Five things Free Software has taught me

I’ve been in Free Software for a few years now and learned a ton from it.  Sure, I learned how to use new types of software, became efficient on them, and honed my programming skills, but stopping there would be missing the point.  Free software has so much more to offer than just computing and technical benefits.  In fact, the technical side is the least important thing I’ve learned from my experiences.  Free Software has brought me far beyond knowledge of its source code and taught me lessons I will value for a lifetime.

1. Centralized control isn’t worth it

When one single governing body gains absolute control over something, it is only a matter of time before that governing body increases its power tremendously.  Many times, it does this in order to avoid vice, but counterintuitively, only ends up creating more of it in the process.  Take any modern established proprietary software company that started out in the 60’s or 70’s for example.  These software companies were revolutionary in their decision not to share their software for the benefit of learning, but rather, keep it a secret in order to make money from it.  As time went on, the companies began imposing slightly harsher methods upon users in an attempt to foil the plans of those who refused to pay.  This was the beginning of techniques such as license keys.  As users developed ways around the methods, the methods kept getting progressively harsher, severely punishing casual proprietary software users who had been legally using and paying full price for the software since the beginning.

It would not be enough to stop here, though.  Proprietary software companies, caring only about eliminating competition, have no regret in choosing not to support competitors’ file formats (or even worse, supporting them incompletely), slowing down their software to sell the user a “speed upgrade”, and spying on the user without his/her consent to aid their marketing departments.  They even have no shame in not bothering to release security updates until there is already an epidemic.  Users don’t have the freedom to correct any of these because one company alone controls all aspects of the software in question.

Just the other day, I overheard a conversation between two of my peers.  It went something like this:

“I got a new iPhone the other day!”

“Sweet!  Are you going to try to hack it?” (Note: “Hack” here is used in the sense that it has come to mean in today’s society: breaking security.)

“I don’t know.  I know someone who broke into his iPhone and bricked it.  And, I mean, you can’t just go into the store and ask for a repair, because you’ve voided your warranty by hacking it.”

“I hacked my iPhone.  It worked perfectly.  And it is awesome!  Now I can run all sorts of apps on it that aren’t in the App Store!”

It is sad to see that people today actually have to use the term “breaking in” to describe changing the software on the cell phone they own.  People now willingly accept the fact that they just can’t run any application that the developing company didn’t authorize, because this restriction has become so common.  In the case of the iPhone, owners have to make a decision as to whether they want to try to modify the software on the device they own (described as “hacking”) and risk an update from Apple that destroys their phone, or use a device that performs only as Apple wishes it to perform.  Purchasing an iPhone is willingly handing over complete control of the device to Apple because this approach has been so tightly ingrained in society as necessary.

2. The strongest approach is a philosophical approach

As the main partitioner between the Free Software Movement and the Open Source Movement, it is apparent, in this regard alone, that it must have a significant amount of meaning.  When one really digs into the specifics, though, this idea becomes even more important.  Nobody would ever build a skyscraper without spending tiring hours on a sturdy foundation to keep the building up.  Likewise, constructing a movement on the grounds that a development style always produces less-buggy, more secure, or more featureful software is worthless.  On these foundationless grounds, what would be the problem with using Skype and locking not only yourself, but also all of your friends, into one company’s software and protocol?  When cost gets thrown into the mix, things get even uglier.  One who bases his/her opinions on these subjective measures would be enticed by high-quality software available at no cost.  Though I make no claim to it’s quality, even Microsoft Windows is “free of cost” to consumers.

The majority of the people in the world choose not to pickpocket.  But why?  It couldn’t possibly be too difficult.  If the thief runs, he/she probably won’t get caught, and it is a quick way to make some extra cash.  Most people believe it is wrong to steal, and therefore, won’t rob a wallet.  The philosophy that one should not steal overrides the benefits that may come from stealing someone’s wallet.  It is the same reason that Vegans don’t wear leather, Mormons abstain from caffeine/alcohol, and environmentalists drive hybrid cars.

When it comes to software, though, the majority of people take a lesser stance.  For those “casual users” who have somehow learned about the Free Software Movement, few will take the philosophies seriously since they create so much inconvenience and trouble.  Would one be likely to support dismantling one’s house upon learning that it was seated upon a sacred ancient burial ground?  Because it creates so much inconvenience and would be outrageously expensive, most people would likely ditch this new ethical dilemma, on the grounds that they had very little opinion about it before it began affecting their life.  Yes, the house is ruining the sacred area, but nobody informed the homeowner in question about this problem before the purchase, so the shame should be placed elsewhere.

When one keeps a 100% philosophy-based center when making every-day choices, it is impossible to make a regrettable decision on those aspects in which one has philosophies or values.  Putting morals before convenience and ease may be tough at times, but it will help ensure permanent solutions that carry much more meaning.

3. An open and creative mind does wonders

Before I became involved in Free Software, I had far different opinions, ideas, and beliefs than I do today.  Free Software helped me open up my mind to new and unfamiliar concepts.  This software universe had been going on behind my back for years.  If there was this much in software alone that a technology-savvy guy had never even heard of, I figured, there must be quite a bit out there.

One of the best parts about the Free Software community is that it is composed of a huge diversity of people with a huge diversity of ideas.  Richard Stallman’s stallman.org is a perfect example.  Most of his ideas and beliefs, especially his political ideals, are somewhat unorthodox and not widely accepted.  Previous to reading his opinions, I had laughed Ralph Nader off as a joke, as I had heard nothing but humor about him previously in my life.  When I actually met someone who supported him, I took the time to understand his politics.  It just so happened that I shared some of Nader views.  I stopped my warrantless distaste for the 3rd party candidate, and gained a great deal of respect for the man.

Another good example can be drawn from my life.  I am a composer, and one of the biggest hurdles for me in switching to exclusively Free Software was my sheet music typesetting software.  I used a proprietary package under Wine for quite some time, because none of the other options available did what I wanted.  Or so I thought.  I had tried Free Software packages to fill this purpose, from Rosegarden, to MuseScore, to Lilypond, to Canorus.  I convinced myself that, since none of them behaved exactly like the proprietary package I was used to using, none of them were as good.  Some time later, I decided the final movement of of my last piece of proprietary software should end soon, and that I best move to exclusively Free Software.  I forced myself to use MuseScore for my next composition project.  By the time I was done, I had actually forgotten how to use my old piece of proprietary garbageware.  MuseScore did everything I wanted and more.  Yes, it behaved slightly differently, but I found I could be much more efficient – while using Free Software!  It was a double win for me.

For developers, opening one’s mind to unfamiliar creative ideas is essential to creating practical solutions.  The majority of those working on Free Software are autonomous and get to choose what they want to work on.  (Even of the large corporately-funded developer base, many have a great deal of liberty in this regard.)  They are not told to implement specific attributes by their management, or pressured by paying customers to add a certain feature.  They work because they want to help themselves, their user base, or their software project.  There is plenty of room for experimentation.  One of the main arguments used for Free Software is the advantage of not reinventing the wheel, yet in the case of nearly every hole in the software platform to fill, there are at least two equally effective options.  KDE and Gnome.  Grub and Lilo.  OpenOffice and Koffice.  Emacs and Vi.  The list goes on.  These pairs exist because the developers had different ideas as to how to design an application, which features to implement, and what the goals of the project were.  In all of the cases above, the synergy created between the pairs has only gone to further enhance both projects.  In other words, contrasting ideas have improved each other.

4. Knowledge was meant to be shared

Back in the middle 1850’s, when the Industrial Revolution was beginning in Britain, the country attempted a quarantine of ideas.  Britain was the first country to go through an industrial revolution, and wanted the ideas for the machine designs to stay contained within the country so that it might prosper economically.  It was a failure.  It was unbelievably naïve of them to think they could stop the spread of an idea.  As the cliché goes, “If we both have an apple, and we exchange apples, we each still have one apple.  But, if we each have an idea and exchange those, each of us has two ideas.”

Some companies try to restrict the flow of this knowledge.  In fact, many companies do this and expect to get away with it.  They believe that putting DRM on digital media will prevent it from being illegally pirated.  They believe that product activation procedures will prevent it from being illegally shared.  They believe that information can be contained.  Even in the days before the Internet, information and so-called “intellectual property” could still be, and were, exchanged.  As the information age went on, though, corporations became progressively more obsessed with controlling the spread of knowledge.

This trend of open information holds true even in tightly-protected situations.  The Watergate scandal leaked to the press through one of US President Nixon’s most trusted colleagues.  Microsoft was recently discovered to be using code stolen from a competitor on a social networking site, even though the code was never released.  Pictures from the Iran protest in early June of this year circulated the Internet, despite the efforts of the government to prevent their spread.  The examples continue, but all hit the same chord: there is no use in preventing the spread of information.

So instead of working to prevent this spread, why not encourage it?  Why not get the ideas, capabilities, and functionality of any given piece of software out to as many people as possible and kindle the flame?  There are many ways to make money, so why choose a method that requires investing just as much time and effort into making software that lots of people want to use as trying to prevent the usage of said software?  It sounds counterintuitive and/or just plain stupid on paper, but is generally seen as the traditional and conservative way to do it.  Physical products must be treated differently than knowledge.  Government can assist in the process of selling knowledge in the same way as a physical product, but due to the nature of the commodity, it will never be the same.

5. Anyone can make a difference

When I started off in the world of Free Software, I wanted to contribute, but didn’t think that an 8th grade student would be able to contribute anything worthwhile.  I proved myself wrong, and joined the Joomla! Documentation team, writing and editing documentation for the software package.  As I learned later, documentation was one of the most lacking areas in the Free Software community.  When I started learning to program in PHP, I wrote small extensions for the Content Management System I then knew so well.  They were small enough to be easily written by someone with little experience, yet useful enough to be widely-deployed.  I moved on to larger applications and contributions.  Frequent emails from users of my software showed me just how much of a difference I was making for them.

No matter what you do, remember that your actions do make a difference.  If you find a bug, report it!  The first bug report of your life may be a little shaky, but how else can one learn to report bugs?  Your reports make the software better for everyone.  Just maybe that crash you reported will save some people from a major data loss in the future.  If you have decent writing skills, consider writing or improving some documentation for your favorite Free Software application so others will have a less frustrating learning curve.  Translating documentation or an application itself opens up that software to a new demographic of people, most of whom could not possibly use the application prior to your translation.  Bringing up Free Software in a conversation and/or promoting it more seriously opens the philosophies and the software itself up to new people as well.

Even a simple “thank you” to a project member can go a long way.  Free Software isn’t written by machines; it is written by countless individuals that give up a significant amount of time each day to do what they do.  Showing appreciation helps developers know their work is worthwhile.

Now, just for a second, I challenge the reader to imagine what the world of Free Software would be like if nobody believed they could make a difference.  Very little Free Software would be written, and that which was written may not be released to the public.  A completely Free operating system would be out of the question, as only small research projects would exist.  Businesses, with no faith in their ability to succeed with Open Source, would resort to writing proprietary software that can be sold on a shelf.  The Free Software Movement would be inexistent without this wisp of a thought.  In fact, Richard Stallman wouldn’t have bothered writing the GNU system if he thought his project wouldn’t mean anything.

It is so easy to imagine how horrible the world of Free Software could be like this, so why do people all too often let it slide in the “real” world?  This world is so much bigger than the Free Software Sphere that people tend to feel that their actions mean less.  However, they seem to be forgetting that, while some action we make won’t directly influence everybody, every action we make affects somebody.  And just maybe, when one totals the sum of the somebodies and the somebodies of those somebodies, just maybe every one of us changes the world every day.

Because our actions mean so much, it is vital that one governing body, be it a corporation, government, or other mass, doesn’t take away our freedom to express ourselves as we please.  We would no longer be changing the world in our own way, but in the way desired by this group in power.  It is vital that we keep a philosophical approach so that our beliefs stand behind our actions.  Even if we make an unwise decision, we make it for a rational reason that shines through to others.  It is vital that we keep an open mind to ensure no good idea goes unnoticed, and a creative one to generate good ideas of our own.  One man’s seemingly worthless idea may be another man’s inspiration.  It is vital that there is an uninterrupted stream of knowledge, and that information is not held back for personal benefit at the cost of others.  Knowledge and information are the building blocks of change.  These concepts are vital not only to software, but also to every-day life.

And to think some people only see the technical benefits.

The Situation Now (2019)

Sam opened his eyes to the sun shining in his window, birds chirping outside, and the smell of a fresh summer breeze.  It was a glorious day, perfect for the launch of the campaign.  Sam got himself ready, grabbed a bite to eat, and jumped on the bus on his way to his job at the Proprietary Software Foundation.

Sam loved his job at the PSF.  He joined right when it was founded in 2014, in response to the Global Crash of 2012.  Since the crash, everyone began to falsely associate proprietary software with insane amounts of centralized control, DRM, and restrictions, just because of a single coding bug.  This bug in the way Windows handled time, found in Windows 95 through Windows 7, caused a crash that resulted in random data being written directly to all of the root filesystems at midnight on December 1, 2012.  People had wrongly accused Microsoft and the nature of proprietary software for the resulting crash of the global economy, when in reality, the only person at fault was the developer who made the error.  The PSF was founded by Sam and some fellow Novell employees to right this wrong misconception.  Free Software was getting its dirty hands on the world’s devastated (formally proprietary) computers, so the PSF had to work quickly as to ensure the world’s technology system was not rebuilt using Free Software.

This particular day was very important for Sam and the PSF, though.  It was the day they launched their “GNU/Linux Lies” campaign in downtown Seattle, explaining to passer-byers why proprietary software is more ethical than Free Software.  The PSF had been facing greater difficulties ever since 2016, when the Closed Source Initiative was founded.  This organization focused only on the practical benefits of proprietary software.  Their stance was less powerful because it wasn’t based on ethics and philosophy, yet it gained so much more momentum.  Instead of fighting for essential developer rights, the Closed Source Initiative advocated that companies cannot free their source code, because doing so loses them some business opportunities.  While closed source campaigns still helped the cause of the PSF, they defeated the point that developers should be able to do whatever they want with the software they create.

Unfortunately, though the cause was ethical, Sam and the PSF could not seem to get much traction.  Any traction that was made for proprietary software was made by the closed source movement, not the proprietary software movement.  It seemed that ethics didn’t matter anymore.  The world was using this unethical “Free Software” with no regards whatsoever for the rights of the developers.

The only thing Sam found useful about the Free Software Movement was its historical value.  Since the Free Software advocates had based their arguments on values instead of practical benefits, as Sam understood it, they gained momentum after the Global Crash.  He thus concluded that, while closed source software was making some strides, only the principled approach that the PSF took would ever lead to mass acceptance.

The demonstration in downtown Seattle would help show the public these principles.  Parents with young children could come down and have their kids color one of many pictures, including happy spring days, smiley faces, and baby bunnies, with the promise that they would be prominently displayed throughout the city and in the PSF offices.  Once the child finished, the PSF volunteers would gently take the picture from the child, congratulate him/her on doing such a great job, and then spit on it, tear it up, and burn what was left in full view of the parent and the child.  Then, they would be asked how it felt to have their work destroyed, and why they would ever encourage that sort of behavior by using Free Software.  Sam thought it would be a great presentation, and demonstrate the principles of proprietary software well.  (For those without young children, he also had coloring sheets of a bearded man waving a red flag with the caption “Richard Stalin at work”.  These are the pictures that would really be displayed throughout the city.)

The day didn’t turn out so well for Sam.  Even with the colorful metaphor he engineered, people still didn’t seem to understand the concept of enforcing developers’ rights.  In fact, to Sam’s surprise, it even infuriated some people, and turned them against the values of proprietary software.

After hours of failure, he finally gave up. People just didn’t seem to understand the point.  Maybe his metaphor wasn’t elaborate enough.  He went back to the office and booted up his computer to check some emails before going home.  Sure, the software it used was very old, however all of the newer versions of the same software used a free license.  Even Microsoft, which used to be the proprietary software giant, started licensing all of its products under a Free Software license.  Sam refused to use Free Software, so he had to make some sacrifices.  While some companies were starting to make proprietary software again, most did not, forcing him to use older versions of certain pieces of software.

“It just isn’t fair,” Sam thought.  “Why does the Free Software Foundation get a multi-million dollar advertising budget, endorsement from large corporations, and tens of millions of supporters, while the Proprietary Software Foundation only has a small niche of support?”  He knew, though, that there used to be others just like him fighting for the opposite cause.  However, there were more, many more, than the three guys sitting around the table at the PSF.  He thought of the Proprietary Software Movement as more of a fan club in comparison to what the Free Software Movement was.  Back then, though, they had so many supporters in comparison to those who supported proprietary software.  Sam knew that if that many people supported proprietary software, it would be so much more common, and developers wouldn’t be practically required to freely license their code in order to compete.  Who on earth would use a proprietary alternative to a Free Software application?  Sometimes he found it frustrating, but he knew that he would probably spend his whole life fighting for the values behind proprietary software.  And he thought to himself, as he walked off to the bus stop, that a life advocating for proprietary software would be a life well spent.

Free as in Car Keys

I have been working as an intern with the FSF this summer.  The majority of my time has been spent on a new program that will take a stab at revolutionizing the world of Free Software.  This initiative, called GNU Generation, works to fill a vital time-sensitive hole in the world of Free Software: involving young people.

Yes, all Free Software contributors are important, but none so much so as young people.  Microsoft, Apple, Infinite Campus, and other malevolent software companies are constantly trying to wedge themselves into this market.  Why?  They recognize the importance of this age group.  Young people are the future, and if that future is going to involve Free Software, they have to learn about it and its importance early on.  That is why GNU Generation targets the 13-18 year old age range.  This age group in particular is just beginning to discover talents, interests, and ethics.  More than any other age group, they understand the importance of freedom, decentralization, and improving “the system”.  The only thing 98% of this age group know about is “free of cost software” and “paid-for software”.  In fact, the majority of them haven’t ever used a single piece of Free Software in their whole life, let alone understood it.  Most of those who have used Free Software have used only OpenOffice or FireFox due to their “free of cost” benefit without knowing anything about the concepts behind them.

Proprietary software companies can squeeze themselves into this crack simply because they have piles of money.  They are so rich that a major advertising campaign doesn’t even leave a dent in their wallet.  Some of them are so rich that even failed advertising campaigns get as much attention as wildly successful ones.  (**Cough cough** Jerry Sienfeld **cough cough**)  Most proprietary software companies use the methods they do because they are, well, proprietary software companies.  They create their “product”, and sell it in the same method products were sold hundreds of years ago.  This concept is then applied to public relations and marketing.  They don’t recognize the power of the communication age, and that they can have all kinds of unaffiliated people working to advance their company.  Most Free Software projects use a distributed model for development.  Each person contributes his/her efforts to the project, and the project grows.  Though it is not Free Software, Facebook is a wonderful example of this model applied to advertising.  It only took one person in any given circle of friends to sign up before everyone else in that circle had to join.  Eventually, Facebook became the size of medium-sized country.  It never had to run any major advertising campaign.  Instead, it applied Free Software concepts to advertising its proprietary service, encouraging each person to do his/her part.

GNU Generation aims to work in a somewhat similar fashion, without the proprietary edge.  It’s goal is to create a support network for young people to start contributing to and advocating for Free Software.  It is easy to become overwhelmed in a world where people consider “Do you prefer PC or Mac?” to be an intelligent-sounding question that demonstrates one’s knowledge of technology.  (Especially when they assume “Windows” by saying “PC”)  The social “viral” effect has been shown to work as long as long as the objective is easy, accessible, and worthwhile (in the eyes of the general public).  Applying these concepts to the current state of Free Software gives the basis of GNU Generation.

GNU Generation provides services to both Free Software projects and young people interested in contributing.  It aims to create a welcoming environment that encourages and provides resources for high-school-aged students (approx. 13-18) to contribute to Free Software.  Free Software projects can register and submit tasks to be completed by participants.  Participants can choose to either sign up for a one of the tasks created by these Free Software projects, or create their own project.  Creating a project can include either a contribution to an existing Free Software project, or a brand new project from scratch.

Free Software is really something to get excited about.  Through the community created by GNU Generation, hopefully that excitement will persevere through the years to come.  Unfortunately, it will take more than just a small little campaign to make this happen.  It will take the cooperation of all Free Software users, developers, and advocates to really get the message across.  So if you value your freedom, and would like Free Software to succeed, take the time to talk to your family and friends about the importance of Free Software and the values it carries on its shoulders.  Together, we can create a real GNU generation.

The GNU Generation Homepage

Presenting The Hablator “Rose” (0.5) Chat Script

For the last few months, I have been preparing The Hablator “Rose” 0.5 for a release.  That release is finally here!  This release is significant because it is the first time I have added features that innovate instead of ones that just copy other chat scripts.  Of course, it still maintains its low server and client side requirements, and easy installation.  Lets take a look at some of the newest features The Hablator has to offer.

My personal favorite feature, and the feature that was the most difficult to add, is translation support.  If you live in the United States and you have friends in China, Russia, and Portugal, you can all log into The Hablator and see the chat messages displayed in your native language.  It relies on Google Translate to perform the translations, so a massive number of languages are available.  In addition to translating just the chat text, the user interface will be displayed in whatever language the user requests.  Since human translations are much better than automated ones, it is possible to create translation files for the user interface.  The Hablator will look for a user interface language file before going to Google Translate.

Another major feature is the addition of “topics”.  During chat sessions, especially larger ones, groups of people will start talking about different things.  In many current chat rooms, this is solved by prefixing the message with the username of the person they are replying to.  This is okay, but has many disadvantages.  First of all, it can get kind of annoying to map out the usernames.  If you enter the chat room while people are having a discussion like this, you will have no idea what is going going.  In many cases, certain people don’t care at all about what is being discussed in one discussion, but has to sort through all of the messages anyway in order to find what he/she is looking for.  “Topics” solve all of these problems.  When somebody is posting a message, they simply click a radio button indicating what topic they are discussing.  Moderators can create and delete topics on the fly.  Each topic is displayed in its own color, so that users can see at a glance exactly what is most relevant to them.  Each topic can also be hidden dynamically, so if some people are not interested in hearing about a certain topic at any one moment, they don’t have to.

Compatibility mode is another major feature.  Very few chat scripts can claim to support every browser.  The Hablator now contains a compatibility mode which allows any browser, from the javascript-lacking Elinks to the feature-filled Firefox 3.5, to chat with others on The Hablator.  Due to the fact that javascript probably isn’t supported when compatibility mode is used, many features had to be removed.  It is still a great way, though, to communicate with your geeky friends that insist on living from a command line.

A bunch of usability improvements have been made as well.  Most importantly, all history is scrollable.  I made a serious mistake last time by only allowing 10 history lines to be shown at the same time.  Now, just like previous versions, all history will be scrollable again.  This version requires less bandwidth, and it has a much more efficient update method, resulting in a faster update.  There is an optional notification displayed when someone posts a new message.  This notification is unobtrusive.  It either blinks or scrolls in the taskbar, an equivalent notification to what a desktop application may do.  The messages are now formatted in a way that is easier to scan.  The new swear words filter is not only easier to set up, but it also makes filtered swear words look nicer.  In addition, you can finally tell exactly who is typing a message, because each user now has his/her own typing light.

One question you probably still have is, “Why, Max, is the codename ‘Rose’?  The other code names, sounded so much tougher.”  Well, I’ll tell you. One of the major features, as you already know, is translations.  The Rosetta Stone has turned into a symbol of multilingualism in modern culture.  If you want to insist on a “tough” name, just remember “Rosie the Riveter“.  The previous code-names have been: ‘Stone’, ‘Bronze’, and ‘Iron’.  They are all named after different ages in human history.  I didn’t plan them very well, mainly because I expected “Iron” to be my last release.  I ran out of ages!  I could have named it “The Hablator 0.5 Neo-classic”, but that might have sounded strange.  Instead, I decided to get off the “ages” system.  I wanted to choose a name that still had some connection, yet one that could still be interpreted as completely irrelevant (or at least for those well-versed in Shakespeare):

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Another question some may have is, “So, why is it called the “0.5 release” if it is stable?”  Version numbering, especially in software projects that do not need specific names for advertising reasons, do not need big numbers.  Ubuntu names its releases by the release date, Linux (the kernel) keeps its version number on 2.6.x, and Firefox just kind of chooses a number.  I just go up 0.1 for every major release.  Any maintenance releases will increase the version number by 0.01.

There are a bunch of other goodies that I didn’t talk about.  If you made it this far, you might as well take another couple minutes to try the demo.  Also, make sure to check out the home page.  I hope you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed developing it!

When you see Flash, Duck and Cover

The best thing anyone can do to continue making the Internet more closed, restrictive, and prohibiting is to use Adobe Flash as it exists today. The Internet was created to allow for the open and unconfined infrastructure to share information; yet, it is being used today for the opposite purpose: to stop this information torrent. Many people do not see Flash as an issue, and don’t view Adobe as a malevolent authoritarian. In fact, though, Flash is the biggest bottleneck on the Internet’s effectiveness in the same way that the variety of world languages spoken worldwide is the biggest bottleneck on the global social network. A change in Adobe’s business strategy with regards to Flash is the only way to turn this unnecessary throttle on the potential of the Internet-connected community into a true innovation and synergistic technology.

Some may not notice the restrictions we experience in our everyday lives. One such restriction is that of software like Flash. In the video market alone, Flash is the number one method used to control access to “intellectual property”. Flash does much more than just restrict video content, though. Unlike HTML and Javascript, which are saved in human-readable formats, Flash files are in a format that only computers can read, so nobody is able to see exactly what these files are doing to their computers. Because of this, anybody can restrict access to the content of the file itself, or even include viruses or other malicious software through the use of Flash Player.

The biggest restricting factor, though, is the fact that consumers must use the software distributed by Adobe in order to view Flash files in their entirety. This is a major problem because, with a 99% market penetration, Adobe can do anything it would like. Adobe Flash is installed on more computers than even Microsoft Windows, which naturally gives them a huge amount of power. The dependency of people on Flash Player is so great that Adobe could chose any day to shut all installations of Flash Player down until the user payed a $40 ransom fee. If Adobe ever fell short of money, this would be a convenient and no-hassle way to gain money, considering most people would end up paying this fee for access to games, videos, and a multitude of other possibilities online we often take for granted. This is only the tip of the iceberg, though. Adobe could block out competitors’ software, spy on the users, or even include a “back door” to allow employees to remotely control anybody’s computer. With Flash’s massive install base, Adobe could technically do anything they want to your computer.

Devoted individuals have begun developing alternatives through reverse engineering, such as “Gnash” and “swfdec”, but those are still unable to be completed due to the lack of cooperation by Adobe. Adobe initiated the “Open Screen Project” to give the appearance that it promoted choice in platforms and ease any fears regarding Adobe’s obsessive control, yet it really just restates the knowledge that was already gained through the effort of previous reverse engineering techniques. The only benefit of the Open Screen Project was the promise Adobe made not to sue any Flash-alternative projects, yet this promise, in reality, just affirms the excessive control Adobe has over the platform. Recently, Adobe sent a Cease and Desist to SourceForge, a company that hosts community-developed software projects, regarding a hosted project called “rtmpdump”. This project opened up features of Flash to average people that were previously only available in Adobe’s Flash Player. Despite Adobe’s claim to transparency and neutrality, SourceForge was required to remove rtmpdump from its site, confirming yet again the massive amount of power Adobe has.

A further issue with the Flash format is its dependency on software patented by multiple companies. These patents make Adobe’s promise worthless, as other companies also have the right to sue when their own patents are violated. Patent law was created to encourage innovation, but when computers entered the scene, corporations found they could benefit from the law by exploiting loopholes that allowed software to be patented. Eventually, trying to patent as many elementary concepts as possible became a business strategy, and any company who didn’t follow this strategy risked a lawsuit. Software patents have ranged from online tests to pop-up windows to hyperlinks to progress bars.  In addition, almost all of the major audio, video, and image formats are or have been covered under numerous patents. As you can well imagine, nearly all computer software is covered by multiple patents from various companies. The biggest companies pool their patents together and agree not to sue each other in exchange for access to the patents from the other biggest corporations. In this way, Adobe cannot be sued for using certain components in Flash, but everyone else can for using those same components.

With the inability for consumers to use any alternative Flash players besides the one created by Adobe, one would expect the official player to be of high quality, right? Studies have found the opposite to be true. Not only does Flash have a huge number of security problems, but it also slows down computers significantly, especially computers that run operating systems other than Microsoft Windows. Flash consumes an average of 50-80% of system resources on Mac OSX. The leading cause of crashes in the Mozilla Firefox web browser, according to the bug reports submitted by users, is the Flash Plugin. Unfortunately, this is something Mozilla cannot improve, no matter how badly their users want it, because Adobe will not allow it. Efficiency can be measured in more than just performance, though. Flash users who want to minimize their carbon footprint will be unhappy to know how negatively Flash affects power usage. Flash, especially banner ads cause ones computer to use much more energy. Simply disabling Flash saves an equivalent amount of power to turning off a light bulb.

The most logical solution to this problem would be for Adobe to allow open access to view, modify, and distribute to the code programmers will understand used to develop Flash. This strategy would have a multitude of benefits for not only consumers and Adobe as a company, but for society as a whole. Collectively, consumers would like the best possible experience online, and Adobe would like to make as much money as possible. Both of these private interests would be stimulated.

Consumers would benefit greatly with Adobe’s decision to allow open and unrestricted modification and distribution to its platform. Consumers would no longer have to worry about what would happen if Adobe tried to exercise excessive control over users, because anyone would be able to modify Flash to exclude the offending features. If this were to happen, Adobe would no doubt lose its reputation; however, if it were to happen today, it is possible that nobody would ever find out. It has been shown by projects such as the Linux kernel that those who can, will make changes to software to scratch personal itches. Corporations will naturally make changes to improve community-developed software when it will help that corporation’s own products. A multitude of corporations currently depend on Flash, making them all candidates to assist in improving Flash Player for the benefit of all. Speed is important to everybody, especially wealthy corporations that want their employees to be as productive as possible. As demonstrated by the Linux kernel, security and stability problems in community-developed software get fixed incredibly quickly.

Adobe is the party that would yield the largest benefit from opening up Flash. Adobe’s business strategy with regards to Flash is to develop a massive number of technologies centering around Flash, and then sell a really expensive software to create Flash videos. The vast majority of these technologies have opened source code to stimulate usage and entice those who like modifiable and redistributable software. Unfortunately for Adobe, these have not penetrated the target market because the product they depend on, Flash, does not allow modification or redistribution. Adobe’s other income with regards to Flash come from licensing versions of Flash Player for use on embedded platforms, such as cell phones. While it is logical to expect monetary reimbursement from large corporations for the ability to use Flash Player, problems arise when these corporations choose not to pay for the license. A notable example of this is with the iPhone. The lack of cooperation by corporations results in Adobe losing control, because it limits access to the software from potential users. Through the exploitation of this target market (all Internet-connected users) Flash has the potential to become a true standard; in this case, Adobe would hold the key to producing content for the standard: “Adobe Creative Suite 4”, its flagship product. Allowing public access and modification to a company’s software is the only way to allow other corporations to help increase that company’s market share. For example, Flash could be improved by search engine companies to allow content to be indexed more easily, benefiting all companies involved and allowing for further standardization.

There are other possible solutions to this problem, though they are not as elegant or effective. For instance, it is possible for some devoted activists to start a new software project to replace Flash. It would have similar features, but would not be compatible with existing Flash scripts. Though many appreciate the value of this type of project, it would nevertheless advance very slowly in what we have come to expect out of modern Internet-based technologies. It would also make extra overhead for the consumer, creating the need to install yet another web browser plug-in. Finally, this solution would divert developer time away from Flash Player alternative projects, such as Gnash and swfdec, which are increasingly necessary, and make it impossible to use the existing jungle of Flash scripts.

Another solution, though much less plausible, is for consumers to stop using Flash altogether. The problems that come attached to this solution are obvious, though. First of all, it is nearly impossible to raise awareness for any cause, especially one that takes a long time for people to understand. In addition, Flash has become too embedded within the lifestyles of many Internet-connected users to “just quit”. With dependencies on video sharing sites, education material, games, and more, only the most devoted users would be able to resist the pressure. This option would be much more effective as a protest technique to convince Adobe to allow modification than it would be as a solution on its own.

As you can see, Flash started out as a slightly obnoxious insect, but it grew over time into the monster that it is today. Adobe has too much control over the software. The control it has makes it impossible for Internet content to be truly accessible to everyone, and requires every user to subject his/herself to Adobe. It also carries a large number of problems along with it that Adobe has no desire to solve, as solving them would not increase its market share. By allowing the modification and redistribution of Flash, both Adobe and its consumers would benefit from the synergy that would be achieved. Nobody can build a skyscraper alone. Until Adobe makes Flash more permissible, Flash users have no choice but to sit in the monster’s mouth and hope it doesn’t get hungry.

This is a copy of the social injustice essay I recently wrote for Language Arts class. If you want the version with in-text citations and a bibliography, feel free to ask.

The Fear of Knowledge

I had the opportunity of listening to a presentation by a poorly-informed faculty member at my school regarding copyright laws.  This was an eye-opening experience for me into the way those who believe to have a solid grasp of copyright view it.  My class of 30+ students listened intently, believing everything they were told, as Mrs. Smith started her lecture…

This teacher (whom I’m referring to as Mrs. Smith) is very knowledgeable about what she does.  Her job mandates that she know a lot of “facts”  about copyright.  (“There’s a world of difference between truth and facts.  Facts can obscure the truth.” – Maya Angelou)  It is quite apparent that she learned about copyright from the same place as other teachers who are obsessed with “facts” about it.  Just do a Google search for “copyright for teachers” to see what I mean.

The presentation started with Mrs. Smith explaining to us a very basic overview of what copyright it, things even monkeys probably know. (Though, I admit, the class was not packed with monkeys.)  “Any violation of copyright law is called plagiarism,” she explained.  She went on to tell us a story about a woman from Duluth who was caught downloading only 24 songs illegally, and was charged over $200,000.  “You will get caught,” she exclaimed.  The truth behind this court case was obscured by her “facts”.  The lady in question, Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was sent a text message by the record companies telling her that they knew she was sharing at least 1,702 songs, and that she needed to stop immediately.  She didn’t.  She received a letter in the mail asking her to settle for a rather small amount of money.  She replaced her hard drive, and took the issue to court.  The lawsuit itself was over only 24 of those songs, for which she was charged $222,000.

“Do you know who you are stealing from?” she asked.  “The artists.  Every time you illegally download a song, those artists lose the money that is rightfully theirs.”  In reality, though, the artists only make about $1 from every full-length CD sold.  Online, it can be an even lower percentage.  It has been shown that illegal file sharing actually helps the artists, though no major media company will allow these types of stories on their news networks.  Think about it this way: the artists see so little of the money that their music sells for.  Sharing this music gets it out to more people, boosting the popularity of the artist.  If you were an artist, would you rather have your music reach everybody in the world and become extremely popular, or reach fewer people and make a small sum of money from the sales?  Most of an artist’s revenue comes from live concerts, and ticket prices are directly correlated with popularity.  “Some artists put their music in the public domain, just to get it out there, but almost all free downloads you find are illegal,” stated Mrs. Smith.  Artists don’t benefit from public domain music, which is probably the reason that very few public domain tracks exist.  Most prefer a Creative Commons (or another “some rights reserved”) license, which carries the attribution clause.  She made the assumption that anyone with a copyright will protect all of his/her rights.  This is not the case with the music I compose, nor is it the case with the thousands of people on Jamendo and similar sites.

Regarding academic copyright, Mrs. Smith explained the concept of “fair use”.  “If you are working for academic reasons, you get additional benefits from this system.  You can use any copyrighted material you find in schoolwork, as long as you cite the creator appropriately, and use only pieces small enough to be accepted as ‘fair use’.  Now, fair use includes…”  I raised my hand.  “What about the DMCA?”  “What about it?”  “If it comes from an encrypted source, we are not permitted to touch it, even for ‘fair use’.”  “You’re right.  Every now and then you come across a website that doesn’t allow you to right-click and copy.  Those sites are the exception to this rule, but for everything else, this rule is effective.”

The worst part about Mrs. Smith’s presentation, though, was that the only argument she gave was fear.  Her message can be summed up in a quote of hers: “Don’t do it – you will be caught.”  When her husband brought home illegal DVDs, she apparently told him, “You may not play those on our DVD player.  They are against the law, and we will be caught.”  She told us about how the computers at school were constantly being monitored, and how any administrator could view the screen of any computer at any time.  “Does anyone monitor your computer at home?” she asked random students throughout the class.  Mrs. Smith “explained” to us who was monitoring our computer at home; she claimed that the police, the government, and our ISPs are monitoring our desktops at all times.  The examples she cited mostly involved students getting seen with drugs/alcohol on their Myspace pages.  Our government is becoming more and more involved as a Big Brother every day, but it still cannot watch desktop activity.  It does have the ability to monitor packets from suspicious parties, but those parties are untouchable if they properly anonymity themselves.  Microsoft has the ability to do so much more than the government, so why didn’t she mention them?

Copyright infringement should not be based on fear.  Fear is a very powerful tool that is all to often exploited by governments and those in power to get the information they want stuffed into people’s minds.  Where do you think Mrs. Smith learned this information?  Was it a credible source?  Chances are it was, which brings up the question of who you can really trust.  If people stopped blindly trusting the government, what would happen to fear as a propaganda technique?  When discussing copyright, it is best to decide where your ethics are.  “Should I share an ogg (or mp3) of this out of print CD with my friend?”  “Should I consider a small violation of the DMCA a crime if I will only be using the content for what used to be called ‘fair use’?”  “Should I cite this public domain resource?”  “Should I tell my friends about this artist and give them this audio file to get them interested?”  “Should I download this BBC documentary I found on BitTorrent so I can learn about Elephant migration patterns for my report on African mammals?”  There are so many possibilities.  The government has drawn an unreasonably inhibitory line in the dirt, and used fear to enforce it.  As a result, the only way to figure out what is right or wrong is to make the ethical decision yourself.

The Future is Here: OpenGoo

Sometimes, it seems, the best and most promising pieces of Free Software can be found in the most unlikely places.  OpenGoo is no exception.  For those unfamiliar with OpenGoo, it is a GPL’ed web office and productivity suite, similar to Google Docs.  I don’t think that most people realize OpenGoo IS the future, not only because of its quality, but also because of its growing need and development model.

OpenGoo fills the largest gap in the world of Free Software today: being able to access and use one’s data equally from anywhere in the world.  This gap doesn’t just exist in the Free Software world, however.  Software as a Service (SaaS) has been trying to fill this gap for some time now.  Free Software and Open File Format advocates use the analogy of “packaging up your data and mailing it to a random company” as an analogy for why people should use Free Software and Open file formats.  People can’t understand or connect to this analogy, because the file is right there on their computer.  They feel this is just an exaggeration, since the document is sitting there on their hard drive.  With SaaS though, people are going to come to realize, after the first large server break-in/crash, that they are giving up all rights to their files.  What can you do, though?  If you want to access your data on the cloud, there seems to be only one choice: sending it off to some random company and praying that they return it when you need it.

As a self-hosted web application, OpenGoo is practically perfect.  The user’s data is accessible from anywhere.  That user can view and edit his/her data using only a web browser, and still have complete control over all of the data.  Pretty soon, the OpenOffice, Kontact, and even Microsoft Office that we know today will vaporize and be unneeded.  As more and more internet-connected devices hit the market, it will become so much more practical to put all of one’s information online instead of confined to a single computer.

The only major flaw currently in this system is the absence of an “offline mode”.  To make data truly accessible, it is important to be able to access it whether connected to the internet or not.  Most of the time, especially on desktop computers, people are online.  But what about mobile access?  Anyone who owns a laptop, cell phone, netbook, or pda will understand what I mean when I say, “Internet access isn’t always available.”  With this additional feature, OpenGoo would become the most accessible Free Software platform for productivity.  Coupled with the overwhelmingly large number of flexible features for a variety of practical usages, it would turn OpenGoo into a truly unique solution for almost anyone wishing to be productive.

Not only is OpenGoo itself innovative, but its business model is genius!  While a select number of project have been using a similar method, OpenGoo really nails it.  They have an option to “sponsor a feature” on their site.  Instead of spending money to restrict oneself with a proprietary package for a desired feature, why not pay someone to implement it in a Free Software solution?  This makes the features accessible to anybody, and carries a similar, if not slightly smaller, price tag for business users.  Since sponsored features appear in the normal releases, these releases are of higher quality than they would have been otherwise.  These features obviously benefit the end users, but they also help out the developers.  The developers have started a company called FengOffice to cater to businesses and provide hosting/maintenance.  It brings the accessibility of Free Software to those who do not have the time, resources, and/or interest to support it.

It may bring up the question of why other Free Software projects don’t adopt this business model.  The answer to that is more disappointing than it would seem.  In order to peak interest, one must have a solid piece of Free Software.  In order to have a solid piece of Free Software, one must have the financial means by which to develop it.  In order to have the financial means by which to develop it, one must peak interest in the product, spiraling the process into an infinite loop.

There are a few ways to get around this, however OpenGoo found their own way.  The one that comes to most peoples’ minds is the study of “Shuttleworthology”.  If an individual can get filthy rich by other means, like Mark Shuttleworth did, then there is certainly a starting point.  Anyone with that much money should consider using that money for good purposes, such as developing software to benefit the general public like Shuttleworth did.  While Shuttleworth didn’t end up using this business model, it is still a good example of how to get a Free Software project rolling.

Nobody from OpenGoo struck it rich in the stock market or had a long lost rich uncle die, though, so how did they get started?  It’s simple: by exciting people about a really cool project, and then opening up commercial services later.  Until recently, none of these commercial ventures were opened.  Now there are a large number of people working to help this company make money.  Ask Microsoft if that ever happened to them!  (Okay, that’s a bad example, people help Microsoft all the time with every non-coding related task imaginable.)  The spreadsheet component is a great example of 3rd party work bettering OpenGoo and FengOffice (even though it is not implemented quite yet).  The number of Javascript spreadsheet editors already available is very limited.  This component was created by computer science students as a project, and will be merged into the main trunk soon.

I strongly suggest anyone with even the slightest interest level check out OpenGoo and FengOffice.  It is really an extrordinary piece of software, and does not recieve nearly as much credit and recognition as it should.  Not only does it fulfill a desperate need, but it does it in style.

Software Company “Infinite Campus” Lies

Recently, there have been two comments on my blog about Infinite Campus, both of which praise the quality of Infinite Campus.  They were both made within an hour and a half.  Hmmm… I thought I’d better look into this one a little bit more.

They were a lot worse than I initially thought.

The emails were both fake, unless you believe “info4nancy@comcast.net” and “jeff@jeff.com” to be legit email addresses.  The two comments said nothing but good things about this “amazing” company.  They were both apparently from people with authority in large school districts; at least, they implied being from different school districts.  The comments were written in different styles of writing, so one may think they were from different people.

I agree that one should not jump to conclusions.  I won’t.

I thought I would check the IP addresses.  What a surprise.  They were the same.  Why not look that one IP address up on an IP locator out of curiosity?  Hmm… The IP was “207.225.137.8″, so the location is “Minneapolis, MN”.  That’s interesting.  That is where their headquarters is located.  Oh!  This is even more interesting!  The ISP field says “Infinite Campus”.  Do I need a screenshot to prove this?  This commenter believes I need to “check my facts” before writing, so this screenshot will give the reader an opportunity to do so for his/herself.

One of two conclusions can be drawn by this.

1. Just recently, another school district opened in Minneapolis.  Both this school district, and the existing school district in Minneapolis have broken into a single computer at the Infinite Campus HQ and tunneled through it to steal their bandwidth.  The company Infinite Campus has no idea this is going on, because nothing has been done to stop it.
2. Infinite Campus, as a company, LIED to the general public to try to get more business.

I’ll assume the latter.

It is scary to me, though, to know that proprietary software companies as well known and widely used as Infinite Campus must LIE to retain their status.  We trust these companies with so much, especially those who make a Student Information System.  Every known piece of personal information about students and their families is put into this system, including a picture.  How can we, in all honesty, know that they haven’t lied to us again?  It is very possible that there is an intentional security hole in there so creepy employees can stalk random students.  This would put more control into their hands than even MySpace or Facebook has.  There is no way to find out, but I can tell you one thing: I don’t want my information in there!  I don’t want my school to unintentionally exploit a creative way to bypass information privacy laws!

This all just goes to show that money comes first for greedy proprietary software companies like Infinite Campus.  Money comes before education.  Money comes before freedom.  Money comes before morals.  Shouldn’t education software companies in particular actually come so far as to think about the morals that educators are trying to instill in their students?

Hey, employees at Infinite Campus!  Give some ethical software a try.  You can take your first steps with one of my previous blog posts.  Even if you never went to college, just like your CEO, you might just learn something!

Corporations are idiots!!!

Everybody has his/her own reason for using Free Software.  Unfortunately, my favorite reason seems to be among the most “FUDed” by proprietary software companies.  (Behind “Lowering the TCO”)  I personally believe the most important aspect of Free Software is the advancement of society.

Proprietary software companies in power today will probably tell you just the opposite.  “Society can never advance without proprietary software,” they say.  “Nobody would pay developers to write the software if money could not be earned directly from its sale.”  I could go into how companies have managed to get rich by doing exactly that, but I won’t.  Instead, think of it this way.  The cost to develop the software is actually very low.  Take a look at any company you want.  You will see that the actual programmers make up a very very small percentage of the staff.  Most companies don’t release enough data about this kind of thing to actually make that well known.  I sure wish I could reveal what percentage of a certain proprietary software company’s staff are developers. (cough Infinite Campus cough)  I have, however, been inside the headquarters for a small to medium sized publicly traded proprietary software company.  I can assure you that the support team, a group of 4-6 people sitting in a cubical room, was about the same size, if not a little bigger, than the team of developers in the development cubical.  The other 85% of the company went to managing everything.  I wish I had the exact numbers, but I don’t.  I can assure you it made the developers themselves seem irrelevant, which they may have been.  I would be willing to bet that the rest of that team could sell you the next version of that flagship piece of software with no technical changes whatsoever.  In fact, I could almost guarantee it.

My point is  that very little money actually goes to funding development.  The money you spend on proprietary software is used, mainly, to try to get you to buy the update in the future.  There are plenty of people in the Free Software world that could get you to use and/or donate to a certain project.  Just do a Google search on “Best Open Source Applications” and see how many you get.  People promote their favorite Free Software applications because they think they are great, and that enough people don’t know about them.  To properly understand the quantity of promotion that goes on, do a search under “‘you should use firefox’” (in quotes).  At the time of writing, 16,900 results are returned!  Even the phrase “‘I hate george bush’” (in quotes) returns less than half the number of results from the former search.  Remember, though, that this is only one way of saying you advocate for a single piece of Free Software.  (Wording it as “‘I love firefox’” in quotes returns 206,000 results at the time of writing.)  The marketing expense that costs proprietary software companies so much money is annihilated.  Packaging is gone as well, with prepackaged versions only generating additional income.  If the only thing that was paid for was the programming and packaging cost, Microsoft Office would most likely be under $20.

The problem is that companies are sticking to old-world techniques, partially because the government is allowing them to do so.  Companies are treating their software as if it is a commodity.  They have yet to take advantage of the efficiency that can be achieved now.  While using these old methods, society will never advance.  Instead of everyone working on developing similar applications, they keep reinventing the wheel.  According to Michael Tiemann, Red Hat Vice President, the world loses over $1 trillion ever year due to proprietary software.  When you think about it, though, this is not that big of a number.  Think of any software industry.  They all have two or more big proprietary “overlords” that do essentially the same thing, with several other less powerful proprietary alternatives which are often either more lightweight or add some significant feature.  Take the media player market for instance.  iTunes/Quicktime, Windows Media Player, and Real Player dominate this market.  Other than support for various format and services, these players differ very little.  They all just reinvented the wheel.

Had all of the money these media player developers received from their products been used to develop the software, it may be a different story.  Instead, though, a huge amount of money goes into the costs associated with competing against one another.  On top of those costs, of course, we have the cost of actually programming the nearly identical application.

There is another problem with their theory, though.  They call what they are doing “advancing society’s technology” to give their employees a warm fuzzy feeling that they are actually doing something for the benefit of the general public.  I suppose it is kind-of sort-of possible to confuse the advancement of technology with developing proprietary software, but the two are so different!

Think of it this way.  Lets say we figure out how to send things back in time.  We send a modern high powered computer back to the year 1900 (along with a “using computers for dummies” book for the sake of this example).  This would, in many ways, be like the proprietary software we have in society today.  The people that received the computer would have access to something that does wonderful things.  It would not, in any way shape or form however, advance their technology.  The people would hail it as a miracle, and be able to do a few useful things with it.  No matter what happened, these people would never really figure out how that computer worked.  Without the skills and equipment to create it, those people would never be able to actually create another computer like that.  When the cheap hard drive died, everyone would be back in the same position they were in before it was invented.

How about we magically solve this problem?  Instead of sending just one computer back in time, lets send 1 million of the most high powered desktop computer we have today.  Wouldn’t that work?  In reality, this may have a negative effect.  With such a high quantity of computers available, people would see no need for developing the technology.  No early computer would have ever existed, because what would be the point of something like ENIAC, especially with so many higher powered computers available?  Without these groundbreaking discoveries, related inventions would have never happened either, because the required technology would have never been developed and fully understood.  The communication age would never have taken place.  In addition, when the last of those million computers finally died, the world would be left with less than it started with.  Do you really think “computing machines” would continue to be developed after so many years of living with their extremely high powered descendants?

Proprietary Software works exactly the same way.  When we use proprietary software, our lives are being dictated by a corporation.  We are not able to build on what has been created by those companies just because they believe it will make them a little bit of extra money.  We are not able to study and understand was has been created for the same reason.  What is money worth?  Obviously quite a bit to some people.  The other less obvious thing that it gives that company is power.  With the computer time-travel example above, imagine what would happen if all of those computers were put in a large locked warehouse, and only one person was given the key?  It would give that person power.  More power than he/she would know what to do with.  It would give him/her the amount of power that proprietary software companies have today.

To get to the point, am I advocating for socialism?  No.  I am saying that proprietary software corporations are idiots.  In American history, it was the goal of progressive presidents like Theodore Roosevelt to limit the power of corporations by making it wise for them to serve the public.  The same must be done in today’s society.  No government has managed to achieve this yet, and I’m not holding out much hope that it will ever happen.  Therefore, we must take it upon ourselves to use only Free Software, and convince everybody possible of its importance.  Once the general public understands, companies will adapt to society with no government intervention necessary.  We already have a gigantic web of software that is, in many cases, better than its proprietary counterparts.  It is not enough, though.  The mass of proprietary software is bigger.  To stand a chance, it’s going to take some elbow grease.

P.S. – Please keep in mind that not all corporations are guilty of the above charges; however, the vast majority are at fault.

What happened to Free and Open Knowledge?

Recently in US History class we have been studying The Gilded Age.  Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and other businessmen ruled the US with such power that it made the government useless.  When the government could do something about the problem with the cases that came through Supreme Court, it almost always sided with the corporations.  After many of the “successful” businessmen retired, they ran around doing philanthropy.  Are you starting to see a parallel to modern day society?

Yes, there are a bunch of parallels between the current monopolies of the software industry and the robber-barons of the Gilded Age, almost enough to make it scary.  They both made money by putting others through misery and hardships.  They did not care about their customers, as long as they continued to buy their products.  In the same way, many software companies today lock people into their platforms, making sure that once you use their product, you are never going back.  Back then, trusts were developed by the biggest railroad companies to ensure competition would not get in the way of money.  Now, this comes back as a deja vu in the form of software patents.  Huge companies allow other huge companies to use their patents, excluding the patent-less home user and small developer from the mix.  Both the businesses from the Gilded Age and those today managed to control the government as well.  Back then, they managed to get the government to go along with Laissez-faire economics, even though it was obvious that the common man was being trampled over as a result.  The government even issued huge land grants to the already gigantic railroad companies to build new lines.  In a similar way today, the DMCA “protects” “intellectual property” and DRM through law, software patents are given away like they are going out of style, and citizens are required to be subjected to these companies (in many cases) in order to interact with their own government.  Certain companies even have control of the ISO!

There is a major difference between these two time periods, though.  In the past, the most important thing in society was still free and open: information.  While monopolies back then could jack prices up, they couldn’t control the freedom of redistribution or modification.  If somebody wanted to resell the kerosene they bought from Standard Oil, nobody had any problem with that person doing so.  If that person wanted to try to use the kerosene in a new way, the companies would most likely encourage the practice, as new discoveries would increase the value and demand of the products created by Standard Oil.

Now, however, software companies “create knowledge”.  This practice is sort of like a restricted version of an encyclopedia.  Imagine what outrage the public would have been in years ago if some major encyclopedia company required that no information learned from their encyclopedia could be used or applied for any purpose without explicit written permission.  What would be the point in purchasing this encyclopedia set?  I can assure you the publisher would convince you of its importance anyway.  Notice how I said, “…the public would have been in years ago…” earlier though.  People have stopped appreciating the value of Free and Open Knowledge because companies today have convinced our consumer-based society that it isn’t important.  Ironically, the philanthropists from the Gilded Age gave huge amounts of money to spread Free and Open Knowledge by building libraries and founding universities, yet big business today relies on secrets and preventing the free flow of information.

What this does is create artificial barriers.  I am not saying that the tactics used by the captains of industry were necessarily moral, but they did not create artificial barriers.  The oil, steel, or whatever was only available through one company at high prices back then.  That is bad, but not horrible.  Once you got your hands on that product, you could do what you wanted with it.  Forget about that now.  The reason you can’t do what you want with that piece of computer software is because the corporation says you can’t.  There is nothing physically preventing you from spreading that knowledge.  Most computer users today are fully capable of sharing that knowledge with others, but the law gets in the way.

On a related note, I worked with another student on a music project recently.  We were discussing when we would be able to have a performance of a piece that we wrote.  I suggested, “If we are done in 2 weeks, we should be able to have it performed right after that.”  He said, “Well, you know, you can’t just print off a piece of music you made and put it in front of some people and say ‘Play this!’ [chuckle]  There is a copyright process you have to go through first.”  Even though this piece of music was 100% original, he believed that we still had to “get permission” to perform it.  This shows exactly how used to and accepting of this kind of thing my generation has become.  Before we do anything, we must “make sure it is okay” with a “higher power”.

People have been bullied through laws and propaganda into “helping” those corporations (and supposedly society as well) by treating abstract computer-readable files as physical objects.  This information could be shared freely and benefit all.  Advocates of this technique say that it is the only way to promote progress, but in reality, it does nothing but diminish its importance.  I suppose I can see how some could confuse “progress” and “private inside information”, as they look the same from the outside.  What is the purpose, however, of useful information if it cannot be built upon and actually used?  Think about if your grandma had a “secret recipe” for the greatest cookies in the world.  If she kept this recipe to herself, nobody but the people in your close family could enjoy these cookies.  Master chefs could, no doubt, fiddle with this recipe for years trying to find an improvement or inventing ways to adopt these cookies for other cultures.  If they were unable to improve perfection, they could still learn new techniques from your grandma and apply those to other recipes.  They are unable to do so, though, because your grandma has kept it a secret.  When she passes away, this recipe may or may not be saved, depending on whether she decided to share it with anyone.  The same thing may or may not happen with the “products” created by most “information” companies today.  It is really difficult to call something an “innovation” when the strides made by that something cannot be innovated upon.  Do we trust one company to do all of the innovation for it’s respective market?

I am not trying to insult your grandmother, but rather, get you to think about this from another angle.  In the whole scheme of the world, your grandma’s cookies are probably not the most important thing.  They do, however, represent a small model of a bigger problem.  Progress, especially in todays time, is one of the most important things in the world.  Small additions or changes to software unavailable for modification could mean significantly less carbon emissions to help the environment.  The company that “owns” these ideas may not think this environment-friendly change would increase sales, so they don’t bother to implement it.  Some piece of highly-urgent medical software could have a small bug in its core that stops doctors from accurately saving several lives.  Obviously these are extreme situations, but image what would happen if educational software was made open and freely modifiable!  Educators would be able to make the classrooms into what they should be, instead of training students through mouse clicks how to make a PowerPoint Presentation or an Excel Spreadsheet.  Educators could turn the classroom into that of a 21st century school, something most schools have yet to accomplish.

The main problem with the current approach is that the major companies today are guarding “knowledge” and “information”.  They are treating ideas as commodities, instead of as the ideas they really are.  If we both have apples, and exchange them, we each still have one apple.  If we both have ideas, and exchange them, we both now have two ideas.  Keeping ideas private will not help the world progress.  Did you appreciate the Wikipedia links I provided in this article?  It shows just how much Free and Open Knowledge is available now that we, as a consumer based society, tend to take for granted.  Wikipedia is not enough, though.  There is so much knowledge in the world that goes far beyond the scope of Wikipedia.  Our society could advance in ways we never thought possible if we could learn to collaborate.  So, whether you are J.P. Morgan, Richard Stallman, Joe the Plumber, or Steve Ballmer, please remember to keep in mind all of the ways Open and Free Information will benefit not only you, but society as a whole.