Introduction – Why Software Should be Free - The Research Center on Computing & Society

Text-only Version

Richard Stallman

Introduction

The existence of software inevitably raises the question of how decisions about its use should be made. For example, suppose one individual who has a copy of a program meets another who would like a copy. It is possible for them to copy the program; who should decide whether this is done? The individuals involved? Or another party, called the “owner”?

Software developers typically consider these questions on the assumption that the criterion for the answer is to maximize developers’ profits. The political power of business has led to the government adoption of both this criterion and the answer proposed by the developers: that the program has an owner, typically a corporation associated with its development.

I would like to consider the same question using a different criterion: the prosperity and freedom of the public in general.

This answer cannot be decided by current law – the law should conform to ethics, not the other way around. Nor does current practice decide this question, although it may suggest possible answers. The only way to judge is to see who is helped and who is hurt by recognizing owners of software, why, and how much. In other words, we should perform a cost-benefit analysis on behalf of society as a whole, taking account of individual freedom as well as production of material goods.

In this essay, I will describe the effects of having owners, and show that the results are detrimental. My conclusion is that programmers have the duty to encourage others to share, redistribute, study and improve the software we write: in other words, to write free software, 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.

Back to the top

Go to: How Owners Justify Their Power

Home > Research Resources > Software Ownership & Intellectual Property Rights > Why Software Should be Free

The Research Center on Computing & Society
at Southern Connecticut State University
501 Crescent Street • New Haven, CT 06515
Director: (203) 392-6790 • e-mail: webmaster@computerethics.org

© 2000 – 2007 – Research Center on Computing & Society