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Transcriber: Translate TED
Reviewer: Ｖ字龍 N/A
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Free software is the first battle
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in the liberation of cyberspace.
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Who controls your computer?
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Is it you or is it some big company
that's really controlling it?
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What is a computer?
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A computer is a universal machine.
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It will do any computation you want it to
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because you give it a program that says
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what the computation is that you want.
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The computer only knows
how to get out an instruction and do it,
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and get out another
instruction and do it.
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The program has the instructions,
it says what to do.
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By writing the right program,
you can make it do anything.
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Well, almost anything.
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Who gives the instructions
to your computer?
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You might think it's
obeying your instructions
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when really it's obeying
somebody else first,
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and you only as much as
that company will let it listen to you.
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With software,
there are two possibilities:
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Either the users control the program,
or the program controls the users.
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It's inevitably one or the other.
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In order for the users
to control the program,
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they need the four essential freedoms.
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That's the definition of free software.
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Free software respects
the user's freedom and community.
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Now, we often call it "Libre"
using the French or Spanish word.
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Pronounce it as you like,
the point is that's what we mean.
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We don't mean it's gratis,
we're not talking about price.
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We're concerned with your freedom,
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and we sometimes say
"Free/Libre" to show that.
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Freedom zero is the freedom
to run the program
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as you wish for whatever purpose.
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Freedom one is the freedom to study
the source code of the program
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and change it, so it does
the computing you want it to do.
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But what is the source code?
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Every program typically
will have two forms.
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There's the form that you can read,
and you can understand
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if you know the programming language.
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That's the source.
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That's what programmers write and change.
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Then, there's the executable,
which is a bunch of numbers
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which even a programmer can't figure out.
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If all you get is the executable,
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it's a horrible pain in the neck
to the figure out what it does,
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and even harder to change it.
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So, to give you the real possibility
to study and change it,
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they've got to give you the source code.
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That's a requirement.
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With those two freedoms,
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each user separately can make a copy
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and start changing it
and make it do what she wants.
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That's individual control.
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But what if you're not a programmer?
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You look at the source code,
and you don't understand it.
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Individual control isn't enough.
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We also need collective control,
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which means any group of users
are free to work together
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to adapt the program to what they want.
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Of course, in the group,
some of them are programmers.
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They're the ones who
actually write the changes,
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but they're doing it as part of the group
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for what the group wants.
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Of course, the group
doesn't have to be everybody.
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Others can use it some other way.
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They're all free to do that.
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Collective control requires
two more essential freedoms.
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Freedom two is the freedom
to redistribute exact copies,
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to make the copies and then give them away
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or sell them when you wish.
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Freedom three is similar,
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but it's for your modified versions.
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You're free to make copies, and then
give them or sell them when you wish.
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If you do have these freedoms,
then it's free software,
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the users control the program.
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But if any of those freedoms is missing,
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then the users don't control the program.
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Instead, the program controls the users
and the developer controls the program.
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So, that means this program
is an instrument of unjust power
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for its developer over the users.
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That means the users don't have freedom,
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that's non‑free, proprietary software
which we've got to get rid of.
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When you've got proprietary software,
what happens?
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Sometimes, the program snoops on the user.
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Sometimes, it tracks the user.
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Sometimes, it restricts the user,
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and stops users from doing
what they want to do.
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You can see that the blue ray
is your enemy.
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[Laughter]
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Sometimes, the software
remotely deletes books
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as Amazon did with "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
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Sometimes, the developer compels users
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to install a harmful upgrade,
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by threatening to take away
other functionality
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if it's not installed, as Sony did.
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Sometimes, they can even forcibly change
the software at a distance
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as Microsoft can with Windows
through the universal back door.
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Sometimes, they even sabotage users,
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as Microsoft does when it tells
the NSA about bugs in Windows,
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so it can use them
to attack people's computers.
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What you get is basically,
with proprietary software,
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the owner has power over the users,
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and takes advantage of this power,
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putting in those various
malicious functionalities
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to hurt the users.
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Of course, they don't do this
because they're sadists;
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they're doing it just
for money, for greed.
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They have various ways
that they can profit
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from having this power over users,
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which does not make it
even the tiniest bit less evil.
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But they have no shame about it.
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They have conferences where
they talk about the latest ways
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they can take advantage of users
through the power they have.
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Basically, proprietary software,
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which is now for almost all of the users
of proprietary software,
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they're using proprietary malware.
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It's "software for suckers".
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How do you stop being the victim?
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Formerly, you had to stop using computers,
but not anymore.
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Now, you can come join us
in the free world that we've built.
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In 1983, I announced I would develop
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a completely free software
operating system called GNU.
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In 1992, we had it almost finished,
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but one piece was missing, the kernel.
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Linus Torvalds, in that year,
freed his kernel, Linux,
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which filled the last gap,
and gave us
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the first complete system
you could run on a PC: GNU/Linux.
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Unfortunately, having freedom at one point
doesn't guarantee you'll keep it.
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There are over a thousand
different variants of GNU/Linux.
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They're called distributions.
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A few of them are entirely free software;
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most of them have non‑free software added,
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because they're maintained by people
who aren't concerned about freedom.
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They'd rather add convenience --
but at the cost of freedom.
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So you have to check
which is a free distro.
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To keep your freedom,
sometimes requires a sacrifice,
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sometimes a big sacrifice,
as at Lexington.
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But in our campaign,
they tend to be little sacrifices.
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Anybody with a little bit of maturity
can make these sacrifices.
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For instance, you want applications,
but some of them are non‑free.
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If you want freedom,
you've got to do without them.
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There may be some inconveniences
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you have to suffer
for your freedom's sake.
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Then, many websites
send non‑free programs,
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written in JavaScript,
to the user's browser.
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If you don't want
to run non‑free programs,
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you should install LibreJS
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which blocks, keeps out,
non‑free JavaScript.
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Sometimes, servers will offer
to do your computing.
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They say, "Send us all your data."
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Obviously, for suckers.
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Then the server does the computing,
and sends you back the results.
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But you're not supposed
to think about what's happening,
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because it's a "cloud",
and you don't see what's going on.
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Well, you should look.
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It's service as a software substitute,
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and it takes away control
of your computing.
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A large fraction of
the world's web servers
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are running GNU/Linux
and other free software.
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But I think the most important
computers to put freedom in
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are your computers,
not companies' web servers.
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They deserve freedom, also.
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But above all, it's people
that deserve freedom.
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So we need to advance,
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and to do that,
we have to cross obstacles.
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One of them is there are big companies
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that make a lot of money
by having control over users.
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They don't want to let us advance.
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We have to overcome their opposition.
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Another is that the mainstream media
don't talk about free software.
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They have a term that they use
to bury these ethical issues.
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They say "open source" instead.
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Now, it talks about more
or less the same programs,
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but with different ideas.
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Where free software activists say,
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"This is a matter of right and wrong.
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Users deserve freedom.
We demand freedom."
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The people who say open source,
they don't want to say that.
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Instead, they say,
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"Let the users change
the software and redistribute it,
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and they'll make the code better.
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They'll fix some bugs."
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It may be true, but it's
a less important issue.
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If we want to keep our freedom,
we've got to talk about freedom.
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So say, "free software,"
and you're helping us every time.
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Another obstacle is that lots
of schools teach non‑free software,
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which is basically like teaching
the kids to smoke tobacco.
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It's implanting dependence,
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which is the opposite
of what schools should do.
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A school should prepare citizens to live
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in a strong, capable, independent,
cooperating and free society,
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which means, teaching
free software in the school.
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But there's another reason
to do that for education.
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Some kids want to become programmers,
they're curious.
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They want to know how the programs work.
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While the one who's studying
a free software can understand it,
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the one who's studying a non‑free
program can't learn anything,
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because the knowledge
in the non‑free program
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is withheld, denied to the students.
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So to uphold the spirit of education,
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the school should make sure
its programs are free.
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But there's an even
more important reason:
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Schools should teach
the spirit of goodwill,
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the habit of helping other people.
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The class should say,
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"If you bring a program to class,
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just as if you bring cookies to class,
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you've got to share it with everyone else.
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You can't keep it to yourself.
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You've got to share the source code,
so other people can learn.
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So don't bring any proprietary software
to this class."
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The school has to set a good example
by following its own rule:
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You should bring only
free software to class,
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except as a reverse engineering exercise.
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Another obstacle is there's hardware
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we don't know how
to write free software for,
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because they won't tell us
how to use the hardware.
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That's shocking.
They want to sell you the product,
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and they won't tell you how to use it.
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They say, "Here's a
non‑free program you can use.
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Run it, and shut up.
Don't bother us."
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How do we find out how to run
that hardware with reverse engineering?
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You've got to study all those 0's and 1's
to figure out what they really do,
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and write down how to use that hardware,
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so someone else can write
the free program to do it.
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It's hard work, but it can be done --
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if you want to make
a big technical contribution,
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that's what you should do.
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Each new area, activity of life,
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can bring with it new human rights
that are necessary.
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The human rights depend on each other.
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If you lose one,
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it becomes harder
to maintain the others.
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So, nowadays, computing is
so important in society
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that the freedoms of free software
are among the human rights
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that society must establish and protect.
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Thus, how to help?
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You can write free software.
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You can organize groups to campaign,
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and persuade schools and governments
to move to free software.
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You can help other people when
they have trouble using free software,
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or help them install it.
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You can say, "free software,"
and spread the philosophical ideas.
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Moving to free software is the first step
in the liberation of cyberspace,
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but of course, we also use the Internet.
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We need other freedoms there,
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like network neutrality,
and putting an end
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to surveillance of people in general.
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(Applause)
