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We also have a copyright administrator, who collects the paperwork from developers working on GNU projects--developers sign copyright to us, and we register ourselves as the author of the work with the U.S. copyright office. There's also a GPL compliance engineer who runs a compliance team. He receives reports about potential compliance issues and then investigates whether there has been a violation. If there has been, he will write to the organization involved and ask them to start complying.
Your work toward ensuring that people comply with the GPL has been criticized by some people. For example, Forbes magazine once referred to you as "Linux's Hit Men." How do you feel about this?
Brown: What's particularly annoying about that article was that we have nothing to do with Linux--we're GNU. It also made us sound aggressive, when, in fact, we only want people to comply with terms of the license. We don't ask for legal fees from people, and we only ask for our costs to be reimbursed, which is only a couple hundred bucks. We've never taken anyone to court.
With copyright law, there are no contractual issues at stake--you either accept the terms, or you don't use the copyrighted material. That's why we've always thought it stupid that people make comments about whether the GPL will stand up in court. It's only the license that gives you rights; otherwise, the software belongs to the copyright holder. If you don't have rights, there's nothing to take to court.
In the case brought by Daniel Wallace against the FSF last year (in which he complained that the GPL's requirement to make code available at no cost is tantamount to price fixing), the judge said the GPL "acts as a means by which certain software may be copied, modified and redistributed without violating the software's copyright protection" and that the "GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition" and "benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation."
This is a federal court judge, who, in a few minutes, can work out that free software has huge advantages.
As far as we're aware, most other free software or open-source projects do not actively pursue compliance or ask developers to sign over copyright. Why is this so important to you?
Brown: The FSF prides itself on being a very cautious, sincere, legally minded project. We've always been very aware of the fact that the people who dislike us most can easily seek legal recourse on issues. The FSF has always felt that securing our assets--our copyrights on the GNU project--was very important.
The whole purpose of the GPL is to protect computer users' freedoms. We must protect our role in that--we're the guardian of those freedoms. No other project goes as far as we do in collecting copyrights. A lot of distributions leave copyright in the hands of individual authors, but most individuals don't have the time, inclination or finances to go after violation reports. We keep everyone honest.
How does the Free Software Foundation get its funding?
Brown: We have four or five sources of revenue. The main source is our membership program--we made $250,000 from this last year. We also get general donations--people donated about $200,000 to us last year. We also have a corporate program, and we list the main donors on our Web site, so people know who has given to the FSF. These companies have each given at least $2,000. We also make money from selling books, T-shirts and other items.
Last year, you said you were hoping to raise $500,000 for GPL evangelizing. How much of this have you raised so far?
Brown: So far, we have raised $140,000, but we're still raising money for that.
Does the Free Software Foundation have any plans for growth in the next few years?
Brown: The FSF isn't looking to grow in size, as we already do what we do well. We don't want to grow, because you want the passion to already be in people. You don't want to be paying for that passion.
We don't want to dominate this area. We're very happy to see other organizations doing good jobs and are very pleased there's such a thing as Groklaw and the Software Freedom Law Center. We don't want it all to be under our control.
Most of the FSF's work is not campaigning, it's providing infrastructure to the free-software community. The number of contributors has really increased over the last three years, so we needed a better infrastructure and more employees to support it.
What do you think is the future of the free-software movement?
Brown: I think proprietary software is becoming a thing of the past--you can't compete against freedom. You don't have proprietary software people saying they ethically don't like free software.
What do Microsoft employees work on at home? They work on free software. If you love writing code, then you love free software, as you're sharing your code with people. So, straight away, there is a community that loves the idea of free software.
The other thing that free software allows is that code will never die. If you're any type of organization, and you have to sign a contract with a proprietary software firm, what happens if the company disappears tomorrow? You can't hire another consultant to work on the code. In so many ways, I think free software will dominate the world.
Finally, why do you enjoy working for the Free Software Foundation?
Brown: I've worked in organizations before where people "care," but these people don't compare to the likes of Richard. It's great to be able to come to a place where the main cause is freedom.
Richard is what makes the FSF unique. He founded it and is still the leader of the free-software movement. He doesn't take a salary and lives like a student--he doesn't have a house or a car. He lives in a way such that he doesn't have to depend on a source of revenue. He lives off speaker fees and prize money from awards he has won, such as the MacArthur Grant and the Takeda Award.
He is probably out of the country doing speaking engagements 250 days a year. He's often away a month at a time. His last tour was in Europe, and he had 20 speaking engagements in a few weeks. He was very tired when I saw him yesterday at the annual member's meeting. Despite this, he stood up and gave a speech. I guess when you believe in a cause as much as he does, then it's easy to keep doing it.
Even when Richard travels, he raises money for us by selling GNU pins. When he came into the office yesterday, he had bundles of dollars from selling them in Italy. He takes a lot of care over how the FSF spends its money. We're not like a lot of nonprofits in that way.
So not only is he an ethical hacker, but he backs it up with the way he lives. He spends his whole time and energy giving speeches and trying to convert people to free software.
Ingrid Marson of ZDNet UK reported from Boston.
See more CNET content tagged:
Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, magazine, executive director, mass
--Marilee V.
http://www.iwantmyess.com
Thank you for spotting this and for bringing it to our attention. We appreciate your feedback.
But won?t the marketplace also determine what's good?
For example, Adobe's CS is a robust tool well liked by designers. As the company strives to improve its product for its customers, making the tool even more robust, new users and existing ones seek to purchase the tool and upgrades. That code is continually updated.
Isn't the marketplace also a venue which determines what "code will never die?"
--Marilee V.
http://www.iwantmyess.com
Example...OS/2 at the time and for a while it was an infinitely better OS than Windows was and yet strictly due to marketting and not the marketlace and even less technical merit the product was "killed".
In this case good code died.
Adobe will keep updating and upgrading CS only as long as it can reap profits and I would argue they even build in obsolescence and withhold features for the sake of the next upgrade.
If this is marketplace driven code then it's not good code or at least not the best possible code.
So in answer to your question...."I don't think so".
Abandoned free and open-source software is still available for people to use and even update.
Do a web search for the SeaMonkey web browser. It's an updated version of the Mozilla Application Suite; the interface still bears a striking resemblance to its ancestor, Netscape 4. The Mozilla Foundation abandoned the App Suite in favor of Firefox and Thunderbird, but for whatever reason there's still a community devoted to this relic. Because of the software's free/open-source license, a small group of programmers was able to add the latest rendering engine to their old interface and make this new piece of software that appeals to a certain group of consumers.
Free software isn't anti-market, despite the penchant for a number of its true believers to pitch it in revolutionary terms. The phenenom can also easily be described in market terms. I'll start with one: commoditization. Microsoft has been commoditizing software with a proprietary model too, by including products in the operating system. Netscape and Real Networks saw their original business models dry up when this competitor commoditized their market segments.
But when Microsoft did it, it created vendor lock-in. And that led to stagnation. Look at how outdated IE got, with all its security holes and lack of support for so many modern web design techniques. They're just now playing catch-up, and who can say if they would have done it at all if Mozilla Firefox hadn't been doing so well!
Software freedom seems to be serving consumers very well.
I think that this license more determines what type of ownership is good or bad; not the consumer end. The Better Business Bureau is more for consumer rights.
He says code wont die but I think more realistically that free software and free media (creative commons) will ensure that BAD code or Art will surely die, I sincerely hope so as I'm sick of people humping their way to the top. So consumers decide in the end. Places like www.musicnow.com are a good start by putting most of what's out there in front of your face well categorized, but still, there are too many restrictions that are limiting the true innovation that I see over at the Creative Commons websites. Check out the CC's free media bin. I think there are some CC tools to categorize music as well or there working on it.
I'm sick of artists and musicians allowing the service industry to run their music. Record companies are a service to record your music. They are supposed to be a paid service working for you. I think if a musician wants to NOT allow people to own their work after you purchased it, then he should state it himself and contract it himself instead of hiding behind the skirts of the music industry. Stop being a wimp.
The GNU allows the original author to maintain ownership by insisting that and holder retain the original contract and release the code freely.
I am against a company purchasing something and then deleting the original intent or author who created it. It's counter-industrial.
So I think a good protest term for GNU would be AUTHOR'S INTENT for CONSUMER'S RIGHTS.
or GNU: AVOID STINKY SOFTWARE
or CREATIVE COMMONS: ALLOW GOOD VIBES TO REACH YOUR EARS.or CREATIVE COMMONS: STOP PAY TO PLAY. We will not pay EXTRA to release our music anymore! We will not allow our music to be filtered by non-consumers!
I envision a solid future where products are very quality because on efficiency (think about the spaceships and other high end tech) of original intent, while other companies help each other out by not being redundant and recreating the same design over and over;.because they destroyed the original one. Everyone usually agrees that there's nothing better then the original.
Also we are living in a society of waste and redundancy. This can't happen anymore because tech has become too fast, as we build houses and things so quick, we need to slow down and promote more quality if we are to survive.
Instead of thinking about what we have we are thinking how much more we need all the time. This 'more' stuff has to stop.
non-free products is just a preemptive move by companies to maximize their profits by limiting resources with false scarcity.
- by yeah_1_us March 25, 2009 2:29 PM PDT
- nothing could be better, finaly I'm going to have my dreams come through, and, having some software for I cannot afford the prices, thanks a million, and the Eternal father protect you and affiliates from malware, incredible, microsoft is also up to no good, I've lost three computers because of them, how about that eh!
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