's a quick recap. Please note that I'll be talking about free software in this post, but most of my points also applies to resources (images, videos, documentation, etc.) published in the same terms as free software.
Terminology
- Free software: The "free" in "free software" is the same one as in "freedom". Free software is software distributed under a free license, which is a license allowing the software's user to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve it.
- Open-source software: There's a lot of discussion on the meaning of this expression. For some it's the same as free software, for others it's not. I call "open-source software" all software that isn't distributed a free license but allows the public access to its source code. Also called "OSS".
- FOSS: An acronym meaning "Free and Open-Source Software".
- Proprietary software: Usually refers to software that isn't free.
A short history of free software
There was a time, at the dawn of programming, where programmers and hackers, researchers and curious people, were all living and working in harmony (kind of). Everyone was discovering the powers of a computer and sharing their discoveries and source codes with the others.
In the early 80s, however, this hacker culture was in decline, as programmers and manufacturers progressively stopped distributing the source code of their programs and started using copyright and restrictive software licenses.
Meanwhile, in a MIT lab, a grumpy hippie named Richard Matthew Stallman, still found of hacker ethic, struggles with the lab's printer. It has paper jam issues, and lacks some cool features Stallman hacked into the previous one. So he emails the printer's manufacturer, Xerox, asking for the source code so he could add his changes to it, which Xerox denied.
This made Stallman realise the hacker culture was disappearing, and made him realise he had to take actions before it was too late.
In 1983, Stallman creates the GNU project which aims at replacing the (mostly) proprietary Unix. Shortly after that, he even quits from the MIT to work full time on it. A couple of years later, he creates the Free Software Foundation with the mission to create a legal structure for free software.
These two projects will serve as the base of what free software is today, by providing the GNU licenses, which are a set of free licenses, and by creating the GNU/Linux operating system (which is often abbreviated as only "Linux"), built on top of the Linux kernel, and which is currently the most used operating system in the world.
Back to the present, free software are widely used all around the world, both by individuals and big corporations. For instance, I'm currently writing this post using Atom, while listening to some music in Rhythmbox or VLC and browsing the Web using Firefox and chatting with friends over Riot. On the other side of the screen, most websites I usually browse are using free software as their Web server, operating system, sometimes even as their content manager. Even this blog is powered by free software.
The culture of freedom
"But what exactly is free software", you might ask. As I mentioned above, a software is free when it gives freedom to its user. More precisely, it refers to four kind of freedom, as stated on the FSF website:
- The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
On top of framing a legal setting for free software by being enforced by the software's license, these four freedoms also set the ethical dimension of the free software culture. Really close to the hacker culture, it promotes both transparency and respect of the software's user.
And that's where free software differs from proprietary software: instead of forcing the user to only be a passive party to the software's life, it allows them to take an active part in it. The user can now know exactly what the software does and hack it, instead of enduring it as a closed and opaque box that only partly fits their needs.
This ethical dimension is really important to free software communities. Most even use them in their project's design and management. That's how you usually end up using free software when looking for avoiding mass surveillance or censorship, or why discussion around most of free software projects can be found on public mailing lists or IRC/Matrix/XMPP/etc. channels.
This second point also creates a unique relationship between the developer of a free software and its users. Instead of having to go through multiple layers of support/management/communication, a user can get in touch directly with the software's developer, which usually makes the software fit better with the people using it.
Another benefit of such a relationship is the feedback you get from your work. You're not getting congratulations from managers happy because you helped make some money come in, but you're getting thanks from users because your hard work allowed them access to service they didn't have before, or with better conditions. And both when I'm working on free software as my paid job and when I'm doing it on my free time, reading this kind of messages always warm my heart at a point I can't describe:
And while this culture of freedom, respect and transparency towards the user can be a constraint to some projects, some others are built from it. Having these obligations towards the product's end user is essential in projects orbiting around privacy or security: users don't have to trust the developpers because they are told to, but users can trust the developpers because they see exactly what the software does. "We are not evil" is replaced with "We can't be evil". Because if the developpers drift away from their promises, users will be able to notice it and use something else instead, which would kill the project.
The professionals of free software
One very common idea about free software is that it's a somehow unstable thing developed by some hippies in a basement during their free time. But although this might have been true at some point of history, things have changed a bit since then.
As I mentioned earlier, free software is getting a bigger and bigger place on our computers or servers. This also means that the allocated ressources to the development of such software has also gone bigger and bigger, because the people doing it usually want to turn it into a paid job, and because the companies using it usually want to ensure the software will keep getting updates.
However, this goal can seem hard to achieve. How would you make money out of something anyone can access and use for free?
Several kind of structures and scenarios of people turning free software development into a paid job already exists. The most obvious case is using a non-profit foundation structure, which will employ people to work on free software. This is the case, for example, of the Mozilla Foundation, which develops Firefox and Thunderbird, or the Wikimedia Foundation, developping the software behind Wikipedia. These foundation usually live off donations from users or corporations, and promote their software as a solution to an ethical issue. To continue with the previous examples Firefox is introduced as a solution to mass surveillance and respectful browsing on the Web, and the Wikimedia Foundation works, (partly) by developping their software, towards providing free and reliable knowledge to the world.
Another kind of structure that can be found in the free software ecosystem is a company. Because of the changes in the software industry pushing developers towards not selling the software they've created, but rather selling their expertise to use, host or hack it, companies are now able to get some money in while working exclusively on free software. Some companies are selling hosting of their service, such as GitLab, others are selling corporate support for companies using their software like Matrix.org does. And it ususally works, because who can help you out with a piece of software, or host it for you, better than the people making it?
Last, but not least, a few projects are also lead by independant developers working as freelancers. Examples are way fewer than for the two first structures, but they do exist. Take a look, for example,