Free Software: It's not about the license

@Crell

Free Software

It's not about the license

Presented by Larry Garfield (@Crell)

A modest proposal

Utiltiy, runs in system tray
Gives info
Sends browser data to us, we sell it

Children from poor families
Work as miners
Smaller shafts
30% cost savings
Company: Minor Miners
That's the business model

If your business model requires doing something unethical, you don't have a business model.

Tweetable statement
Business model is irrelevant
Keep in mind for the hour
This talk is about Free Software ethical framework

Ancient history

(The 70s...)

Gloss over superficially

Software not portable, financially unimportant
Sharing is default
Science and academia, part of culture

Mid-late 70s
Market got bigger, software got more portable
Unix, regulated monopoly so ATT couldn't sell
Licensed source. people shared patches, not modified versions
Incompatible Unixes, inc. BSD
Berkeley couldn't "sell", so gave away (BSD license)

1980s, variants became commercial
ATT got broken up, could now sell Unix
Closed the source
Many prop Unixes take BSD code, don't release theirs

Richard Stallman

New York, 2015

MIT Artificial Intelligence lab
Grew up in sharing days
Watched computers replaced with new
"don't touch the source code and don't share with anyone because selling individual copies is our business model"

<aside />

Philosopher
Not always great human being
Put aside for the moment
Smelly neck-bearded socially inept computer nerd

By Sam Williams - Taken from the cover of the O'Reilly book Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Not about printer driver
Personal Freedom, Sovereignty
Computers are tools
Tools obey owner, not the other way around
Teach kids sharing

This meant that the first step in using a computer was to promise not to help your neighbor.

—Free Software, Free Society, page 18

Ethically problematic.

Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the basis of society.

—Free Software, Free Society, page 18

Not about software. About freedom.
Personal sovereignty, digital destiny

Richard Stallman

Started GNU Project
Free Software Foundation, 1985

But what license?

Their goal was not freedom, just “success,” defined as “having many users.” They did not care whether these users had freedom, only that they should be numerous.

—Free Software, Free Society, page 22

Example: X Windows under MIT license
Most Unixes forked/closed it. Not free for users.
Need to require reciprocity
Need to ensure can't remove freedom

Free Software Definition

The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Use, Learn, Improve, Share

1-3 require source code access
Clumsy wording, due to its time
Reference to how Unix variants were distributed

General Public License

You have all four freedoms...
.. on condition that you extend the same to your users

If you don't distribute, it doesn't apply

1991

GNU/Linux

Released 1991, Rereleased GPL 1992
GNU + Linux
Ecosystem evolved
Collaborative online development became popular

Goodbye, "free software";
hello, "open source"

Triggered by Netscape releasing engine, 1997
Rebrand
"Free" scares businesses
"the term makes a lot of corporate types nervous" —Eric Raymond

For instance, Wired magazine said that Robert McMillan, editor of Linux Magazine, “feels that the move toward open source software should be fueled by technical, rather than political, decisions.”

Caldera’s CEO openly urged users to drop the goal of freedom and work instead for the “popularity of Linux.”

—Free Software, Free Society, page 54 (published 2000)

Nervous about their business model
Just-popular means adding proprietary code is OK!

As one person put it, “Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.” For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

—Free Software, Free Society, page 57

If one could prove that FS always produced inferior technical product, FS wouldn't change.
Even if you could prove forced child miners were more efficient, it's still wrong.
OSS isn't always superior, in fact...

Linus' Law

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow

Only true for malicious code

Companies want to spy on their users
Hostile hackers want to capture data
Govt intel agencies want to spy on everyone
Goes back to 1st moral principle

Proprietary software has no security at all in one crucial case—against its developer. And the developer may help others attack. Microsoft shows Windows bugs to the NSA (the US government digital spying agency) before fixing them.

—"Free Software, Free Society", Page 31

Source: Sean Gallagher, "NSA Gets Early Access to Zero-Day Data from Microsoft, Others," 14 June 2013

Free Software is about
protecting users from developers.

From us.

Your freedom as a developer isn't the point.

If the users don’t control the program, the program controls the users.

—Richard Stallman, "Free Software, Free Society", Page 30

1st Moral Principle of the web

When a computer receives conflicting instructions from its owner and from a remote party, the owner always wins.

—Cory Doctorow, Former EFF Director

How to protect the future web

Said in 2016, but concept goes back to beginning
People have a right to digital self-sovereignty

Free Software is Civil Rights
applied to software.

All this talk of Freedom?
Let's see some examples.

Sources:

Machine Politics in the Digital Age (NYTimes)
Ohio's Odd Numbers (Vanity Fair)
The Mysterious Case of Ohio's Voting Machines (Wired)

Walden O'Dell, Ohio businessman
2003, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"
Diebold Election Systems
Zero oversight or review of code.

Diabetic
Medtronic 722 insulin pump
Over the air updates

At the end of the day, I bought this equipment, and I want everything I need to keep it running without relying on the manufacturer or dealer.

—Rancher Jeff Buckingham

Sources:

Why American farmers are hacking their tractors with Ukranian firmware (Motherboard)
John Deere Just Swindled Farmers out of Their Right to Repair (Wired)

Tractor is computer with wheels
DRM on the parts, need "authorized tech" to authorize replacement
Service manuals available, but useless without auth

COMPAS, from Northpointe/Equivant

Sources:

In Wisconsin, a Backlash Against Using Data to Foretell Defendants’ Futures (NYTimes)
Courts Are Using AI to Sentence Criminals. That Must Stop Now (Wired)
Opening the lid on criminal sentencing software (Phys.org)
A Popular Algorithm Is No Better at Predicting Crimes Than Random People

Eric Loomis, 2013, Wisconsin
fleeing an officer and driving a car without the owner's consent
COMPAS from Northpointe, now Equivant
Sued for due process; courts rejected
Racial bias?
No better than humans

Our choice is not between "regulation" and "no regulation." The code regulates. It implements values, or not. It enables freedoms, or disables them. It protects privacy, or promotes monitoring. People choose how the code does these things.
People write the code.

—Larry Lessig, Code is Law, 2000

We write law.
Non-Free law is secret law.
We're on the web, how does this apply to us?

Entire conf on FB violations of customers
Social ill, Free Software helps guard against

Free Software advocates have been warning of this for 30 years.

XKCD #743

The ASP loophole

(Application Service Provider, not Active Server Pages)

If I only let people use it over a network, they never get a copy of the code so they don't have Free rights to the source!

Everything on the web
The web is built on Free Software, and threatens it

Affero GPL

2002, Affero consulting, co-wrote with FSF
GPL + "users over a network get the same rights"
Addresses some, not all, issues with SaaS

What right do you have to your own data?

What right do your users have to their own data?

Ethical developer MUST ask that question

We can build... cyberspace to protect values that we believe are fundamental. Or we can build... cyberspace to allow those values to disappear. There is no middle ground. There is no choice that does not include some kind of building. Code is never found; it is only ever made, and only ever made by us.

—Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0

Software is a moral act

I reserve the right to use this code to control you against your will.
I will not use this code to control you, but you can use it to control someone else.
I will not use this code to control you, and you may not use it to control others.

Free Software

It's not about the license

A modest proposal

Ancient history

(The 70s...)

Richard Stallman

<aside />

Richard Stallman

Free Software Definition

General Public License

1991

Goodbye, "free software";
hello, "open source"

Linus' Law

1st Moral Principle of the web

The ASP loophole

Affero GPL

Software is a moral act

What moral statement
will you make?

Further reading