New Scientist Interviews Richard Stallman
The New Scientist recently did a pretty short, and in my opinion a very high quality, interview with Richard Stallman :-)
One of the founding fathers of “free software” and an esteemed elder of the hacking community, Richard Stallman has made defending people’s freedoms his life’s work. That usually means supplying hackers with software and attacking copyright law. But as he tells Michael Reilly, his advocacy of personal freedoms extends to the protection of true democracy and of the human rights increasingly being trampled on in the US and elsewhere
Is it true you used to live in your office?
Yes it is. I lived there for half of the 1980s and most of the 1990s.
What made you do that?
It was convenient and cheap. To walk home to another place when I was sleepy was a very bad thing: first of all, if I was sleepy, it might take a couple of hours before I could get it together to put on my coat and my shoes and so on. And after that, walking home would wake me up, so when I got home I wouldn’t go to sleep either. It was so much better to just be able to go to sleep where I was.
What does “hacker” mean to you?
A hacker is someone who enjoys playful cleverness. I know many people think it means security breaker, but since “hacker” is what we call ourselves in my community, I won’t accept a derogatory meaning. If you want to refer to security breakers you should call them “crackers”. You can be a hacker in a lot of different media, it doesn’t have to be with computers. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology there’s an old tradition in which people “hack” buildings and public spaces, by putting up the famous “Nerd Crossing” road sign, for example. It didn’t involve breaking any security and it was playful and clever.
On playfulness, when did you start saying “happy hacking” as an alternative to goodbye?
At some point in the 1970s. I wanted some way to say goodbye and give good wishes to other hackers and “happy hacking” seemed like a good way to do it. It became a habit.
When did you make the leap from hacker to activist?
It happened in 1983 when I started the free software movement. I came to the conclusion that free software was the only way a computer user could have freedom, so I launched a movement to bring this about.
What is the free software movement all about?
It starts with a desire for freedom. I want to use a computer and not have someone else control what I do on it. And I want to be free to share with you. That means I cannot use the proprietary software that came with most computers in the 1980s. Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless: divided because they are forbidden to share it and helpless because they don’t have the source code. So the developer decides what the software does and the user has no say.
To change that state of affairs, I wrote the GNU operating system. As part of this I wrote the GNU General Public License, which ensures that every user of the operating system receives, along with the software, four essential freedoms: the freedom to run the program as they wish; the freedom to share the software with their friends and neighbours; the freedom to modify the program so it does what they wish; and the freedom to distribute their modified copies to others.
When the Linux component was added to the GNU system, it became a complete, free operating system and people really began to use it. They discovered certain convenient advantages, too. It was powerful and reliable, and of course you didn’t have to pay for permission to run it, which is a rather superficial advantage, but was important to many people.
How widely has it been taken up?
The GNU/Linux system has become quite popular, though concern for freedom has not spread as much as use of the system itself. A lot of people ended up having freedom but not knowing what it was. When people have freedom and don’t appreciate it, they’re likely to lose it. For example, in the mid-1990s, some distributors of GNU/Linux - of which there were already quite a few - started adding proprietary programs and saying, “Look what we give you!” They were essentially spreading the message that non-free programs were good. That is not the way to communicate the idea that freedom is important. It illustrates how not thinking about freedom has practical consequences.
You’re concerned about the loss of all kinds of freedoms. Is this why you supported Dennis Kucinich’s campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee?
I supported his policies of restoring human rights of various sorts, such as habeas corpus, which has been partly dismantled in the US. President Bush has obtained the power to imprison foreigners just by calling them “enemy combatants”. Kucinich also supports an end to torture, and to wars of aggression. He would have ended the occupation of Iraq.
What is the number one issue facing the world?
Free software is not the number one issue, but it’s the one where I saw how to do some good. I think there are two vital issues. One is global warming and the environment. The other is human rights democracy, and taking the political power away from business. The only way to restore real democracy is to end the political power of business.
How do we do that?
Its grip is so strong, I don’t know how to overthrow it. I can only say that it must be done. People take for granted that business will have great political power, but as long as that holds true, we don’t really have democracy.
Are there any politicians who share this view?
The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, really supports democracy. He is also firmly in favour of free software. I explained it to him in person and he saw that it makes sense, both practically and ethically. He is a former economics professor. He’s kicking out the power of the US and the corporate empire and has refused to sign a trade treaty with the US. And when the treaty over the US military base there expires, he will not renew it.
Your belief in free software led you to consider ways of reforming copyright law. How would you do that?
With a compromise copyright system. People should be free to redistribute exact copies of virtually anything - movies, CDs - to friends and strangers for non-commercial purposes. Other uses should still be covered by copyright.
Are you optimistic that people will become more in tune with using free software and with freedom in general?
I’m a pessimist by nature. But so many surprising things have happened that I don’t think I know what’s going to happen 10 years from now. I’d rather just admit ignorance.
From issue 2651 of New Scientist magazine, 12 April 2008, page 42-44
Profile
Richard Stallman left MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1984 to develop the GNU operating system, designed to consist entirely of free software. He has been the project’s leader ever since and has dedicated his life to advocating the use of free software and campaigning against software patents and restrictive copyright laws.
The New Scientist Interviews Richard Stallman by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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