So the famous Richard Stallman (rms) came to speak at Rice on Tuesday. Thanks to my roommate Ivan, I was able to make sure I had time for it in advance.

He gave what would seem to be a fairly standard talk on his philosophy and ethics of Free Software (as well as how we should all support this endeavor). Because I hadn’t heard the whole thing together as a whole, I thought it was really interesting to get to hear all this from him.

Now, I’m in COMP 140 (a new introductory computer science class at Rice) this semester. Online, one of my two professors for the class posed these questions online, “Everyone who uses free software loves it and there are legions of dedicated people contributing to the free software movement. But should, as Richard Stallman proposes, software be fundamentally free and open? Shouldn’t software developers be financially compensated for their intellectual creations or is there some larger societal need that is more important?” I responded just a little bit ago (and I probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the extra credit involved, since I need to work on a lot of other stuff, too). This is what I wrote:

Software does not have to be necessarily free, as defined by rms. Although free software benefits all of us, allowing software to be copyrighted and giving the author freedom should still be permitted. Both free and unfree software may benefit users (to highly varying degrees) and in different ways. Many have always argued that the market simply cannot support the development of free software if software were free, but there are certainly instances today of companies investing their resources in developing free software—for investment and eventual profit. The games industry has yet to embrace the free software philosophy, but it is economically possible; a very large group of highly interested gamers can pay companies money to develop free software. This seems unlikely now, but what would be needed is a shift in culture and circumstances to force people to do something like this. Even so, multiplayer online play for games could still be paid for by advertisements or monthly fees to play on the server.

In any case, totally abolishing current models of software distribution by law seems fairly radical. After all, copyright, to a certain extent, is embedded in the Constitution and defended by Jefferson, again, only to a certain extent (yet even so, most people and politicians would hardly care either way). Thus, copyright, and not just copyleft, should be allowed a continued existence in the context of software. I still, however, believe that modern copyright and software patents are far overreaching and too restrictive. Entrenched corporations holding their copyrights tend to become blind and forget about true innovation, since it becomes increasingly trivial to their short-term profits (see Lawrence Lessig’s The Future of Ideas). Even if all software doesn’t have to be free, copyright reform continues to be increasingly necessary as corporations and their lobbyists accelerate their copyright extensions and restrictive amendments to the law, taking away already existing freedoms from users.

So I don’t really agree with rms on all points, but I certainly support his crusade to some extent, hate DRM (yes, digital restrictions management… I found it funny how he never mentioned what the acronym originally comes from as set by corporations, “digital rights management”), and all that good stuff. But as a proud Mac OS X and Quicksilver user, I highly value practical software (not necessarily not free), yet I am also highly interested in supporting certain ideals, like liberty. I’d like to add a disclaimer to what I’ve just said, though; my opinion on this matter is certainly subject to change.

I also really want to explore and write more about this topic, but alas, not now… There are many other things I’d have liked to blog about before writing this, but I already wrote that response for my class, so I figured I might as well post it here. I guess I’ll write next about Taiwan and my experience there.

And finally, without further ado, here’s a picture with me and rms himself, but not in his saintly Church of Emacs outfit. Haha…