[Peace-discuss] All computer users deserve software freedom

[J.B. Nicholson]

C G Estabrook quoted Noam Chomsky who said:
> Take what are called intellectual property rights, exorbitant patent
> rights for medicines, for Windows, for example. Microsoft has a monopoly
> on operating systems, through the World Trade Organization. Suppose
> China didn’t observe these. Who would benefit, and who would lose? Well,
> the fact of the matter is that consumers in the United States would
> benefit. It would mean that you’d get cheaper medicines. It would mean
> that when you get a computer, that you wouldn’t be stuck with Windows.
> You could get a better operating system. Bill Gates would have a little
> less money. The pharmaceutical corporations wouldn’t be as super-rich as
> they are, a little less rich. But the consumers would benefit. Is there
> something wrong with that? Is there a problem with that?

There's an even more important reason than money to have computers that 
don't ship with proprietary software (such as Microsoft Windows): users' 
freedom and community.

The governments of the world (including the US) would do well to build 
their systems around free software and avoid proprietary software entirely. 
Free software is a matter of liberty or permission (think freedom, not 
price) -- software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify at any 
time for any reason. Proprietary software is the opposite of software 
freedom -- software the user is not free to inspect, share, or modify, and 
often not even run under certain circumstances including time-bombed 
programs that won't run after a certain date, or programs that limit 
functionality such as reading some "eBooks". Proprietary software is often 
malware, see https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/ for about 400 news stories 
(organized by injustice and product or company) to back up this claim. As 
that webpage says:

> Proprietary software, also called nonfree software, means software that 
> doesn't respect users' freedom and community[1]. A proprietary program
> puts its developer or owner in a position of power over its users[2].
> This power is in itself an injustice.
> 
> The point of this page is that the initial injustice of proprietary 
> software often leads to further injustices: malicious functionalities.
> 
> Power corrupts; the proprietary program's developer is tempted to
> design the program to mistreat its users. (Software whose functioning
> mistreats the user is called malware.) Of course, the developer usually
> does not do this out of malice, but rather to profit more at the users'
> expense. That does not make it any less nasty or more legitimate.
> 
> Yielding to that temptation has become ever more frequent; nowadays it 
> is standard practice. Modern proprietary software is typically a way to 
> be had.
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html

Hence all computer users (including those in the Chinese government) would 
be wise to build their systems around computers they control -- hardware 
they can trust running only free software. Computers follow one instruction 
after another (a program is merely a list of instructions for a computer to 
carry out), that's what computers do from the moment they are turned on. 
The question is whose instructions are they following: the computer owner's 
or someone else's? Free software is particularly important to teach 
computer users about building community and valuing social solidarity, 
principles we can't act on with our computers using proprietary software 
precisely because we're denied software freedom (regardless of technical 
skill or interest).

https://www.fsf.org/ryf -- The Free Software Foundation's "Respects Your 
Freedom" campaign: computer hardware that respects a user's software 
freedom as much as is currently possible.

While I think there's considerable agreement on how the power of patent, 
copyright, and other laws work out to favor the powerful, the term 
"intellectual property" is unfortunate because that term conflates the 
differences between these laws. These laws differ more than they share in 
common.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty has 
a brief explanation on why the term "intellectual property" should be 
avoided (except to criticize it) and a link to a fuller explanation:

> Publishers and lawyers like to describe copyright as “intellectual
> property”—a term also applied to patents, trademarks, and other more
> obscure areas of law. These laws have so little in common, and differ so
> much, that it is ill-advised to generalize about them. It is best to
> talk specifically about “copyright,” or about “patents,” or about
> “trademarks.”
> 
> The term “intellectual property” carries a hidden assumption—that the
> way to think about all these disparate issues is based on an analogy
> with physical objects, and our conception of them as physical property.
> 
> When it comes to copying, this analogy disregards the crucial difference
> between material objects and information: information can be copied and
> shared almost effortlessly, while material objects can't be.
> 
> To avoid spreading unnecessary bias and confusion, it is best to adopt a
> firm policy not to speak or even think in terms of “intellectual
> property”.[3]
> 
> The hypocrisy of calling these powers “rights” is starting to make the
> World “Intellectual Property” Organization embarrassed.[4]

[3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
[4] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/wipo-PublicAwarenessOfCopyright-2002.html