Epress.am News from Armenia
Upon an invitation by KASA (Komitas Action Swiss Armenia) Swiss Humanitarian Foundation, Free Software Movement founder Richard Stallman is in Armenia to make two speeches in Yerevan and one in Gyumri.
His first speech, “Free Software: Ethics and the Internet,” took place yesterday at the Yerevan State University. Stallman began his speech with a dance: under Bulgaria’s national anthem, the words adapted by Stallman himself and considered to be the project’s theme song.
Then he began to explain why he’s in Armenia, what was the main purpose of the invitation.
The expert was convinced that Armenians share his ideas on independence, and securing and disseminating independent software.
“We are as free as freedom itself,” he said, prior to explaining this in detail.
According to his program, software freedom is defined by 4 points, where even the absence of one of these points will be a loss to freedom.
The first point states that we should be free to do everything that we want with our computer, without restrictions. The loss of freedom begins from the loss of this tenet, regardless of how well the other points are in order: “The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.”
The second point, according to Stallman, is the importance of helping one another and cooperating with each another: “The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.” In his opinion, programming is a free market where we pay for assistance.
“We pay the developer, the one who secures progress: only they can change anything,” he said.
He made parallels with Soviet times, when programs did everything either for the benefit of people or against them. However, real programs shouldn’t be like that; in real society, everyone must be free and equal and programs must be for the benefit of people.
Stallman concluded with the fourth point: the possibility for the user to choose from numerous programs. According to him, either we ourselves choose a program and we’re free, or the program chooses us and directs us.
“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,” according to the GNU operating system website.
Not to confuse, the free software definition includes freedom 0: “The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.” This rounds out the four essential freedoms — “A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms.”
In the end, basically, the following structure came about: free individual – free society – democracy. The opportunity to choose free software, according to the Free Software Movement founder, is one of the factors that supports the establishment of the free individual.
Note that the Free Software Movement was created by the GNU operating system, which is free to use and share and through which Stallman’s proposed network and computer freedoms become reality.