According to one poster

He basically said that copying music doesn’t hurt the artist because the artist has already been screwed over by the record industry. Now, I’m definitely not one to argue against the last part of that statement, but Mom always taught me that two wrongs don’t make a right.

Unfortunately there is no accompanying explanation for how copying music is “wrong”. We need to distinguish between what’s illegal (copyright infringement) and unethical. Friends share with each other because sharing is a natural thing to do, sharing builds community, and because people typically value their friendships more highly.

The poster continues

But later, Stallman said something that I found very surprising. He said that he has no problem with the firmware being burned into the hardware (via a ROM chip or the like). He said that he wanted a “black box”, and it’s obvious that he has no problem with proprietary firmware as long as it’s permanently embedded in the hardware rather than being loaded into it at boot time.

What I didn’t understand is why Stallman feels that there’s a difference? What is it? The method used to get the firmware into the hardware? Why make this the line in the sand? It seems very arbitrary to me.

The difference is the user’s freedom to alter the code distributed to them.

Stallman’s distinction (as I’m sure he covered about in his talk) has to do with a user’s freedom to run, learn, adapt, and share functional works (including published software). This is an ethical issue the free software movement does not shy away from. The free software movement works to build and maintain a community of equal opportunity and social solidarity; all computer users should be free to make their copy of published computer software do what they want it to do. The heart of the free software movement concerns itself with the most important question anyone can ask: how shall I treat other people?

When code is in a ROM (read-only memory) chip or in circuitry (there’s no difference when it comes to user’s freedom), the user and developer have no opportunity to change that code without changing the hardware. In this way the developer and the user are equals.

The opportunity for change exists wherever there is storage that allows alteration. When a device’s program is software, the issues of software freedom are raised. The question becomes who has permission to make changes to that software? This is a question of permission not technical know-how, time, interest, or budget to change the software. If the software is free, the user can get a copy of the program’s source code and make their device behave as they wish. They can even help other users by sharing their improved code. If the developer is the only person who may modify the software, the developer subjugates the user. Developers who want to maintain this power over the user will not distribute free software for the device or complete documentation on how the device works.

Contrary to what the poster’s initial comment says, pursuing software freedom (and the distinction Stallman made regarding hardware and software) is not about “the ability to distribute a piece of software without having to have a vendor’s (or anyone’s) permission”. What the free software community wants (and has worked for for over two decades) is permission to run, share, and modify published computer software. Where the user’s software freedom is not respected, programmers in the free software community write/obtain replacement programs and then distribute those programs as free software.

Firmware is software that runs on a computer other than the main computer someone uses. For instance, there is firmware in a router used to connect to the Internet. In fact, a number of popular home Internet routers sold in the US run on free firmware (much of that freedom was guaranteed thanks to the strong copyleft in the GNU GPL, a copyright license written by Stallman).

Finally, I don’t know much about Lebanon’s copyright and patent law but if there is no copyright or patent law (as the poster indicates), I would not be surprised to learn that Stallman was invited to give a talk there because his talks are highly informative and ahead of their time; he’ll talk about what you’ll need to know to fend off bad copyright policy and bad patent policy. Informed people can work together to educate others and effectively organize against the multinational business interests that are so often behind horrible copyright and patent policy.

Q: I bought the movie Up on DVD, it had a digital download. I put it on my iPad. I hooked up my VGA adapter and tried to play it… but I couldn’t because of HDCP. Can you tell me how you’re helping with this?

A: We didn’t invent this stuff…

Q: But you did deploy it…

A: Well the content creators are trying to protect this stuff, and they’re grabbing at straws. Sometimes they grab the right ones, and sometimes they don’t. If we want access to this stuff, we have to play by some of their rules. I feel your pain.

So for proprietors it’s okay to deflect blame for restricting users from fully controlling their computers and simultaneously profit in restricting the users. Apple is big when it suits them (I’m sure they want consumers to believe they are the pre-eminent vehicle for delivering movies and music) and small and helpless against the publishers when it suits them (“We didn’t invent this stuff….”). This attitude rewards those who restrict and does nothing to help users who want to watch their legally obtained copies of movies as they see fit (dare one want to see a movie on a non-approved screen!).

This attitude is bad in itself, but not life threatening. As it applies to watching movies, this DRM is more annoying than anything else because there are plenty of free software movie players (like VLC) that will happily show you a movie on any device you like ignoring DRM that would otherwise get in your way; you can simply choose those programs instead of the proprietary stuff and go about enjoying a little bit more control over your life.

But what if DRM is in a device you need to live, like a heart pacemaker/defibrillator to monitor and regulate your heartbeats? Nowadays these devices are digital and run on software—software you aren’t privy to inspect, change, or share. Some of them are even set up so the software they run on can be altered remotely. Remote administration is sold on convenience, like proprietary traps usually are: A trained physician puts you within radio distance of a device that alters the pacemaker/defibrillator’s settings entirely wirelessly—no surgery or injection after the initial installation!

Remote control is a convenience you might be willing to accept for your garage and car door. But regulating a critical function in your body? This doesn’t sound so good when you consider the ramifications for a device you depend on in order to live. Brad Kuhn and Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Law Show recently discussed this problem. Sandler looked into these devices because she has one of these devices implanted inside her (it mostly monitors her heart but it could shock her heart to keep her alive). Sandler has a large heart which increases her risk of sudden death. Sandler said that patient information is carried in some of these devices and, according to an article she read on the modern variant of the device she has, this information can be retrieved remotely without the user’s consent or knowledge. In that article, a similar device’s operation was altered without using the original manufacturer’s hardware. Knowing the risks of remote administration, she chose an older model which requires close contact with the device to be adjusted or interrogated. But most patients are not so well-versed in the consequences of choosing a modern medical implants which can be adjusted from a distance using something available to everyone (such as software defined radio, like GNU Radio).

What if manufacturers use DRM to restrict who can administer the implanted device? Why should anyone have to surrender control over their body in this way?

We need software freedom for medical devices. There are compelling ethical reasons we need software freedom for all published software (well-covered ground by the free software movement) but also because our lives could be at stake. Whether you choose to learn, alter, or share this software should be up to you as well.

Update 2010-07-21: SFLC publishes their report on “Safety Benefits of Free and Open Source Software in Critical Technology“. More on this report can be found on their site.

Apple imposes numerous restrictions on program use and distribution on all programs distributed via the Apple App Store. These restrictions are incompatible with the GPL; if one cannot simultaneously comply with all of the GPL’s terms and other relevant terms one cannot distribute their program based on GPL-covered code at all (paraphrasing section 7 of GPL version 2 and section 12 of GPL version 3). This makes Apple a copyright infringer. The developers who ported GNU Go to work with the iPhone are infringing the GPL as well, but Apple is the higher profile distributor here and Apple has a commercial interest in attracting more users to the iPhone.

The FSF isn’t starting the discussion with their legal guns drawn like so many copyright holders represented by the Business Software Alliance, Motion Picture Association, and Recording Industry Association of America do. The FSF takes the high road by initially seeking compliance with their license rather than initially suing. In fact, the only unusual note in this situation is that the FSF informed people about this infringement publicly so soon (typically they privately inform the parties involved about the relevant license terms).

The FSF has a history of taking the high road with copyright infringers. This is another example of how the FSF shows us how to behave by demonstrating the right behavior.

But doesn’t the FSF stand to benefit by taking an infringer to court and making an example of them? No. Take it from Eben Moglen, long-time GPL enforcer and president of the Software Freedom Law Center in his essays on enforcing the GPL:

If I had used the courts to enforce the GPL years ago, Microsoft’s whispering would now be falling on deaf ears. Just this month I have been working on a couple of moderately sticky situations. “Look,” I say, “at how many people all over the world are pressuring me to enforce the GPL in court, just to prove I can. I really need to make an example of someone. Would you like to volunteer?”

Someday someone will. But that someone’s customers are going to go elsewhere, talented technologists who don’t want their own reputations associated with such an enterprise will quit, and bad publicity will smother them. And that’s all before we even walk into court. The first person who tries it will certainly wish he hadn’t. Our way of doing law has been as unusual as our way of doing software, but that’s just the point. Free software matters because it turns out that the different way is the right way after all.Eben Moglen

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This trailer is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

Patent Absurdity explores the case of software patents and the history of judicial activism that led to their rise, and the harm being done to software developers and the wider economy. The film is based on a series of interviews conducted during the Supreme Court’s review of in re Bilski — a case that could have profound implications for the patenting of software. The Court’s decision is due soon.

You can also download the movie from multiple sources (PatentAbsurdity.com, The Internet Archive, or locally using the links below) and share it with others because this movie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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More in-depth

Richard Stallman, founder of the free software movement and one of the speakers in the movie, has been talking about the dangers of software patents for many years. Listen to or download his talk from 2002 or read the transcript of this talk which includes pointers to more information about various points in Stallman’s talk. This talk is interesting because Stallman systematically explains how software patents are harmful to all computer users (Paul Heckel’s threats to Apple and Apple’s response is quite instructive), 3 strategies for dealing with software patents, and the multiple perversites of the patent process.

Stop Software Patents is documenting the case against software patents worldwide.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties organization based in San Francisco, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the secretive license agreement Apple offers as the only way to distribute applications through their “app store”. According to this license agreement the Apple app store is the only means by which compliant iPhone OS application developers may distribute their iPhone OS applications once the developer agrees to Apple’s onerous terms. How onerous? Take a look at EFF’s highlights from the license agreement:

Ban on Public Statements: As mentioned above, Section 10.4 prohibits developers, including government agencies such as NASA, from making any “public statements” about the terms of the Agreement. This is particularly strange, since the Agreement itself is not “Apple Confidential Information” as defined in Section 10.1. So the terms are not confidential, but developers are contractually forbidden from speaking “publicly” about them.

App Store Only: Section 7.2 makes it clear that any applications developed using Apple’s SDK may only be publicly distributed through the App Store, and that Apple can reject an app for any reason, even if it meets all the formal requirements disclosed by Apple. So if you use the SDK and your app is rejected by Apple, you’re prohibited from distributing it through competing app stores like Cydia or Rock Your Phone.

Ban on Reverse Engineering: Section 2.6 prohibits any reverse engineering (including the kinds of reverse engineering for interoperability that courts have recognized as a fair use under copyright law), as well as anything that would “enable others” to reverse engineer, the SDK or iPhone OS.

No Tinkering with Any Apple Products: Section 3.2(e) is the “ban on jailbreaking” provision that received some attention when it was introduced last year. Surprisingly, however, it appears to prohibit developers from tinkering with any Apple software or technology, not just the iPhone, or “enabling others to do so.” For example, this could mean that iPhone app developers are forbidden from making iPods interoperate with open source software, for example.

You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise create any Application or other program that would disable, hack, or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod Touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so

Kill Your App Any Time: Section 8 makes it clear that Apple can “revoke the digital certificate of any of Your Applications at any time.” Steve Jobs has confirmed that Apple can remotely disable apps, even after they have been installed by users. This contract provision would appear to allow that.

We Never Owe You More than Fifty Bucks: Section 14 states that, no matter what, Apple will never be liable to any developer for more than $50 in damages. That’s pretty remarkable, considering that Apple holds a developer’s reputational and commercial value in its hands—it’s not as though the developer can reach its existing customers anywhere else. So if Apple botches an update, accidentally kills your app, or leaks your entire customer list to a competitor, the Agreement tries to cap you at the cost of a nice dinner for one in Cupertino.
EFF

How long will it be before Apple tries more restrictive terms with their other operating system, MacOS? You should declare your software freedom, refuse to buy Apple’s devices, and do not agree to these terms.

Update 2010-04-15: New version of the license terms posted by EFF, copied locally.

This recording comes to us courtesy of the Internet Society New York chapter The recordings are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Speech

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Q&A

Audio: hosted at Punkcast, hosted at Columbia University, hosted locally

Video: hosted at Punkcast, hosted at Columbia University, hosted locally

When Moglen talks about what your server should do, he talks about the kinds of services you should be free to host yourself. I’m reminded of how useful it might be to control your file sharing yourself without placing your faith in those who are untrustworthy by default.

Update 2010-02-10: The Software Freedom Law Center posted highlights from Eben Moglen’s talk.

BitTorrent is the most popular filesharing protocol on the Internet today. BitTorrent users typically obtain pieces of the data they want and share pieces of the same data with others. By cooperating in this fashion, almost everyone who wants a copy of the data gets what they want.

There are many programs one can use to share data using the BitTorrent protocol. Many are free software—one can inspect, share, and modify the program to suit one’s needs. uTorrent is a popular non-free (or proprietary) BitTorrent client. Like any proprietary program, exactly what the uTorrent program does when it runs is not clearly known to anyone except its developers. uTorrent became popular because it is a zero-cost, small, and quick program which requires little computing power. Many BitTorrent clients allow web-based control: one can set up Transmission (a free software BitTorrent client) to host a web-based control panel that lets users remotely control Transmission. With some savvy, one could set up one’s computer at home to run Transmission all the time and use this web-based remote control to keep track of and control Transmission from anywhere on the Internet.

The next version of uTorrent is due out soon; codenamed “Falcon”, an article on torrentfreak.com glowingly describes this version because this version of uTorrent offers a different kind of web-based control panel: users can control their copy of uTorrent by logging into the Falcon website and controlling their copy of uTorrent from this website.

Freedom and privacy

What’s the difference? The difference is who has access to your computer and who has access to data on what you’re sharing.

When you set up the remote control you can determine who connects to it. With “Falcon” uTorrent, you have to trust the people at falcon.utorrent.com as well or else the remote control service based on their website won’t work. The remote control service based on logging into falcon.utorrent.com’s website depends on uTorrent being accessible to uTorrent employees and their agents. In order for that remote control to work, you must leave a program running with your authority on your computer which is accessible by the people who run uTorrent.

Perhaps this was always the case; after all, uTorrent is proprietary and always has been. This is a natural consequence of not knowing (and being prohibited from learning) exactly what that program does. This could have always been the achilles heel of widespread BitTorrent use: all proprietary BitTorrent clients sharing information about its users and its users peers unbeknownst to the users.

“Falcon” uTorrent may track your sharing and that of your peers even if the uTorrent privacy policy or employees say otherwise. uTorrent is certainly in a position to do this; if you use this remote control service in the way its intended to work, you’re handing them control over the uTorrent program running on your computer. We don’t know what this program is capable of (only a free software program would give us that information). It would not be difficult for uTorrent employees and their agents to keep track of anything that program has access to read: what you’re sharing, with whom you’re sharing data, your other files/folders, perhaps even other network connections or information about your computer. “Agents” means exactly that: anyone uTorrent people decide should have access to data about your system or whomever you’re connected to. You have no control over what information is collected or whom that information is disseminated to.

How does software freedom help me here?

In theory any program could do the same thing but software freedom lets us understand what free software programs are capable of. Free software programs can be modified to enhance our privacy and these improved versions of programs can be distributed to enhance the privacy of our friends and neighbors. Even if we’re not programmers we all know how to copy computer programs and install improved versions of programs, so we can help one another share only the information we want to share. Not so with proprietary programs.

With proprietary programs the programmers determine what gets shared. Once that data has been uploaded to uTorrent’s programmers (or their agents), who’s to know how widely it is shared from there? I need not even get into the consequences of human error on the server side where uTorrent admins inadvertantly leak information they collected.

Assuming what’s described in the torrentfreak.com story is accurate, uTorrent’s implementation of remote access to your sharing means you’ll give uTorrent information which would be invaluable to copyright holders and their agents who are looking for a convenient list of users to target for copyright infringement lawsuits.

Since “Falcon” is proprietary, you’ll probably not know if turning off the remote access is good enough to ensure your privacy. Worse still, if any of your filesharing peers use this service they’re alerting the uTorrent admins about your filesharing. So your rejection of uTorrent isn’t good enough to keep your use of the filesharing out of uTorrent’s hands.

Conclusion

“Falcon” poses a considerable risk to filesharers who want to retain their privacy and this version continues a long line of denying users their software freedom. If the program were free software, groups could set up competing services based on trustworthiness; we could have other remote control services running in competition with the uTorrent.com-based remote control service. You wouldn’t have to reveal your filesharing to parties except those you trusted while retaining the convenience of a small program running quickly. You could use whatever metric of trust to determine who those trustworthy parties are, if anyone. Instead, proprietary software pushes you into a monopoly for this service. This remote control protocol could be a commodity, improved and built upon as BitTorrent protocol itself is.

Trading away your software freedom is never a good idea.

The free software movement is primarily concerned with building and defending software freedom—the freedom to run, share, and modify published computer software. This is an ethical consideration borne out of considering how we ought to treat one another using computers and software. The open source movement pushes aside software freedom and pursues attracting business to the open source development methodology. To that end they concern themselves primarily with speaking to programmers who can help business develop its software. These concerns share some common ground but they can reach polar opposite responses to practical questions as the aforementioned essay illustrates:

It is remarkable that such different philosophical views can so often motivate different people to participate in the same projects. Nonetheless, there are situations where these fundamentally different views lead to very different actions.

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users’ freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, “I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?” This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, “Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement.” If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

If linux.conf.au were more concerned with teaching people about software freedom they’d recognize that the Linux kernel is a part of an operating system, not the whole thing. If you have only the Linux kernel on your computer you don’t have all the software you need to do things people expect a modern computer to do such as browse the web, compute in spreadsheets, and play movies. The Linux kernel allows an operating system to share computer hardware resources harmoniously so Linux is an important part of an operating system (for instance, a GNU/Linux system or a Busybox/Linux system as one might use on their home computer or Internet router) but we should give credit where credit is due. Calling attention to the name “GNU” helps draw attention to the cause of freedom and cooperation.

linux.conf.au hosts many talks and broadcasts them online in live streams. Apparently the live streaming is an opportunity for the online audience to install some non-free software, Microsoft’s Silverlight, via the conference’s live stream webpages. This year, linux.conf.au is hosting a talk by Robert O’Callahan, a hacker for Mozilla (makers of Firefox) who is giving a talk on “why open video is important for free software“; an important topic for free software activists everywhere. Viewers are given a mixed message when talks like these are streamed via patent-encumbered protocols over a proprietary program instead of the protocols and software O’Callahan will likely cover. A message rooted in freedom is subtly undermined when free and proprietary are presented as equals. Other conferences around the world have no problem streaming their talks in formats one can play with unencumbered free software (Debian’s conference, a very large Brazilian conference). The technology O’Callahan describes is viable today but if “unencumbered baseline codecs are critical for the Web and for the free software community” one wonders why this approach is not used exclusively to publish these live streams. Viewers/listeners to the online stream should be directed to install a free software browser which supports playing Ogg Vorbis+Theora not directed to install proprietary software.