[en] FSFLA News - Issue #19

[Alexandre Oliva]

FSFLA News
Issue #19
February, 2007
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/139

1. Editorial: The fifth freedom
2. FSFLA Constitution draft
3. Other translations
4. Web site
5. Portuñol in the mailing lists
6. Board observers
7. GPLv3 draft 3
8. News and events
9. Help wanted


1. Editorial: The fifth freedom
===============================

As the ideals of Free Software gain wider acceptance, people who
resist them tend to rationalize the compromising of their own freedoms
on the grounds of freedom of choice, often posed as the fifth freedom.
When this freedom is used to justify the acceptance of proprietary
drivers [ULP], firmware [FPG], multimedia codecs [FPC] and web-based
applications [FSW], it might as well be stated as the freedom to
enslave oneself, but this wouldn't do it justice.  It's a much bigger
problem.

The Free Software movement was created with the goal of enabling users
to live their digital lives in freedom.  To this end, four freedoms
related with software were established [FSD]:

0: the freedom to run the software for any purpose;

1: the freedom to study the software and adapt it to your needs;

2: the freedom to distribute the software the way you received it;

3: the freedom to modify the software and share your modifications.

As long as all the software you run respects your four freedoms and
runs on computers you can control, you live in digital freedom.

However, whenever you choose to sacrifice any of these freedoms, you
are probably harming not only yourself, but your entire community.

Consider the consequences of buying hardware from a vendor that won't
offer Free Software drivers for Free Software operating systems, or
won't even share specifications for others to develop Free Software
drivers.  When you give the vendor money and marketshare, you
strengthen its position.  But you also divide our community, as some
of us will stand firm and reject such hardware, while you give in.

Proprietary firmware poses a very similar problem.  There's nothing in
the Free Software definition that limits its scope to software that
runs on the main processors of a computer.  Unfortunately, more and
more hardware components require such non-Free Software to be loaded
onto them every time the computer boots up.  When you purchase such
components, you take bargaining power away from our community, and
hand it to the vendor.

When an operating system distributor arranges for its system to work
seamlessly with components that require non-Free drivers or firmware,
many users don't even realize they are being deprived of their
freedoms before it's too late.  As they perceive that the combination
of hardware and operating system "just works", and recommend it to
their friends, the hardware and operating system distributors that do
not respect their users' freedoms gain further power.  Meanwhile, the
operating system distributors who remain committed to Free Software
often take the blame for their similar system not working out of the
box, on such freedom-deprived hardware.

Codecs are more perverse in that they rely not only on copyright and
secrecy, but also on patent law, to restrict what users can do, and
they're often used to implement DRM (Digital Restrictions Management).
On the good side, software patents are not allowed in most countries,
which enables reverse-engineering and Free Software implementations of
most such formats.  These free implementations have been prohibited in
the USA, the European Union and some other countries, and that keeps
them out of most major Free Software distributions.  Accepting DRMed
formats and non-Free codecs in order to enjoy artistic and technical
works strengthens the proponents of such formats, even when you use
only Free Software to do so.  Even if you don't pay a fee to enjoy the
works, the encoding often involves paying copyright or software patent
licensing fees.

Web applications are different in that they take freedom away from the
user without any unethical or immoral acts by the software "provider",
even when the applications are Free Software.  Making private changes
is one of the core freedoms we fight for, and it's arguable whether
enabling third parties to run software through a web server makes such
software no longer private.  For sure, users should not expect to be
entitled to modify the copy of the software that runs on the server.

It is desirable, however, for users to be entitled to download their
own data from the server, and to obtain a copy of the entire program,
so as to keep control of their digital lives, by enjoying the freedoms
to modify the software locally, and to run it for any purpose.  When
you use web applications that take your digital freedom away from you,
locking you in by means of your data or software functionality, you
offer positive feedback to such behavior and strengthen the provider,
at the expense of your own data and freedom.  We urge users to resist
the temptation to use web applications to do their own personal
computations.

Trading freedom for short-term convenience is most often a bad deal in
the long term.  Of course we can and should offer convenience to users
[UTU,GNS], but only as long as this doesn't harm our ultimate goal of
freedom.

Whenever someone draws a plan that involves sacrificing some freedom
now to gain more freedom later, he'd better be sure the goal is
achievable.  For example, it was necessary to use non-Free Software to
bootstrap the GNU Operating System.  The sacrifice would unmistakably
lead to more freedom, since the non-Free Software was used only to
develop its own replacement [LMI].

But what to say of the argument that we need a critical mass of users
to become relevant to hardware manufacturers and media distributors,
such that they will respect our freedoms, and so we need to sacrifice
our freedoms now to lure more users into our camp using proprietary
software as the bait [WD2]?

Quite often, supporters of such arguments lose sight of the ultimate
goal, aiming at popularity rather than freedom.  Although the argument
cited above does not lose sight of the goal of freedom, it fails to
draw a clear and safe path from critical mass to freedom [BFS].

The flaw in the argument is the assumption that the users lured in
with convenience as the bait would give us leverage to obtain more
freedom.  Why would they?  The convenience afforded by non-Free
drivers, firmware and codecs would grow our community with people who
don't share our values and goals.  If these people were not willing to
trade convenience for freedom before, why would they stand by our side
when we reached critical mass and demanded our freedoms back?

Those who won't take part in rejecting hardware, DRMed works and
non-Free Software for the sake of freedom today would probably remain
so in the future, unless they learn to appreciate the value of
freedom.  But if more and more people in the community are willing to
sacrifice freedom and not even mention it for the sake of growing the
community faster, how are the new users going to learn about freedom?
As the voices for freedom get dilluted in a larger but weaker
community, freedoms may actually be eroded, as vendors who now respect
them, because of the strong voices for freedom, cease to do so as the
same voices get lost in the noise.

While it's true that, by giving up freedom, one shoots one's own foot,
shrapnel spreads out and hurts our whole community.  Instead of trying
to rationalize the acceptance of non-Free Software as a good thing, we
must keep on doing all we can to teach more Free Software users to
appreciate it for the freedom it gives them, because only then will
they stand up for freedom with us.

There's no doubt that freedom of choice can be beneficial, but is it
not wise to sacrifice other freedoms for some immediate convenience,
when you know that this will cause your community to end up without
freedom of choice, without convenience, and without the other
freedoms.  Your choices can enslave yourself and your entire
community.  Choose wisely.


[ULP] http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/licensing, under Documentation,
Firmware and Drivers

[FPG] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines, under Binary
Firmware

[FPC] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070115-8624.html

[FSW] http://wiki.freaks-unidos.net/weblogs/azul/free-software-and-the-web

[FSD] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

[UTU] http://www.ututo.org (in Spanish)

[GNS] http://www.gnewsense.org

[LMI] http://www.linux-mag.com/id/255

[WD2] http://catb.org/~esr/writings/world-domination/world-domination-201.html

[BSF] http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-01-12-019-35-OP-SW


2. FSFLA Constitution draft
===========================

As promised in the latest newsletter, we've published our draft
constitution at http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/134, for public
comments.  Please send your feedback to discusion at fsfla.org and help
us translate it at http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/Constitution.


3. Other translations
=====================

We have a number of other ongoing translations at
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/Traductores (mostly in Spanish):

* an article on GPLv3
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/GPLv3SnowWhite

* Richard Stallman's speech in Zagreb, Croatia in 2006
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/RMSZagreb06

* Eben Moglen's keynote speech at the Plone Conference 06
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/EbenMoglenPlone06

* an article on DRM
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/DefectisRepletaMachina

* an article on the Brazilian constitutional preference for Free
Software
http://wiki.fsfla.org/wiki/index.php/SL_Brasil_Ley_y_Constitucion

with probably more to come.


4. Web site
===========

Speaking of the Wiki, we're considering a switch from Drupal and
MediaWiki to the Latin-American svnwiki.  Alejandro Forero Cuervo, the
svnwiki development lead, has helped us set it up for testing.  You're
welcome to experiment with it at http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki.

We thank Alejo, Exal Carrillo and Eder Marques for offering to help us
maintain our web site.  If you'd like to join them, or just offer
comments about svnwiki or our site, send e-mail to sitio at fsfla.org.


5. Portuñol in the mailing lists
================================

You may have noticed that our mailing list software now offers
Portuñol as one of the language options, and that's the default
language for all of our mailing lists.  If you look closely, you'll
see it's just the Spanish translation under another name, which is in
line with the fact that it appears to be far easier for Portuguese
speakers to understand and pretend to write in Spanish than it is for
Spanish speakers to do so with Portuguese.

When you participate in our lists, please make an effort to make it
easier for other participants to understand you, avoiding Spanish and
Portuguese words, constructs and phrases that might be difficult for
non-native speakers to understand.


6. Board observers
==================

Niibe Yutaka, from the Free Software Initiative Japan, and
G. Nagarjuna, from the Free Software Foundation India, have kindly
agreed to become observers of our board, in response to our effort
to strengthen our relationship with other FSFes and nearly-FSF
organizations such as FSIJ.  Niibe-san and Nagarjuna join in this role
Richard Stallman, from the original FSF, and Georg Greve, from FSF
Europe.

It is also our pleasure to announce that Alejandro Forero Cuervo, a
very active Latin American Free Software developer and advocate,
original organizer of FLISOL and co-founder of Colibrí, a Colombian
Free Software users community, has also honored us by accepting the
role of board observer.


7. GPLv3 draft 3
================

The third draft of GPLv3 is expected to be published around the time
this newsletter goes out.  Keep an eye on http://gplv3.fsf.org/, read
the drafts and submit your comments, such that they can be taken into
account for the final release.  Watch our translators web page for
translations of the draft as well.  This is going to be the last
draft, and the release won't take long, so don't miss this last
opportunity to participate in the first major Free Software license
developed under a Free Software development model.


8. News and events
==================

Alexandre Oliva spoke about Free Software and DRM at the National
Digital Inclusion Seminar promoted by the National Students Union in
Rio de Janeiro on January 30, 2007.

He was invited to the first meeting towards forming the Free Knowledge
Network organization in Brazil.  The meeting is scheduled to take
place in São Paulo in early February, 2007.


We take this opportunity to apologize for the omission, in the Spanish
translation of our December/2006 newsletter, of Richard Stallman's
speeches in Colombia and Ecuador early that month.  It was a
translation error that unfortunately went unnoticed for longer than
one month.  Alexandre Oliva publicly apologizes for his mistake.


9. Help wanted
==============

FSFLA depends on voluntary work from Free Software enthusiasts.  If
you can and want to help, please join our workgroups listed at
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/121.  If you'd prefer to work on
another workgroup we haven't set up yet, please bring it up at
discusion at fsfla.org.


Copyright 2007 FSFLA

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
entire document without royalty provided the copyright notice, the
document's official URL, and this permission notice are preserved.

Permission is also granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
individual sections of this document without royalty provided the
copyright notice and the permission notice above are preserved, and
the document's official URL is preserved or replaced by the individual
section's official URL.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva