Copyright 2010 Foundation How to Contribute 51 Franklin Street, 5th Floor Boston, MA 02110-1301 Associate Membership: (617)542-5942 Become an associate member of [email protected] the FSF. Members will receive http://www.fsf.org/ a bootable USB card and e-mail Issue 17 Bulletin December 2010 forwarding. To sign-up or get If you recently joined as a more information, visit member. member, your mailing includes fsf.org or write to membership@ a USB flash drive membership fsf.org. Contents card preloaded with a full live distribution of Trisquel 4.0. Online: Use your credit card or FSFat25 1 You can download PayPal account to a dona- When Free Software 2 for the distribution at http: tion at donate.fsf.org or con- Sucks //fsf.org/associate/source/. tact [email protected] for more GNU Hackers Meeting: 5 If you would like us to send you information on supporting the Gothenburg, Sweden the source code on two DVDs FSF. Hardware Endorsement 7 for 5 dollars, please write to Jobs: List your job offers on our Program [email protected] or at the address jobs page. See fsf.org/jobs for The MusicBrainz 8 above. details. Project Solving The Lending 9 This bulletin was produced using United Way: As a 501(c)(3) Problem only free software. tax-exempt organization, the The Appleseed Project 11 Free software at CERN FSF is eligible to receive United GNU Contributors 12 The articles in this bulletin are Way funds. See fsf.org/uw for Around The World individually licensed under the our new free software adoption cam- more information. Free Software, Free 13 Creative Commons Attribu- paign, Why aren’t we using free Society: Second Edition tion No Derivative Works Free Software Directory: software for that? GNU Parallel: A Design 14 3.0 United States License. Browse and download from thou- We’ve learned that the key to help- For Life To view a copy of this license, sands of different free software ing institutions adopt free software is A View From The 14 visit http://creativecommons. projects! directory.fsf.org to educate and empower decision mak- Server Room org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ ers to question why free software isn’t Volunteer: To learn more, visit TheFreeGameLag 15 or send a letter to Creative Com- being considered or used. Our cam- fsf.org/volunteer. Free Software From An 17 mons, 171 Second Street, Suite paign will provide the inspiration to Artistic Perspective 300, San Francisco, California, ask these critical questions and the ma- Free Software Supporter: TheSagaofSunRPC 18 94105, USA. Make sure you’re getting all the terials to help make the case for free very latest news from the FSF at software. fsf.org/fss. “When you look at who’s using free FSF at 25 software and why, it begs the question, LibrePlanet: Find local groups why aren’t we using free software for in your area or start your own at by Peter Brown that?” libreplanet.org! Executive Director To help demonstrate that free soft- he FSF has turned 25! To help us ware is used even in the most mission- Tcelebrate you can join us in kick- critical situations, we’ve published a starting the new year with support for new resource featuring executives from

20 1 high-profile institutions talking about of organizations that have chosen to The funny thing about this license ers to pay attention and solve the prob- how and why they deploy free soft- adopt free software. is everyone knew it was Sun’s intention lem. Eventually, he left the FSF for ware. Some examples: Mark Schulz, “The free software community is to make it free software. The code is so other work, and others, including Brett the leader of the Grid Deployment a worldwide movement of people ded- old, it dates back to a time when the Smith (who took over Novalis’ FSF group at the European Organization icated to the goal of freedom in the use drafting of free software licenses wasn’t job), took up the cause—by the time for Nuclear Research (CERN), tells us of technology. Anyone can be part of well understood (old-schoolers will, for Brett came on, Spot was also paying how the scientific community at CERN this community and we can share in its example, remember the annoying ad- attention to this. Both Brett and Spot uses free software extensively and how benefits.” vertising clause in early BSD licenses). worked hard to get Simon Phipps’ at- the Large Hadron Collider depends In a world where media companies Thus, by our modern standards, the tention on it, which finally happened. on GNU/; Daniel Risacher, of educate children not to share, the ideas Sun RPC license does appear on its But around then began that long wait- the US Department of Defense, shares presented by the free software commu- face as trivially non-Free, but in its his- ing period while Oracle was preparing how Free Software is critical to the nity can seem foreign and threatening. torical context, the intent was actually to buy Sun. It stopped almost any- armed forces’ ability to adapt to new What are these people’s motivations clear, in my opinion. thing anyone wanted to get done with challenges; Jimmy Wales, asserting for collaborating to produce and share Nevertheless, by 2002, we knew Sun, so everyone just waited (again). that “free knowledge requires free soft- valuable software? how to look at licenses objectively and It was around that time that I de- ware,” justifies his intransigence on Publicizing the motivations people critically, and it was clear to many cided I was pretty sure I never wanted Wikipedia’s use of free (and only free) have for participating in the free soft- people that the license had problems. to hear the phrase “Sun RPC license” software; and Steve Rubinow, the CIO ware community can go a long way Competing legal theories existed, but again in my life. of the New York Stock Exchange, ex- to reinforce the trust people should the concerns of Debian were enough to Meanwhile, Richard Fontana had plains how free software’s effectiveness put in its use. That’s why we’ve also get everyone moving toward a solution. gone to work for Red Hat, and his self- in handling the demands of the indus- published a new resource: Meet the For my part, I checked in regularly proclaimed pathological obsession with try and the fact that it is so well sup- Free Software Community, a series from 2002 to 2004 with Danese Cooper free software (which can only be rivaled ported make it a logical choice for the of profiles to inform and inspire. On (who was, effectively, Simon Phipps’ by my own) led him to begin discussing entire electronic exchange-and-trading the list:2 predecessor at Sun) until I was prac- the Sun RPC issue again. He and Spot industry. tically begging her to pay attention to were also doing their best negotiating These profiles provide a fascinating • Matt Mullenweg, cofounder and the issue. While I could frequently with Oracle to get it fixed. They took picture of the success of free software lead developer of WordPress, get verbal assurances from Danese and us the last miles of this marathon, and and reinforce that it is the freedom of highlights the benefit of freedom other Sun officials that it was their now the job is done. free software that inspires its use.1 in helping build a business: “As clear intention that glibc be permitted Thanks to everyone in this great “Free Software is software you can a businessman I love building on to include the code under the LGPL, I cast of characters who made this ulti- study, modify, and share without re- free software because you can be could never get something in writing. mately beneficial production of licens- striction. Around the world, schools, certain of your rights and free- I had a hundred other things to worry ing theater possible. I am honored to governments, businesses, and leading doms with regards to the soft- about and, eventually, I stopped wor- have shared the stage in the first few technology and research institutions ware.” rying about it. I remember thinking at acts, and am sorry that I hid backstage are adopting it. What’s our plan for the time, “Well, I’ve notes on all these for the last few. It was right to keep • Chris Blizzard, Firefox prod- moving to free software?” calls and discussions I’ve had with Sun working on it until the job was done. uct and platform manager at Free software is the better ethi- people about the license. Worst case As Fontana said, “Estoppel may be rel- Mozilla, talks about the expecta- cal choice, and publicizing success sto- scenario: I’ll have to testify to this evant but never enough; software free- tions he has when working with ries helps decision makers make a case when Sun sues some free software proj- dom principle[s] should matter as much free software: “My first operat- for their ethical push for free software ect, and there will be a good estoppel as legal risk. [the] standard for FaiF ing system relationship was built adoption. At fsf.org we will be high- defense”. can’t simply be good defense to copy- on free software. I grew up with lighting an ongoing series of interviews Meanwhile, around early 2004, my right infringement likely.” Thanks to radical transparency in my com- with executives from a diverse range friend and colleague at the FSF, David everyone; I’m so glad I no longer have 2 1 You can see all the profiles at http:// “Novalis” Turner took up the cause in to wait in fear of a subpoena from Or- Read them all at http:// www.fsf.org/working-together/profiles/ www.fsf.org/working-together/ earnest. I think he spent a year or two acle in a lawsuit claiming infringement meet-the-free-software-community whos-using-free-software as I did: desperately trying to get oth- of their Sun RPC copyrights.

2 19 to use for inspiration (or to be amused positive one: you have the freedom to puting life—that’s hard to grow When Free Software Sucks by). There’s another group consisting study and extend the software to bet- away from.” of an artist, critic and collector who ter be able to achieve what you want. by make up a simulation of precisely how The one thing that you will need • Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Senior Director, Free Software Founda- the art world doesn’t work called The to be patient about is CMYK sup- Software Engineer working on tion Cybernetic Artworld. They don’t pre- port. Some tools support CMYK, GNOME desktop at Red Hat, he Open Source Initiative’s mis- tend to be anything other than bots, most don’t, but you can create CMYK speaks about how our commu- Tsion statement reads, “Open source so it’s fun when people encounter them print-ready art in GNU/Linux. For me nity is able to adapt to de- is a development method for software and still attribute personality to their the common thread to all this is the liver freedom for all users: “Free that harnesses the power of distributed output or suggest ways they could be fact that despite the cliched images of software is an important social peer review and transparency of pro- improved. the solitary hacker in their cubicle or movement and a welcoming com- cess. The promise of open source is I’ve also written bots to generate the solitary artist in their studio, free munity. Working on Free Soft- better quality, higher reliability, more and post random recipes or random de- software and art are both social activ- ware is varied and rewarding and flexibility, lower cost, and an end to sign project ideas for commercial proj- ities. I’d love to see them come to- is impacting usability, accessibil- predatory vendor lock-in.” ects. Having them as a stream in a gether more. Artists need the freedom ity, and access to computers in For more than a decade now, the social network makes people consider to pursue their ideas, and they’ll use poor communities.” has argued them differently. It can be a good way free software in ways that will lead to against this “open source” characteri- of introducing ambient information or interesting new possibilities. Improving access to advocacy ma- zation of the . entertainment into your social network terials Free software advocates have primar- ily argued against this framing because feed. Because I like Lisp, the bots are Our campaign also aims to make sure The Saga of Sun RPC “open source” is an explicit effort to written in Common Lisp, but people that free software advocacy gets a deemphasize our core message of free- have said that the code is very readable higher priority in the community. by Bradley M. Kuhn dom and obscure our movement’s role even if you don’t know Lisp so it’s still It’s an unfortunate fact that Director, Free Software Founda- in the success of the software we have worth looking at. And everyone should the most popular distributions of tion built. We have argued that “open learn Lisp. I’ve never written a spec- GNU/Linux provide little in the way first became aware of the Sun RPC source” is bad, fundamentally, because tator bot for The Cybernetic Artworld, of free software advocacy materials Ilicense in mid-2001, but my email it attempts to keep people from talk- so maybe people could write their own for new users. I’ve spoken with the archives indicate the issue had been ing about software freedom. But there using the microblog-bot library. community representatives of Fedora, one of consideration since 1994. Re- is another reason we should be wary ML: To any artists who are still Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE, and they all cently, it was finally resolved. It now of the open source framing. The fun- using proprietary tools, what advice have expressed a desire to see FSF- ranks as the longest-standing free soft- damental open source argument, as would you give in their switch to free developed advocacy materials find a ware licensing problem of my career. A quoted in the mission statement above, software? home in their distributions. But it isn’t cast of dozens deserve credit for getting is often incorrect. RM: There are tutorials and books just the major distributions that have it resolved: Although the Open Source Initia- that can help you learn free software a duty to educate their users—all free Tom “spot” Callaway does a good tive suggests “the promise of open replacements for proprietary tools, but software projects should consider dis- job summarizing the recent occur- source is better quality, higher relia- the best thing to do is to get involved in tributing advocacy materials as part rences on this issue (and by recent, I bility, more flexibility,” this promise is the community. If you can find some- and parcel of their work, and we aim mean since 2005—it’s been going long not always realized. Although we do one who knows the software you want to help them make that a reality. enough that five years ago is “recent”) not often advertise the fact, any user to use, then their advice can be in- When the benefits of sharing and and its final resolution, and Simon of an early-stage free software project valuable. Free software tools can seem cooperation are understood and valued Phipps, who worked on this issue dur- can explain that free software is not very different to proprietary ones, par- by society, free software is the natural ing his time as the Chief Open Source always as convenient, in purely practi- ticularly if you’ve been using propri- choice. etary software for years or even for Officer of Sun, also wrote about his cal terms, as its proprietary competi- work on the issue. For my part, I’ll try decades. But the differences are usu- tors. Free software is sometimes low to cover the middle part of the story ally just in how the interface is orga- quality. It is sometimes unreliable. It from 2001 to 2005. nized, and the major difference is a is sometimes inflexible. If people take

18 3 the arguments in favor of open source a free software advocate. Every piece releasing as free software can only help less exotic location of Peterborough. seriously, they must explain why open of software that gives users control over them engage a wider community and ML: GNU social is one of the latest source has not lived up to its “promise” their technology is a step forward. Im- gain contributions from anyone inter- round of free software social networks. and conclude that proprietary tools proved quality as a project matures is ested in improving their software. Still, What opportunies do you see for these would be a better choice. There is no the icing on the cake. many games will not require a sub- networks in the artistic community? reason we should have to do either. A second, perhaps even more scription, and there are plenty of ways RM: When I spoke about GNU FM speaks to this damning, fact is that the collaborative, for those to fund their development as at the Make Art conference in Poitiers, in his article on “Why Open Source distributed, peer-review development well. France, last year, I mentioned GNU Misses the Point3” when he explains, process at the heart of the definition The possibilities don’t end there, social briefly at the end of my pre- “The idea of open source is that al- of open source bears little resemblance and hopefully with these examples it sentation, and everyone really wanted lowing users to change and redistribute to the practice of software development becomes clearer how free gaming can to hear more about it. Artists thrive the software will make it more pow- in the vast majority of projects under advance with enough interest. Free on the ideas, critique, and publicity erful and reliable. But this is not free (or “open source”) licenses. gaming will never look like the world of that Internet technologies can give ac- guaranteed. Developers of proprietary Several academic studies of free proprietary games today. They won’t cess to, but are often concerned about software are not necessarily incompe- software hosting sites SourceForge4 use DRM to prevent you from sharing the control that proprietary social net- tent. Sometimes they produce a pro- and Savannah5 have shown what many them, and they won’t limit your free- works give hidden actors over them. gram that is powerful and reliable, free software developers who have put dom otherwise. We can look forward Free software social networking sys- even though it does not respect the a codebase online already know first- to games which are not crippled by an- tems return the power to create your users’ freedom.” hand. The vast majority of free soft- tifeatures and are able to build upon own virtual social space to the artistic For open source, poor-quality soft- ware projects are not particularly col- each other to develop faster than they individuals and institutions that par- ware is a problem to be explained away laborative. The median number of would have otherwise. In the mean- ticipate in them. It’s reminiscent of the or a reason to eschew the software al- contributors to a free software proj- time, we should keep supporting free email listserv era, which was very im- together. For free software, it is a ect on SourceForge? One. A lone games and have confidence in them. portant for several different art move- problem to be worked through. For developer. SourceForge projects at We should in fact take it as a great sign ments in the 1990s and early 2000s. free software advocates, glitches and the ninety-fifth percentile by partici- when critical questions that were once MySpace and Facebook really haven’t missing features are never a source of pant size have only five contributors. raised against free software as whole replaced that — they lack the focus shame. Any piece of free software that More than half of these free software are now just pinned on one subset of and sense of community. respects users’ freedom has a strong projects—and even most projects that software. Now, next time anyone asks Artists can take control of their on- inherent advantage over a proprietary have made several successful releases about free software gaming, we should line social presence much more effec- competitor that does not. Even if it and been downloaded frequently, are have a good answer for them. tively with free software — galleries, has other issues, free software always the work of a single developer with lit- museums, artists groups, individual has freedom. tle outside help. artists, can all have their own nodes in Of course, every piece of free soft- By emphasizing the power of Free Software From An the distributed social network. Some ware must start somewhere. A brand- collaborative development and “dis- Artistic Perspective of these will almost certainly be de- new piece of software, for example, is tributed peer review,” open source ap- clared artworks in themselves by an en- unlikely to be more featureful than an proaches seem to have very little to by Matt Lee terprising conceptual artist. established proprietary tool. Projects say about why one should use, or con- Campaigns Manager ML: You previously made an art begin with many bugs and improve tribute to, the vast majority of free n my travels north, I meet with project out of bots that communicate over time. While open source advo- software projects. Because the pur- ORob Myers, former GNU chief with each other on networks like Sta- cates might argue that a project will ported benefits of collaboration cannot webmaster and one of the developers tusNet and Identi.ca. What work is grow into usefulness over time and with be realized when there is no collabora- on GNU social. Rob is an artist who happening with these, and how can luck, free software projects represent tion, the vast majority of free develop- uses free software exclusively for his other people use them for their own important contributions on day one to ment projects are at no technical ad- work. Previously, he had an exhibition purposes, artistic or otherwise? 3 4 of art created using free software in Za- RM: They’ve been running for over http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ http://sf.net open-source-misses-the-point.html 5http://sv.gnu.org greb, Croatia. Today, we meet in the a year now. Some post short, random, colour or shape descriptions for people

4 17 The Free Game Lag to sell games that did not force you vantage with respect to a proprietary to take for granted in the face of evi- to use a particular platform, and competitor. dence that refuses to conform to ideol- by Sarvodaya did not use DRM. Through a sim- For free software advocates, these ogy. Campaigns Intern, Summer 2010 ple pay-what-you-want model, contrib- same projects are each seen as impor- here is one category of software utors put down a total of over $1.2M tant successes. Because every piece of Tthat many see as being unsustain- because so many people are desperate free software respects its users’ free- GNU Hackers Meeting: able as free software: Free video games to escape the norms that have evolved dom, advocates of software freedom ar- Gothenburg, Sweden have lagged behind other areas of free out of the world. gue that each piece of free software be- software, and the reasons behind this Even though it wasn’t promised, after gins with an inherent ethical advantage by Matt Lee are fairly simple. Still, even many free being so wildly successful, most of the over proprietary competitors — even Campaigns Manager software proponents may fail to pro- games in the bundle were released as a more featureful one. By emphasiz- n Gothenburg, Sweden, I attended vide an answer to those who are skep- free software. There is clear interest in ing freedom over practical advantages, Ian informal bar meetup with sev- tical about the viability of free gaming. what free software gaming offers, and free software’s advocacy is rooted in a eral GNU hackers. Among them were While it is true that software should be gradually there are more and more ef- technical reality in a way that open Brian Gough, who sits on the GNU ethical, video games need not suffer for forts to produce these free games. source is often not. When free soft- Advisory Committee, Jos Marchesi, a it. The business models for produc- It’s always funny to face the same ware is better, we can celebrate this GNU PDF developer, Michael Foetsch, tion simply need to change, and just arguments that have been presented fact. When it is not, we need not treat from gNewSense, Ralf Wildenhues, like they have for other software, they to the free software movement and it as a damning critique of free software who hacks on the GNU Autotools will for gaming as well. When peo- completely disproven in practice (e.g. advocacy or even as a compelling argu- (, , libtool), Simon ple ask you how gaming as we know it Why would anybody produce free soft- ment against the use of the software in Josefsson from GNU TLS, and Alfred can exist in a free software world, you ware?). The possible incentives for question. Szmidt, a veteran of many projects, in- should open with your response with, creating free games are as numerous Open source advocates must defend cluding GCC, GDB, Hurd and, more “It can’t, but it can be better.” as the motivations for producing other their thesis that freely developed soft- recently, the GNU networking utilities, There is a natural tendency for free free software. Perhaps a graphics hard- ware should, or will with time, be bet- inetutils. software to take on more essential as- ware company wants to fund the devel- ter than proprietary software. Free ML: Do you think awareness of pects of computing first. While sub- opment of a game to show of the ca- software supporters can instead ask, GNU is increasing? jective, it is clear that gaming is not a pabilities of their hardware. Perhaps “How can we make free software bet- BG: That’s hard to measure but top-priority and, as such, has not ad- a hospital wants to fund an enjoyable ter?” In a free software framing, high the community is certainly getting vanced as rapidly as say, web browsers way for surgeons to improve their dex- quality software exists as a means to an stronger. We had about 40 people at or word processors. That isn’t to say terity. Perhaps a school wants to fund end rather than an end itself. Free soft- the most recent GNU Hackers Meet- that no progress has been made. In- a suite of educational games for stu- ware developers should strive to create ing in the Hague, and that number has deed, free gaming has certainly been dents. Perhaps a competitive gaming functional, flexible software that serves been increasing every meeting over the catching up, but it will take a while league wants to fund their own game its users well. But doing so is not the past years. At FOSDEM in February to surpass the quality of proprietary for tournaments. There are already only way to make steps toward solv- 2011 we will have a dev room for 100 games. This should not be surpris- a few notable examples of free games ing what is both an easier and a much people. ing or alarming. We will get there in that are proving business models can more profoundly important goal: re- GS: In these last years I have no- good time. As free software continues be built around free games. specting and protecting their freedom. ticed a wider awareness of what the to spread, interest will build for free Through a partnership with the Of course, we do not need to re- Free Software and the GNU Project games, and a lack of understanding Free Software Foundation, Winch ject arguments that collaboration can are, and the understanding of the im- how such games could support them- Gate Properties Ltd released , play an important role in creating portance to have a Free operating sys- selves should notand need notbe a rea- the massively multiplayer online role- high-quality software. In many of tem. On the other hand, I have got the son to make video games an exception playing game, as free software under the most successful free software proj- impression that the number of real con- to free software. the AGPL, and its artwork as free cul- ects, it clearly has done exactly that. tributors hasn’t increased at the same The state of non-free gaming has tural works under the CC-BY-SA li- The benefits of collaboration become rate. Communities are a great thing gotten so bad, that an effort called cense. As an online game, they fund something to understand, support, and but it is also important to get hands The Humble Indie Bundle launched development through subscriptions, so work towards, rather than something

16 5 “dirty,” there are new problems to face tant. Unfortunately still there is much ter done with GNU Parallel. lowed us to share code and best prac- every day and there is definitely need work to do. Some features are missing tices across the entire industry. of new contributors. Everyone can but GNU/Linux and gNewSense are a Witnessing the gradual liberation contribute and support actively the de- reality — you can already get a taste A View From The Ser- of the embedded scene was a tremen- velopment of the GNU system, there of a Free . ver Room dous experience for me—not only did are many ways to do it without be a ML: What makes the GNU it make my job easier and more pro- . networking utilities different from by Bernie Innocenti ductive, it also enabled me to share AS: Over the last 5 years I’ve seen those found in other operating Senior Systems Administrator improvements with my peers around a younger generation getting involved, systems and distributions? ’m the latest member to join the the world. These days, when many of including things like the GNU Hack- SJ: Most distributions are using Isystems team at the Free Software us have the luxury of carrying power- ers Meetings that are popping up all a variety of tools from a variety of Foundation. Prior to joining the ful gadgets loaded with free software in over the world. There also seems to be sources: NetKit is widespread for tel- FSF, I lived in Italy where I designed their pockets, I wonder if some of that a wider awareness of what the GNU net, ftp, and tftp. Debian GNU/Linux firmware and embedded systems for magic feeling is not lost. Project has done; people don’t seem uses Marco d’Itri’s whois client while several high-tech companies in the Flo- In 2007, I became interested in as suprised if you say you work on the other programs, such as traceroute are rence area. In the beginning my job the One Laptop Per Child project GNU system of the GNU Project. So separate packages too. Several of these there unfortunately required working and moved to Boston to join the yes, I would think so. packages are poorly maintained with on Windows with proprietary compil- OLPC’s engineering team. OLPC’s ML: Of all the projects rep- no releases in many years — the last ers to produce proprietary software. XO-1 laptop was unique in many ways: resented here, gNewSense and date in the changelog files for the ‘tel- The situation improved significantly, along with the Asus EEE PC, it was GNU PDF are perhaps the most net’ and ‘ftp’ packages is 2000! Given though, over the years. My consult- one of the first mass-produced lap- likely to be used by a typical non- this mixed picture, having a single ing firm was an early adopter of GCC, tops preloaded with GNU/Linux and developer user. What are the source for network utilities, one that GNU/Linux, Python and other emerg- the first to ship with a free BIOS. goals of these projects? even makes regular releases and show ing technologies. It expanded rapidly While the laptop was plagued with a JM: The goal of the GNU PDF some code activity, would be much bet- as the local industry started to em- proprietary wireless chipset, it came project is to provide a free (GPLv3+) ter. At least that is why I’m helping brace free software at all levels: ser- preloaded with a revolutionary educa- and complete implementation of the the inetutils effort. ver infrastructure, process control, de- tional environment called Sugar, which PDF format and associated technolo- AS: The GNU Network Utilities velopment workstations and, of course, embodied the same spirit of explo- gies. It is not yet ready for end-user are portable across different plat- embedded in devices. Demand for our ration and creativity that I had grown usage, but we are working on it. forms, something that the BSD ver- expertise dramatically rose; we were up with, in a format suitable for young GS: These projects share the same sions aren’t. We also support IPv6, being called to design new lines of hackers. These past three years, I trav- final goal: give users the full control Kerberos authentication, and TLS en- products based on GNU/Linux and elled around the world for Sugar and of their computers and data. GNU cryption, something that most other then to work side by side with the in- OLPC. IceCat is the GNU version of the fa- GNU and BSD systems lack in their ternal engineering team to transfer full I’ve been in Boston since October, mous Mozilla Firefox browser; differ- standard version. ownership of the project. For fear of working for the FSF. Its office in down- ently from Firefox, IceCat suggests to ML: Brian, what is the GNU becoming redundant, traditional con- town Boston is one of the very first use only free addons and free plug- Advisory Committee, and how is sultants were reluctant to share source places I visited when I first arrived in ins. GNU PDF project aims to de- it changing the way GNU acts as code and best practices with their cus- the US, four years ago. It is a com- velop a free library to manage the PDF a community? tomers; as a result, for fear of loos- mon place of pilgrimage for any re- file format. gNewSense is a fully free BG: The GNU Advisory Commit- ing control, customers were reluctant spectable GNUdist. There’s a certain GNU/Linux distribution without any tee was created about a year ago to to outsource core projects. When free sense of wonder for me in being in the nonfree component. I would like to improve coordination within the GNU software entered the scene, this closed place where the free software move- remind another very important GNU Project. It provides an initial point of business model was easily swept aside. ment started. And, fiinally, I’m work- project, GNU , that provides contact for questions from maintainers, We were still able to maintain a tech- ing in a place where people care about a free Flash movie player. All of FSF, and others. Members of the com- nical edge, but not by means of keep- freedom as much as I do. these projects (as any component of a mittee are appointed by Richard Stall- ing our tricks secret. Free licenses al- GNU/Linux system) are very impor- man and meet by phone each month

6 15 mand line. Like emptying all tables in to discuss current issues. Stallman, In October, we publicly announced a database: the founder of GNU and the presi- a hardware-endorsement program to sql -n mysql:///’show tables’ dent of the FSF, remains the Chief help bridge this gap. Hardware that’s | parallel sql mysql:/// DELETE GNUisance with overall responsibility endorsed by the FSF will do as much FROM {}; for and authority over the GNU Proj- as possible to respect your freedom and To me it has become a bit of a sport ect. The Advisory Committee is trying give you control over the device. And to see if the tasksI do canbe done more to encourage more project-wide activ- the program demonstrates to sellers efficiently using GNU Parallel. When ities and get more people involved in that there are already plenty of poten- you have gotten used to it, a lot of the GNU. For example, it helped to organ- tial customers who take freedom seri- once-off scripts can often be written on ise the first US GNU Hackers meeting ously. a single line using GNU Parallel — and in Boston at the FSF’s LibrePlanet in The program is designed to cover they are often even easier to read. As March 2010. Prior to that there had all kinds of hardware, such as full com- an example, if you wanted to convert not been a meeting where GNU con- puters and parts, portable and embed- all *.mp3 to *.ogg running one process tributors in the US could get together ded devices, and individual peripher- per CPU core on local computer and for many years. In the past, develop- als. Highlights of the criteria include: server2 you could simply do: ers have mainly worked within their parallel --trc {.}.ogg-j+0 -S own projects — we want to encour- • The device cannot require or rec- server2,: ’mpg321-w - {} | oggenc age more communication and sharing ommend that you use any non- -q0 - -o {.}.ogg’ ::: *.mp3 of ideas among the project as a whole. free software to use it fully. Any I encourage my users to share their drivers, firmware loaded at run- time, or dedicated utilities to in- GNU Press is online at shop.fsf.org smartest command lines on the email list [email protected], so new uses teract with the device must all be can be found. Hardware Endorsement free. Parallel — a shell tool for executing ML: Like many people, I’m Program • Almost all software running on jobs in parallel, locally or using remote sure, I often forget I’m using the device must be free. (There’s machines. GNU Parallel. Has this ubiquity by Brett Smith one narrow exception for soft- ML: Ole, GNU Parallel is a hurt your development efforts at Licensing Engineer ware running on auxiliary pro- specialist tool for running multi- all? Buying hardware that plays well cessors where no free software ple jobs at the command line at OT: A good tool is a tool that does with free software has long been is available, and the software is the same time. Why did you de- not get in your way, but tries to sup- tricky business, even for us here at not meant to be upgraded by velop it, and what are your uses port your work by providing reason- the FSF — for a while now, we’ve the seller or the user after ship- for it? ably defaults while remaining config- done our best to collect information ment.) You must be able to mod- OT: I often get in the situation that urable for you own needs. GNU Par- about devices that require only free ify and/or replace all of that soft- I need to run a script on each line of a allel strives to accomplish this. This software drivers in our Hardware Di- ware, too. And you’ll be able to bunch of lines, so back in 2001 I made a often also means that you do not re- rectory. Unfortunately, these recom- do it all without legal worry, be- wrapper script for make -j to run com- ally think about GNU Parallel as the mendations are often hard to follow cause any patents the seller owns mand lines in parallel. This was the tool is simply a step to accomplish your and go out of date quickly. or has licensed must be licensed first basic version of parallel that later task. At the same time, whenever we’ve to you. became GNU Parallel. The full history The role that GNU Parallel plays talked to hardware manufacturers or of GNU Parallel is at http://www. will never be more than a supporting sellers about this issue, they’ve often • You don’t have to worry about gnu.org/s/parallel/history.html role and thus the best GNU Parallel told us that they’re interested in of- the device spying on you. The Today I use GNU Parallel even for can hope for is to be an integral part of fering more hardware that meets our device cannot share your per- tasks that do not really need to be run every UNIX user’s toolbox, so I would needs. The main reason they hold back sonal information with others in parallel, simply because of its ease love to see people mentioning GNU is because they’re not sure they can unless you give permission, or of replacing arguments on the com- Parallel when someone uses xargs or justify the expense involved. unless sharing that information while-read loops for tasks that was bet- is fundamental to the device’s

14 7 operation. If the device sup- nance to music player software, compa- tion this month: the second edition of exposition of the facts are corrected, ports formats encumbered with nies, and organizations like the BBC. Free Software, Free Society: Selected refined, and informed by Stallman’s Digital Restrictions Management ML: How long have you been Essays of Richard M. Stallman and technical expertise and his first-hand (DRM), the DRM must be im- involved with MusicBrainz? Free as in Freedom 2.0: Richard Stall- knowledge of both the events and his plemented in free software (and KW: I’ve been a user for about 5 man and the Free Software Revolution, own motivations. See what Stallman thus breakable by users). years — mostly entering music, tag- both in paperback. has to say about his own life and work ging music, etc. — I’ve been a devel- The new edition of Free Software, and the free software movement. Products that meet all of the crite- oper for about a year, but I officially Free Society features a number of Proceeds from the sale of these ria will be fully endorsed by the FSF. started working in February 2010. Be- changes: updated versions of the es- books will help fund our campaigns to We’ll provide them with a seal to put fore I could get started, I had to prove says on the GNU Project and free soft- promote and defend computer users’ on their boxes, a joint press release, my worth by trying to get some code ware and a selection of the essays Stall- rights. Any way you could help spread listing on our web site, and other mar- checked in as part of the interview pro- man has written since 2002, when the the word would be useful to the move- keting help. Because of this, the crite- cess. first edition was published. It draws ment: share the books (as stocking ria do also require that the product’s ML: Tell us a little about the a starker distinction between areas of stuffers perhaps this holiday season!) marketing be consistent with our own existing site, and what free soft- copyright and those of patents in a with your friends and family, ask your public messaging, to avoid any con- ware you’re using to build the way we hope will put an end to the local libraries and bookstores to stock flicts between what we say and what new site? confusion of the issues; an introduc- a copy, ask your professors to consider the seller says. KW: I don’t know too much about tion, written by Brett Smith, the FSF’s ordering them for their classes, give a As I write this article, we’re still the existing site, other than it’s writ- compliance engineer, now provides his- copy to the decision makers in your or- working on refining the criteria based ten in . . . The site was started torical context for the drafting of the li- ganization, or put a link to the online on public feedback we’ve received so about 10 years ago and web devel- censes and makes plain the importance version on your homepage. Get these far. In the meantime, we’ve also re- opment, especially free software, has of the documents; a part of the book books — enjoy a 10 percent discount ceived a lot of contacts from hardware moved on hugely since then. The new is entirely devoted to the issue of nam- when you buy both Stallman’s biogra- sellers who are interested in obtaining site is written with , which ing and its significance in the survival phy and his collection of essays from our endorsement. Nothing’s final yet, is a web framework for Perl, simi- of free software; another discusses the the FSF store — for yourself or for fu- but we’re very hopeful that we’ll be lar to other frameworks like Ruby on traps that erode our freedoms, and an- ture free software supporters, and help able to announce the first few endorsed Rails or CakePHP. We also use Post- other urges us to choose civic values get the word out on this most current products soon. greSQL for our database — as much and community over convenience; and, and critical social issue. as we’d like to, we’re unable to sup- finally, there is now an index, to max- If you are not yet a member, please port other databases because we have imize the usefulness of the book. do consider joining. You will have The MusicBrainz Proj- some modules that are written espe- Also now in print is GNU Press’ the option of receiving *Free Software, ect cially for PostgreSQL, mostly for col- second edition of Free as in Freedom, Free Society as your welcome gift and lating Unicode data — we have albums Sam Williams’ biography of Richard enjoy a 20 percent discount on all items by Matt Lee and music in languages like Japanese Stallman, revised and annotated by in the FSF store. Thanks for support- Campaigns Manager and Korean, and presenting those to Richard Stallman. Williams had put ing free software.* uring November 2010, I travelled an international audience is tricky, so the first edition of the book under Daround Europe, meeting various we use ”libuca” (Unicode collation al- the GNU Free Documentation License, free software developers on my way to gorthim), which is free software. thus allowing others to modify and im- GNU Parallel: A De- FSCONS, the annual free software con- ML: If people wants to get in- prove upon the work. With Free as sign For Life ference, in Gothenburg, Sweden. volved with MB, what are things in Freedom (2.0) the reader can enjoy In Amsterdam I met up with Kuno that they could do? the manifold advantages presented by by Matt Lee Woudt, better known to many of us as KW: We have developers who are this unique format in which the sub- Campaigns Manager warp, developer for MusicBrainz. He is being paid to work on the site, but ject’s corrections, rebuttals, and opin- n my last night in Gothenburg, currently building the next generation we can always use more community ions are laid beside the biographer’s ac- Oat FSCONS, I took a moment to of the MusicBrainz website, which sup- help. One of the main uses for Mu- count and interpretations. Williams’ briefly hat with Ole Tange, from GNU plies metadata on music and its prove- sicBrainz is people tagging their music interviews, outside perspective, and his

8 13 press attention, and projects like opment. This count paints a rough but using Picard (written in Python) — Pi- best-intentioned friends forget to re- Appleseed and GNU social also interesting picture of our community. card is entirely written by volunteers turn things, and sometimes during the actively working on the problem. I have noted in my duties that while in the community, and we can always lending period we wish we had the How are these projects working many GNU contributors are US citi- use more help there. If you know a book back to look up a favorite quote. together, and do you think there zens, the majority of them are hack- lot about music, or you have a lot of A good friend of mine gets upset when- is room for multiple projects in ers in other parts of the globe. Re- records and CDs, you can help us think ever even the corner of one of her books this area? cently, I had an opportunity to compile more about how to model the world of gets bent — not an uncommon fear MC: We’re all tackling the same some rough statistics on where they are music in our database. . . for example: among book lovers — and this is a problem, but this is undiscovered ter- all from: while US citizens represent a song featuring multiple artists may heavy responsibility to bear when bor- ritory, so we’re all doing it in our own the largest single chunk of contribu- be released in several ways — figuring rowing. way, which is very healthy at this early tors, they comprise less than a third of out how those releases are labelled on We like lending libraries because, point. GNU social seems to be do- total GNU contributors; Germany and the various CDs and records is a huge like public schools, they give more peo- ing a lot of good work with OStatus, France are the second and third best- help. Classical music is especially dif- ple access to more information and cul- something the Appleseed project has represented countries in our records, ficult because this is not just songs’’ ture regardless of their wealth. They watched closely for the future. And Di- accounting for 14 and 7 percent respec- andalbums,” but a much larger body allow us to explore and research topics aspora has helped popularize the pos- tively (Europe in general tends to be of work with a different structure, be- we are interested in, in a single location sibility of decentralized, open networks well represented, with the Netherlands cause much of the music is in the public and without the difficult task of actu- as an alternative to walled gardens like in particular having a very high rate of domain — there is not just one release. ally acquiring dozens of physical books. Facebook. I don’t doubt we’re all in- contribution); and while the number of We can use more help capturing that For many of us, libraries are wonder- terested in interconnecting, and once contributors from China and India are and storing it on our database. ful places; it can be inspirational to be the various software projects stabilize, currently relatively small (even when All the software written by Mu- holed up at a desk somewhere deep in it won’t be until protocols are finalized, combined they represent less than 5 sicBrainz is free software, and free the stacks. and adopted across all the free software percent of total contributors), the pro- software is used to run and develop But really, we’d rather not have to social networking projects. portions are rapidly shifting, and both the site. Download MusicBrainz use a lending library. All too often, the are likely to represent a larger share in software at their website, http:// books we want to borrow aren’t there, the future. musicbrainz.org/. because someone else has already bor- GNU Contributors Aro- In all, we have contributors from rowed them. We’ve all turned excit- und The World sixty-six different countries,7 and from edly to a promising page from a book’s every continent except Antarctica— Solving The Lending index, only to find the page has been by Donald Robertson III which is pretty good considering one Problem glued with chewing gum to the facing Copyright Administrator cannot be a citizen of Antarctica. page, or its key words obscured by cof- t’s my job to handle the copyright- Sixty-six countries down, 137 to go! by John Sullivan fee stains. The borrowing part of the Iassignment process for the Free Soft- Operations Manager library is not the good part; the fact ware Foundation, and because of that ending and borrowing are not de- that only one person can have a par- I am well aware of the international Lsirable activities. They are things ticular book out at a time — and that scope of the GNU Project. Free Software, Free So- we do when we have to, when there we all have to repeatedly use the same Every day I process and send out ciety: Second Edition isn’t enough of something to go aro- copies — runs counter to the most im- assignment contracts to people all und. Not to say that lending some- portant reasons we support the exis- across the world. It is part of the by Jeanne Rasata thing like a book to a friend is without tence of libraries. copyright registration process to keep Assistant to the President benefits beyond access to the material; If we could have the benefits of a record of the country of citizenship e are very pleased and excited to it can create a shared experience that lending to friends and borrowing from of each contributor. By looking at the Wannounce the addition of two im- makes for good conversation, or pro- libraries without the inconveniences, citizenship counts in our records, we portant books to the GNU Press collec- vide an excuse to see each other. we would. If we could just make a copy can get a basic idea of what parts of of that good book and give it to our 7http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/ But really, it’s something we’d the planet are involved in GNU devel- gnu-stats-2010-11 rather not have to do. Even the friend at no noticeable cost, we would choose to do that, every time. If both

12 9 you and I could get the same book from even more baffling. terms of our access to knowledge and ing software. the library at the same time, neither of When Barnes & Noble announced culture. You can help us stand for these us would deny the other that. that its ebook reader would support Companies attempt to justify this freedoms by following our anti-DRM Fortunately, with electronic books, lending, we raised an eyebrow. Since power relationship as necessary to pro- campaign at DefectiveByDesign.org. the inconveniences of lending and bor- we knew that it was going to be re- tect authors; but this is a false choice. Please lend us your support, as we rowing are solved problems. Books can stricted by DRM, we were curious to Authors can be supported without rob- work to make lending a thing of the now be infinitely read and shared. We know how the device would act out bing readers and scholars of freedoms past. can now all have access to all of them, an equivalent temporary transfer of a from which everyone, including au- all of the time. And this is why it book by one person to another and thors, benefit — especially given that sounds so strange to hear digital book back. When Amazon made their “us there is no evidence such restrictions The Appleseed Project companies like Amazon and Barnes & too!” announcement, we were really translate into more support for au- by Matt Lee Noble bragging about how their ebook- intrigued. thors. Plenty of writers out there Campaigns Manager reader devices “support lending.” It turns out that “lending” to them want their books read and shared, and n my last night in Gothenburg, I When they advertise this “feature,” means a user can — if the publisher don’t agree with digital restrictions as Obriefly chatted with Michael Chis- what they mean is: “We have managed permits it — give a book to another a means to secure a living. Compa- to take a digital book, and make it not person enrolled in the same ebook sys- nies pushing restrictions are working to ari, of the Appleseed project, which is creating a free software social network. work anymore!” They have removed tem (Kindle users can’t lend to Nook increase their own power, not to pro- ML: Michael, Appleseed is one of the primary advances the digi- users, or vice versa), for a limited and tect authors — in fact, Apple and Sony getting a lot of attention as tal book represents for civilization, and preset time. During that time, the have refused to publish ebooks without a free software social network. replaced it, by design, with a defective original user may not access her own DRM even when the authors requested How can users of Appleseed version. copy — even though it still exists on they do so. help the project and what can They have managed to recreate, in her device. This charade can be ex- Some publishers are recognizing developer-minded developers do the palm of a reader’s hand, the thrill ecuted one time ever per book. In that the restrictions are an affront — besides running their own Apple- of tracking down a call number deep order to receive the book, the lendee Springer Verlag for example, has been seed nodes? in the library stacks only to find its has to register with the authorities offering their electronic titles to li- 6 MC: Other than bug testing/fixing spot occupied by empty space. With at whichever company the book was braries without DRM. We should sup- a clever arrangement of bytes, they purchased from, divulging various bits port these authors and publishers, and and documentation, which are always needed, the best thing developers can have enabled users to experience the of personal information and allowing reject the restrictions imposed by com- start by doing is familiarizing them- equivalent of being without their books the company to track her reading list panies like Amazon, Sony, Apple, and selves with the framework. Appleseed while their friends’ dogs chew on them. (which is then also available to sub- Barnes & Noble. is a very large project, and it’s a lot Maybe if we’re lucky, next they’ll im- poena by law enforcement). The freedom we are protecting here plement the feature that allows two This setup bears only the most is not the freedom to lend. Lending easier to plug people in to building fea- tures in the roadmap if they have a electronic pages to be stuck together vague and insulting resemblance to is the exercise of other kinds of free- sense of how it works. There’s some as if by gum, or that translates cof- lending. But even if they had man- dom, unfortunately limited by connec- fee spilled on the screen into equivalent aged to replicate the act perfectly, we tion with physical objects. The ulti- documentation, and a heavily com- mented example component as a start- damage to the digital pages. wouldn’t want it. We lend and borrow mate goal of lending is sharing. The ing point, and the best bet for learning It’s clear from these basic obser- because we have to; because physical more fundamental freedom we are pro- is to build a component from scratch, vations that these companies are do- books are physical property. If some- tecting is the freedom to use our tech- even if it doesn’t do much. From there, ing us and our books no favors. They one takes one from us, we don’t have nology as a means to accomplish this have taken a technology which solves it anymore. This is not true with elec- same goal of sharing, to the bene- it should be pretty easy to start work- ing on the core components and func- the lending problem and twisted it to tronic books, and it’s a mistake to try fit of ourselves and our communities, tionality, and helping out with building make lending even more of a problem. and force them to work the same old without agreeing to be subjugated, re- But when we consider more closely the way. To do so is to distort the neces- stricted, or divided from each other, by new features. ML: Now is a good time details of how this electronically sim- sary limits of a physical object into un- the companies who “own” the mediat- for free software social networks, ulated lending works, it makes corpo- necessary power relationships, where 6http://ur1.ca/2glwb with Diaspora getting lots of rate excitement around the antifeature companies use software to dictate the

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