copying.paper

windows版本的emacs

   It is common today for university researchers to get grants to
develop a system, develop it nearly to the point of completion and call
that "finished", and then start companies where they really finish the
project and make it usable.  Sometimes they declare the unfinished
version "free"; if they are thoroughly corrupt, they instead get an
exclusive license from the university.  This is not a secret; it is
openly admitted by everyone concerned.  Yet if the researchers were not
exposed to the temptation to do these things, they would still do their
research.

   Programmers writing free software can make their living by selling
services related to the software.  I have been hired to port the GNU C
compiler to new hardware, and to make user-interface extensions to GNU
Emacs.  (I offer these improvements to the public once they are done.)
I also teach classes for which I am paid.

   I am not alone in working this way; there is now a successful,
growing corporation which does no other kind of work.  Several other
companies also provide commercial support for the free software of the
GNU system.  This is the beginning of the independent software support
industry-an industry that could become quite large if free software
becomes prevalent.  It provides users with an option generally
unavailable for proprietary software, except to the very wealthy.

   New institutions such as the Free Software Foundation can also fund
programmers.  Most of the foundation's funds come from users buying
tapes through the mail.  The software on the tapes is free, which means
that every user has the freedom to copy it and change it, but many
nonetheless pay to get copies.  (Recall that "free software" refers to
freedom, not to price.)  Some users order tapes who already have a copy,
as a way of making a contribution they feel we deserve.  The Foundation
also receives sizable donations from computer manufacturers.

   The Free Software Foundation is a charity, and its income is spent on
hiring as many programmers as possible.  If it had been set up as a
business, distributing the same free software to the public for the same
fee, it would now provide a very good living for its founder.

   Because the Foundation is a charity, programmers often work for the
Foundation for half of what they could make elsewhere.  They do this
because we are free of bureaucracy, and because they feel satisfaction
in knowing that their work will not be obstructed from use.  Most of
all, they do it because programming is fun.  In addition, volunteers
have written many useful programs for us.  (Recently even technical
writers have begun to volunteer.)

   This confirms that programming is among the most fascinating of all
fields, along with music and art.  We don't have to fear that no one
will want to program.

What Do Users Owe to Developers?
================================

   There is a good reason for users of software to feel a moral
obligation to contribute to its support.  Developers of free software
are contributing to the users' activities, and it is both fair and in
the long term interest of the users to give them funds to continue.

   However, this does not apply to proprietary software developers,
since obstructionism deserves a punishment rather than a reward.

   We thus have a paradox: the developer of useful software is entitled
to the support of the users, but any attempt to turn this moral
obligation into a requirement destroys the basis for the obligation.  A
developer can either deserve a reward or demand it, but not both.

   I believe that an ethical developer faced with this paradox must act
so as to deserve the reward, but should also entreat the users for
voluntary donations.  Eventually the users will learn to support
developers without coercion, just as they have learned to support public
radio and television stations.

What Is Software Productivity?
******************************

   If software were free, there would still be programmers, but perhaps
fewer of them.  Would this be bad for society?

   Not necessarily.  Today the advanced nations have fewer farmers than
in 1900, but we do not think this is bad for society, because the few
deliver more food to the consumers than the many used to do.  We call
this improved productivity.  Free software would require far fewer
programmers to satisfy the demand, because of increased software
productivity at all levels:

   * Wider use of each program that is developed.

   * The ability to adapt existing programs for customization instead
     of starting from scratch.

   * Better education of programmers.

   * The elimination of duplicate development effort.

   Those who object to cooperation because it would result in the
employment of fewer programmers, are actually objecting to increased
productivity.  Yet these people usually accept the widely-held belief
that the software industry needs increased productivity.  How is this?

   "Software productivity" can mean two different things: the overall
productivity of all software development, or the productivity of
individual projects.  Overall productivity is what society would like to
improve, and the most straightforward way to do this is to eliminate the
artificial obstacles to cooperation which reduce it.  But researchers
who study the field of "software productivity" focus only on the
second, limited, sense of the term, where improvement requires difficult
technological advances.

Is Competition Inevitable?
**************************

   Is it inevitable that people will try to compete, to surpass their
rivals in society?  Perhaps it is.  But competition itself is not
harmful; the harmful thing is *combat*.

   There are many ways to compete.  Competition can consist of trying to
achieve ever more, to outdo what others have done.  For example, in the
old days, there was competition among programming wizards--competition
for who could make the computer do the most amazing thing, or for who
could make the shortest or fastest program for a given task.  This kind
of competition can benefit everyone, *as long as* the spirit of good
sportsmanship is maintained.

   Constructive competition is enough competition to motivate people to
great efforts.  A number of people are competing to be the first to have
visited all the countries on Earth; some even spend fortunes trying to
do this.  But they do not bribe ship captains to strand their rivals on
desert islands.  They are content to let the best person win.

   Competition becomes combat when the competitors begin trying to
impede each other instead of advancing themselves--when "Let the best
person win" gives way to "Let me win, best or not."  Proprietary
software is harmful, not because it is a form of competition, but
because it is a form of combat among the citizens of our society.

   Competition in business is not necessarily combat.  For example, when
two grocery stores compete, their entire effort is to improve their own
operations, not to sabotage the rival.  But this does not demonstrate a
special commitment to business ethics; rather, there is little scope for
combat in this line of business short of physical violence.  Not all
areas of business share this characteristic.  Withholding information
that could help everyone advance is a form of combat.

   Business ideology does not prepare people to resist the temptation to
combat the competition.  Some forms of combat have been made banned with
anti-trust laws, truth in advertising laws, and so on, but rather than
generalizing this to a principled rejection of combat in general,
executives invent other forms of combat which are not specifically
prohibited.  Society's resources are squandered on the economic
equivalent of factional civil war.

"Why Don't You Move to Russia?"
*******************************

   In the United States, any advocate of other than the most extreme
form of laissez-faire selfishness has often heard this accusation.  For
example, it is leveled against the supporters of a national health care
system, such as is found in all the other industrialized nations of the
free world.  It is leveled against the advocates of public support for
the arts, also universal in advanced nations.  The idea that citizens
have any obligation to the public good is identified in America with
Communism.  But how similar are these ideas?

   Communism as was practiced in the Soviet Union was a system of
central control where all activity was regimented, supposedly for the
common good, but actually for the sake of the members of the Communist
party.  And where copying equipment was closely guarded to prevent
illegal copying.

   The American system of intellectual property exercises central
control over distribution of a program, and guards copying equipment
with automatic copying protection schemes to prevent illegal copying.

   By contrast, I am working to build a system where people are free to
decide their own actions; in particular, free to help their neighbors,
and free to alter and improve the tools which they use in their daily
lives.  A system based on voluntary cooperation, and decentralization.

   Thus, if we are to judge views by their resemblance to Russian
Communism, it is the software owners who are the Communists.

The Question of Premises
************************

   I make the assumption in this paper that a user of software is no
less important than an author, or even an author's employer.  In other
words, their interests and needs have equal weight, when we decide
which course of action is best.

   This premise is not universally accepted.  Many maintain that an
author's employer is fundamentally more important than anyone else.
They say, for example, that the purpose of having owners of software is
to give the author's employer the advantage he deserves--regardless of
how this may affect the public.

   It is no use trying to prove or disprove these premises.  Proof
requires shared premises.  So most of what I have to say is addressed
only to those who share the premises I use, or at least are interested
in what their consequences are.  For those who believe that the owners
are more important than everyone else, this paper is simply irrelevant.

   But why would a large number of Americans accept a premise which
elevates certain people in importance above everyone else?  Partly
because of the belief that this premise is part of the legal traditions
of American society.  Some people feel that doubting the premise means
challenging the basis of society.

   It is important for these people to know that this premise is not
part of our legal tradition.  It never has been.

   Thus, the Constitution says that the purpose of copyright is to
"promote the progress of science and the useful arts."  The Supreme
Court has elaborated on this, stating in `Fox Film vs. Doyal' that "The
sole interest of the United States and the primary object in conferring
the [copyright] monopoly lie in the general benefits derived by the
public from the labors of authors."

   We are not required to agree with the Constitution or the Supreme
Court.  (At one time, they both condoned slavery.)  So their positions
do not disprove the owner supremacy premise.  But I hope that the
awareness that this is a radical right-wing assumption rather than a
traditionally recognized one will weaken its appeal.

Conclusion
**********

   We like to think that our society encourages helping your neighbor;
but each time we reward someone for obstructionism, or admire them for
the wealth they have gained in this way, we are sending the opposite
message.

   Software hoarding is one form of our general willingness to disregard
the welfare of society for personal gain.  We can trace this disregard
from Ronald Reagan to Jim Bakker, from Ivan Boesky to Exxon, from
failing banks to failing schools.  We can measure it with the size of
the homeless population and the prison population.  The antisocial
spirit feeds on itself, because the more we see that other people will
not help us, the more it seems futile to help them.  Thus society decays
into a jungle.

   If we don't want to live in a jungle, we must change our attitudes.
We must start sending the message that a good citizen is one who
cooperates when appropriate, not one who is successful at taking from
others.  I hope that the free software movement will contribute to
this: at least in one area, we will replace the jungle with a more
efficient system which encourages and runs on voluntary cooperation.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1)  The word "free" in "free software" refers to freedom, not to
price; the price paid for a copy of a free program may be zero, or
small, or (rarely) quite large.

   (2)  The issues of pollution and traffic congestion do not alter
this conclusion.  If we wish to make driving more expensive to
discourage driving in general, it is disadvantageous to do this using
toll booths, which contribute to both pollution and congestion.  A tax
on gasoline is much better.  Likewise, a desire to enhance safety by
limiting maximum speed is not relevant; a free access road enhances the
average speed by avoiding stops and delays, for any given speed limit.

   (3)  One might regard a particular computer program as a harmful
thing that should not be available at all, like the Lotus Marketplace
database of personal information, which was withdrawn from sale due to
public disapproval.  Most of what I say does not apply to this case,
but it makes little sense to argue for having an owner on the grounds
that the owner will make the program less available.  The owner will
not make it *completely* unavailable, as one would wish in the case of
a program whose use is considered destructive.