Translation of an article by Richard Stallman about Bill Gates leaving Microsoft.
Below is a translation of the article “It's not the Gates, it's the bars” , written by Richard Stallman, Founder of the Free Software Foundation (Free Software Foundation), after Bill Gates left Microsoft for a wider audience of the bbc.com news publication.
Attracting so much attention to the retirement of Bill Gates does not make sense. What is really important is something else, it is not Gates, and not Microsoft, you need to pay attention to the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.
This statement may surprise you, since most people interested in computers have warm feelings for Microsoft. Businessmen and politicians tamed by them admire the company's success in building an empire that affects so many computer users.
Many outside the computer world put in the merits of Microsoft the things that the company just skillfully used, such as cheaper and increased productivity of computers, and the creation of a convenient graphical user interface.
')
Gates' charitable activities, his donations for the development of medicine in the poor countries of the world, also won the favor of some people. And the Los Angeles Times reported that its fund spends only five to ten percent of Gates' funds annually, and invests the rest - sometimes in companies that cause environmental degradation and the occurrence of diseases in the same poor countries.
But there are many such computer scientists who hate Gates and Microsoft. And they have reasons.
Bribe.
Microsoft systematically violates antitrust laws, for which it has already been convicted three times. George W. Bush, who released the company off the hook of justice after the second conviction in the United States, was invited to Microsoft headquarters to receive funds for his election campaign for two thousand years.
Many users hate the so-called “Microsoft taxes”, retail contracts for which users have to pay for Windows on a computer, even if they do not use it (Windows). In some countries, you can still get compensation, but for this you need to make a lot of effort.
There is also such a thing as Digital Restrictions Management: software features created to restrict free user access to their own files. Increased user restrictions seem to be major innovations in Vista.
Free incompatibilities.
As a free bonus, all sorts of incompatibilities and obstacles for interaction with third-party programs are attached. That is why the European Union has demanded that Microsoft publish interface specifications. This year, Microsoft pushed its people into national standards committees to purchase the approval of its cumbersome, unrealizable and patented “open standard” for documents at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Now the European Union is investigating this matter.
Of course, no one will tolerate such antics, but these are not isolated or random events. These are systematic symptoms of a big mistake that most people cannot recognize: Proprietary Software.
Microsoft programs are distributed under licenses that divide people and make them helpless. Users are divided because they are prohibited from sharing copies with anyone. Users are helpless because they do not have source codes that programmers could read and change. If you are a programmer and you want to change something in the program for yourself or for someone else, you cannot do it. If you are a representative of a business and you want to pay a programmer to finalize the program so that it fits better with your requirements, you cannot do this. And if you copy the program to share with a friend, which is essentially a simple manifestation of good neighborliness, you will be called a pirate.
Unfair system.
Microsoft wants to make us believe that helping your neighbor is akin to capturing ships.
The most important thing Microsoft has done is to promote this unfair social system.
Gates is personally responsible for this, the reason for which is his notorious “open letter”, which condemned the exchange of copies of programs between microcomputer users.
In fact, it (the letter) said: “If you do not let me keep you divided and helpless, I will not write programs, and you will not have any programs. Submit to me or lose! ”
Change the system.
But Gates has not invented proprietary software alone; thousands of other companies are doing the same. And this is wrong, whoever does this. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and others offer you programs that give them power over you. And the change of company names in this case does not matter.
This is what the free software movement is for. Free means Free: we write and release software that users are free to distribute and change.
We do this systematically, for the sake of freedom; some of us are even paid for it, many work as volunteers. And we already have ready free operating systems, including GNU / Linux.
Our goal: to provide a full range of useful free programs so that no computer user will be tempted to give up their freedom to receive any programs.
In 1984, when I started the Free Software movement, I was hardly aware of the meaning of Gates' letter. But I heard similar opinions from others, and I had an answer for them: “If your programs will make us divided and helpless, please do not write them. We would be better off without them. We will find other ways to use our computers, and preserve our freedom. ”
In 1992, when the GNU operating system completed its kernel, Linux, you had to be a wizard to use it. Today, the GNU / Linux operating system is user-friendly: in Spain and India it is the standard in schools. Tens of millions use it worldwide. You can use it too.
Gates may have gone, but the walls and borders of proprietary software that he helped create were still there.
Their removal depends on us.
Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation. You are free to copy and distribute this article under a Creative Commons Noderivs license.
Original source
Attracting so much attention to the retirement of Bill Gates does not make sense. What is really important is something else, it is not Gates, and not Microsoft, you need to pay attention to the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.
This statement may surprise you, since most people interested in computers have warm feelings for Microsoft. Businessmen and politicians tamed by them admire the company's success in building an empire that affects so many computer users.
Many outside the computer world put in the merits of Microsoft the things that the company just skillfully used, such as cheaper and increased productivity of computers, and the creation of a convenient graphical user interface.
')
Gates' charitable activities, his donations for the development of medicine in the poor countries of the world, also won the favor of some people. And the Los Angeles Times reported that its fund spends only five to ten percent of Gates' funds annually, and invests the rest - sometimes in companies that cause environmental degradation and the occurrence of diseases in the same poor countries.
But there are many such computer scientists who hate Gates and Microsoft. And they have reasons.
Bribe.
Microsoft systematically violates antitrust laws, for which it has already been convicted three times. George W. Bush, who released the company off the hook of justice after the second conviction in the United States, was invited to Microsoft headquarters to receive funds for his election campaign for two thousand years.
Many users hate the so-called “Microsoft taxes”, retail contracts for which users have to pay for Windows on a computer, even if they do not use it (Windows). In some countries, you can still get compensation, but for this you need to make a lot of effort.
There is also such a thing as Digital Restrictions Management: software features created to restrict free user access to their own files. Increased user restrictions seem to be major innovations in Vista.
Free incompatibilities.
As a free bonus, all sorts of incompatibilities and obstacles for interaction with third-party programs are attached. That is why the European Union has demanded that Microsoft publish interface specifications. This year, Microsoft pushed its people into national standards committees to purchase the approval of its cumbersome, unrealizable and patented “open standard” for documents at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Now the European Union is investigating this matter.
Of course, no one will tolerate such antics, but these are not isolated or random events. These are systematic symptoms of a big mistake that most people cannot recognize: Proprietary Software.
Microsoft programs are distributed under licenses that divide people and make them helpless. Users are divided because they are prohibited from sharing copies with anyone. Users are helpless because they do not have source codes that programmers could read and change. If you are a programmer and you want to change something in the program for yourself or for someone else, you cannot do it. If you are a representative of a business and you want to pay a programmer to finalize the program so that it fits better with your requirements, you cannot do this. And if you copy the program to share with a friend, which is essentially a simple manifestation of good neighborliness, you will be called a pirate.
Unfair system.
Microsoft wants to make us believe that helping your neighbor is akin to capturing ships.
The most important thing Microsoft has done is to promote this unfair social system.
Gates is personally responsible for this, the reason for which is his notorious “open letter”, which condemned the exchange of copies of programs between microcomputer users.
In fact, it (the letter) said: “If you do not let me keep you divided and helpless, I will not write programs, and you will not have any programs. Submit to me or lose! ”
Change the system.
But Gates has not invented proprietary software alone; thousands of other companies are doing the same. And this is wrong, whoever does this. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and others offer you programs that give them power over you. And the change of company names in this case does not matter.
This is what the free software movement is for. Free means Free: we write and release software that users are free to distribute and change.
We do this systematically, for the sake of freedom; some of us are even paid for it, many work as volunteers. And we already have ready free operating systems, including GNU / Linux.
Our goal: to provide a full range of useful free programs so that no computer user will be tempted to give up their freedom to receive any programs.
In 1984, when I started the Free Software movement, I was hardly aware of the meaning of Gates' letter. But I heard similar opinions from others, and I had an answer for them: “If your programs will make us divided and helpless, please do not write them. We would be better off without them. We will find other ways to use our computers, and preserve our freedom. ”
In 1992, when the GNU operating system completed its kernel, Linux, you had to be a wizard to use it. Today, the GNU / Linux operating system is user-friendly: in Spain and India it is the standard in schools. Tens of millions use it worldwide. You can use it too.
Gates may have gone, but the walls and borders of proprietary software that he helped create were still there.
Their removal depends on us.
Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free Software Foundation. You are free to copy and distribute this article under a Creative Commons Noderivs license.
Original source
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/29210/
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