Richard Stallman on the 25th anniversary of GNU, Google Chrome, distribution of proprietary software pre-installed by GNU / Linux on a PC, NDA, OLPC XO
In: Mr. Stallman, the GNU project is 25 years old. Our readers mostly know his story . You wrote: "The free world is a new continent in cyberspace." Could you imagine in 1983 that this continent will grow so much? What are the most important goals of the Free Software movement today?
RS: In 1983, I did not try to imagine what would happen after the completion of the GNU system. I thought carefully about the main obstacles in developing the system, but I did not try to anticipate what would happen after, such as those that would cause us, producing proprietary software, or that we would influence the laws of some countries. I also never imagined that someone else would add the last part and most would give all the laurels to him. Today, GNU / Linux is an absolutely free operating system, but there are thousands of different “distributions” of GNU / Linux, and most of them are not free: they include or offer non-free software to people. As a result, most GNU / Linux users do not fully live in the free world. Most of them do not try to get complete freedom, and do not even know that it exists - no one told them about it. For this reason, most GNU / Linux conversations are not freedom talks. Corporations involved in working with GNU / Linux prefer to talk about practical benefits, but not about ethics. Many of them use the term “open source”, which is represented by avoiding the problems of the freedom of users. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html )
Q: Some fans of GNU / Linux and free software believe that the distribution of illegal copies of proprietary software (which is widespread in our country, Italy) (and in ours, Russia - interpreter) hinders the distribution of free software. Therefore, when the police punish users of unlicensed software, fans rejoice. They think: “Aha, now users of cracked Windows will install free software”. Are these fans right?
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RS: Tactically, their conclusions are correct: if it were harder to copy Windows, it would be harder to use, and the price would add users of GNU / Linux and other free systems. If increasing the use of such systems would be our ultimate goal, it would be logical to rejoice in the repression for distributing non-free software. But such thoughts are immoral. But we should not rejoice at the act of repression, even if we believe that this will give the opposite result and people will rebel. The basic idea of ​​the free software movement is that barriers to the distribution and exchange of software are unfair. Kogad police punishes people for spreading - this is an act of injustice. We should not consider it right! If you succeed in copying Windows this does not mean that it becomes free. You don't have source codes, and you cannot change anything in it. You cannot get rid of its malicious features. (We are aware of the observation, restriction of users, and even backdoors, as well as even more, which we do not know.) We should not rejoice at the repression, but we can talk about them. When the police punish someone for distributing, we need to tell people: “Watch out — if you use unlicensed copies of Windows, the badass from Mcrosoft can catch you and punish you. Run away from Windows, run away from MacOS, run away from non-free software and join us in the Free World. ”
Q: A few days ago, Google released the Google Chrome web browser. Its source codes are free [ here is the license agreement ], but the binaries are under a restrictive license. Electronic Frontier Foundation talked about the threat of privacy when using Chrome. What is your opinion?
RS: The license for these binaries is unacceptable for several reasons. In fact, it says that you give Google the right to change your software and are required to agree with any changes they decide to make. This is aimed at banning reverse engineering (I don’t know how to adequately translate this term - comment of the translator). It also uses misleading and biased propaganda of the term “intellectual property”. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html why this theme should never be used.) You should never agree to such conditions. Google follows the steps of Firefox. Firefox does the same thing since its inception: the source code is free, but the binaries are distributed under the license of the Mozilla Foundation, which contains an unacceptable EULA (End User User License Agreement).
Q: Will GNU release a fully free browser based on chromium.org source codes? (like IceCat for example, based on Mozilla Firefox code) And if not, do you think that a completely free version of Chrome would be good?
RS: I hope someone will distribute free binaries compiled from Chrome source codes. People have been doing this for years with Firefox. You don't have to be a GNU project for this. The reason we developed GNU IceCat is more specific. Free Firefox options, such as IceWeasel and BurningDog, are already avoiding the EULA for Firefox. But Firefox has another problem: it offers to install non-free plugins. Our principles tell us that we should not offer or recommend proprietary software. We developed IceCat to offer only free plugins not to mention non-free. I don’t know if Chrome has a similar problem.
Q: Google seems to be a two-faced company. It helps the community and free software developers (Google code, donations, etc.), but does not approve of the GNU Affero GPL and uses agreements for end users who have privacy issues. What is your attitude towards Google?
RS: Google does good things, neutral and bad. Google distributes non-free software, including the Google Earth client and Javascript programs used for Google Docs and other services. This is definitely bad. I think that these manifestations should be judged separately from each other, due to the fact that the actions of Google and any other companies include both bad and good.
Q: Some hardware manufacturers are moving towards free drivers (for example, Atheros has “official” drivers for GNU / Linux). Is this a free software win?
RS: This is an important step forward. I do not know how much the free software movement is responsible for this.
Q: What do you think about the “Position Statement on Linux Kernel Modules” (referring to vendors of closed-source kernel modules condemning their actions; more details - translator), signed by several Linux kernel developers?
RS: I don’t know anything about it.
Q: What about non-disclosure agreements (NDA) for hardware? Can the driver developer sign the NDA on the hardware specification, if it (the agreement - a comment of the translator) allows it (the developer - the comment of the translator) to write free drivers?
RS: In this particular case, I think this is a small evil, in the case when releasing a free driver gives the public the necessary hardware information. As a result, a small evil is used to do good, which almost covers the consequences of evil.
Q: Some PC manufacturers sell their computers with GNU / Linux pre-installed. It's good?
RS: This is a step in the right direction, but these pre-installed GNU / Linux are not free. They contain proprietary programs. Some systems do not even start until you agree to the terms of the EULA for non-free software. You do not have to agree with the EULA. It is much better to get a computer with pre-installed non-free GNU / Linux than with pre-installed non-free Windows or MacOS. But in general, you should not use a non-free system. Install absolutely free GNU / Linux on this computer and use it.
Q: We know that you are using OLPC XO.
RS: XO was inconvenient for some reason, but I still started using it because it has a free BIOS. All other laptops are equipped with a proprietary BIOS, and I decided to get away from it. But I was already finishing moving to CW, as Negroponte announced that the next CW version will be designed to work with Windows. As a result, I found it necessary to clarify to everyone who saw the XO that I do not support the OLPC project. The next month, I learned about the Chinese company Lemote, which manufactures computers without non-free software (as far as we can judge), and which do not support Windows. So I use the Lemote computer. This is a prototype, and it has some flaws, but I'm not ashamed to promote it.
Q: Some of them, such as Dell or Asus, offered users to “upgrade” to MS Windows XP ...
RS: Did they really say that? OLPC will also be easy to upgrade to Windows. I assume that Microsoft will make copies available to children, for installation on their CW.
Q: And the last question. It is technical, but a little philosophical. I tried to remove some GNU components from my GNU / Linux. This turned out to be a very bad idea! For example, deleting glibc (aka libc6) is more dstructive than "rm -rf /".
RS: This is an exaggeration: if you delete all the files on your computer, then glibc will be one of these files.
Q: Good. But if I remove glibc by the package manager (ART), the whole system will be removed, because all the packages (except for a few non-software packages) depend on glibc, because this is the main library of GNU / * systems, just like libc is the main library on other Unix systems. Because glibc is the main component of the system, and glibc is GNU software, so I think GNU / Linux is the right name for both technical and historical reasons.
RS: I agree with this statement, but I would not base the whole argument on glibc. GNU / Linux has a large number of important GNU packages.
Q: In other words, GNU / Linux is a GNU system running on the Linux kernel. So?
RS: Basically. There are currently thousands of other programs contributed by thousands of developers, and I don’t want to downplay the importance of their contributions.
Q: So the question is: despite the evidence, why do some people disagree when you call the whole system “GNU / Linux”?
RS: It is not rational. People learn to call the Linux system, and build their picture of the system and its history based on that. This picture is wrong, but people cling to it and invent reasons to justify it. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html for a long list of the reasons people have invented and the answers.
© 2008 Guido Iodice - guiodic.wordpress.com
RS: In 1983, I did not try to imagine what would happen after the completion of the GNU system. I thought carefully about the main obstacles in developing the system, but I did not try to anticipate what would happen after, such as those that would cause us, producing proprietary software, or that we would influence the laws of some countries. I also never imagined that someone else would add the last part and most would give all the laurels to him. Today, GNU / Linux is an absolutely free operating system, but there are thousands of different “distributions” of GNU / Linux, and most of them are not free: they include or offer non-free software to people. As a result, most GNU / Linux users do not fully live in the free world. Most of them do not try to get complete freedom, and do not even know that it exists - no one told them about it. For this reason, most GNU / Linux conversations are not freedom talks. Corporations involved in working with GNU / Linux prefer to talk about practical benefits, but not about ethics. Many of them use the term “open source”, which is represented by avoiding the problems of the freedom of users. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html )
Q: Some fans of GNU / Linux and free software believe that the distribution of illegal copies of proprietary software (which is widespread in our country, Italy) (and in ours, Russia - interpreter) hinders the distribution of free software. Therefore, when the police punish users of unlicensed software, fans rejoice. They think: “Aha, now users of cracked Windows will install free software”. Are these fans right?
')
RS: Tactically, their conclusions are correct: if it were harder to copy Windows, it would be harder to use, and the price would add users of GNU / Linux and other free systems. If increasing the use of such systems would be our ultimate goal, it would be logical to rejoice in the repression for distributing non-free software. But such thoughts are immoral. But we should not rejoice at the act of repression, even if we believe that this will give the opposite result and people will rebel. The basic idea of ​​the free software movement is that barriers to the distribution and exchange of software are unfair. Kogad police punishes people for spreading - this is an act of injustice. We should not consider it right! If you succeed in copying Windows this does not mean that it becomes free. You don't have source codes, and you cannot change anything in it. You cannot get rid of its malicious features. (We are aware of the observation, restriction of users, and even backdoors, as well as even more, which we do not know.) We should not rejoice at the repression, but we can talk about them. When the police punish someone for distributing, we need to tell people: “Watch out — if you use unlicensed copies of Windows, the badass from Mcrosoft can catch you and punish you. Run away from Windows, run away from MacOS, run away from non-free software and join us in the Free World. ”
Q: A few days ago, Google released the Google Chrome web browser. Its source codes are free [ here is the license agreement ], but the binaries are under a restrictive license. Electronic Frontier Foundation talked about the threat of privacy when using Chrome. What is your opinion?
RS: The license for these binaries is unacceptable for several reasons. In fact, it says that you give Google the right to change your software and are required to agree with any changes they decide to make. This is aimed at banning reverse engineering (I don’t know how to adequately translate this term - comment of the translator). It also uses misleading and biased propaganda of the term “intellectual property”. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html why this theme should never be used.) You should never agree to such conditions. Google follows the steps of Firefox. Firefox does the same thing since its inception: the source code is free, but the binaries are distributed under the license of the Mozilla Foundation, which contains an unacceptable EULA (End User User License Agreement).
Q: Will GNU release a fully free browser based on chromium.org source codes? (like IceCat for example, based on Mozilla Firefox code) And if not, do you think that a completely free version of Chrome would be good?
RS: I hope someone will distribute free binaries compiled from Chrome source codes. People have been doing this for years with Firefox. You don't have to be a GNU project for this. The reason we developed GNU IceCat is more specific. Free Firefox options, such as IceWeasel and BurningDog, are already avoiding the EULA for Firefox. But Firefox has another problem: it offers to install non-free plugins. Our principles tell us that we should not offer or recommend proprietary software. We developed IceCat to offer only free plugins not to mention non-free. I don’t know if Chrome has a similar problem.
Q: Google seems to be a two-faced company. It helps the community and free software developers (Google code, donations, etc.), but does not approve of the GNU Affero GPL and uses agreements for end users who have privacy issues. What is your attitude towards Google?
RS: Google does good things, neutral and bad. Google distributes non-free software, including the Google Earth client and Javascript programs used for Google Docs and other services. This is definitely bad. I think that these manifestations should be judged separately from each other, due to the fact that the actions of Google and any other companies include both bad and good.
Q: Some hardware manufacturers are moving towards free drivers (for example, Atheros has “official” drivers for GNU / Linux). Is this a free software win?
RS: This is an important step forward. I do not know how much the free software movement is responsible for this.
Q: What do you think about the “Position Statement on Linux Kernel Modules” (referring to vendors of closed-source kernel modules condemning their actions; more details - translator), signed by several Linux kernel developers?
RS: I don’t know anything about it.
Q: What about non-disclosure agreements (NDA) for hardware? Can the driver developer sign the NDA on the hardware specification, if it (the agreement - a comment of the translator) allows it (the developer - the comment of the translator) to write free drivers?
RS: In this particular case, I think this is a small evil, in the case when releasing a free driver gives the public the necessary hardware information. As a result, a small evil is used to do good, which almost covers the consequences of evil.
Q: Some PC manufacturers sell their computers with GNU / Linux pre-installed. It's good?
RS: This is a step in the right direction, but these pre-installed GNU / Linux are not free. They contain proprietary programs. Some systems do not even start until you agree to the terms of the EULA for non-free software. You do not have to agree with the EULA. It is much better to get a computer with pre-installed non-free GNU / Linux than with pre-installed non-free Windows or MacOS. But in general, you should not use a non-free system. Install absolutely free GNU / Linux on this computer and use it.
Q: We know that you are using OLPC XO.
RS: XO was inconvenient for some reason, but I still started using it because it has a free BIOS. All other laptops are equipped with a proprietary BIOS, and I decided to get away from it. But I was already finishing moving to CW, as Negroponte announced that the next CW version will be designed to work with Windows. As a result, I found it necessary to clarify to everyone who saw the XO that I do not support the OLPC project. The next month, I learned about the Chinese company Lemote, which manufactures computers without non-free software (as far as we can judge), and which do not support Windows. So I use the Lemote computer. This is a prototype, and it has some flaws, but I'm not ashamed to promote it.
Q: Some of them, such as Dell or Asus, offered users to “upgrade” to MS Windows XP ...
RS: Did they really say that? OLPC will also be easy to upgrade to Windows. I assume that Microsoft will make copies available to children, for installation on their CW.
Q: And the last question. It is technical, but a little philosophical. I tried to remove some GNU components from my GNU / Linux. This turned out to be a very bad idea! For example, deleting glibc (aka libc6) is more dstructive than "rm -rf /".
RS: This is an exaggeration: if you delete all the files on your computer, then glibc will be one of these files.
Q: Good. But if I remove glibc by the package manager (ART), the whole system will be removed, because all the packages (except for a few non-software packages) depend on glibc, because this is the main library of GNU / * systems, just like libc is the main library on other Unix systems. Because glibc is the main component of the system, and glibc is GNU software, so I think GNU / Linux is the right name for both technical and historical reasons.
RS: I agree with this statement, but I would not base the whole argument on glibc. GNU / Linux has a large number of important GNU packages.
Q: In other words, GNU / Linux is a GNU system running on the Linux kernel. So?
RS: Basically. There are currently thousands of other programs contributed by thousands of developers, and I don’t want to downplay the importance of their contributions.
Q: So the question is: despite the evidence, why do some people disagree when you call the whole system “GNU / Linux”?
RS: It is not rational. People learn to call the Linux system, and build their picture of the system and its history based on that. This picture is wrong, but people cling to it and invent reasons to justify it. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html for a long list of the reasons people have invented and the answers.
© 2008 Guido Iodice - guiodic.wordpress.com
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/40857/
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