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diff --git a/content/why_free_software.rst b/content/why_free_software.rst index cb9457b..c7d6e0a 100644 --- a/content/why_free_software.rst +++ b/content/why_free_software.rst @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ :title: Why I use free software and why it's important to me :date: 2016-08-14 20:20 -:modified: 2016-09-07 20:42 +:modified: 2016-09-11 22:50 :tags: free software, security, privacy, sustainability, education :category: General :author: Wolfgang Wiedmeyer @@ -31,16 +31,16 @@ Our devices are getting more and more powerful. And the need for security actual But smartphones are not the end. We are more and more entering the reality of the buzzword of nightmares: the internet of things. Why not connect everything to the Internet? At some point in the future, almost every car will have some sort of remote control. There's a real possibility that you will buy for your parents a robot that will help them in the household when they get older. So the thread of being passively watched, listened to or tracked will be extended by the thread of being actively physically harmed. There are already numerous reports about the lack of software security in cars and security researchers were able to remotely control cars. I don't want to live in a world where some madman can sit on his bed, sip his coffee and occasionally crash my car or choke my parents to death with the robot I bought for them. With free software, we are be able to see what functionality the devices have, how its security can be improved or more simple: We would be able to disable a certain functionality like remote control if it's just ridiculous to have that functionality in the first place. -Our world and our society is not getting improved by people who say that everything is alright. People who call out the issues at hand and nag us about them are doing the first step to change something for the better. Actually doing something about our problems is the next step. Activists are doing all of this. Whistleblowers provide us with the information. Investigative journalists research the issues. All of these groups highly depend on free software as their daily tools. Free software makes it possible for them to evade surveillance of authoritarian or corrupt governments. For some of them, security or privacy issues in the software they use can cost them their lives. I see the striving for more transparency and the opposition to censorship as one of the biggest tasks of our generation. If we all use free software, then it would be really difficult for the evil organizations to even single out the activists or whistleblowers among us. But doctors and lawyers should demand free software, too. How should they be able to guarantee the privacy of their clients otherwise? +Our world and our society is not getting improved by people who say that everything is alright. People who call out the issues at hand and nag us about them are doing the first step to change something for the better. Actually doing something to solve our problems is the next step. Activists are doing all of this. Whistleblowers provide us with the information. Investigative journalists research the issues. All of these groups highly depend on free software for their daily tools. Free software makes it possible for them to evade surveillance of authoritarian or corrupt governments. For some of them, security or privacy issues in the software they use can cost them their lives. I see the striving for more transparency and the opposition to censorship as one of the biggest tasks for our generation. If we all use free software, then it will be really difficult for evil organizations to even single out the activists or whistleblowers among us. But doctors and lawyers should demand free software, too. How should they be able to guarantee the privacy of their clients otherwise? Sustainability, education and research ###################################### -Free software makes sustainability possible. You can run recent software on quite old hardware because it's technically possible and there is no company hindering you from doing that because they think that this may be bad for their business model. And in the same way, you can be sure that you will be able to access your data or your work for many years to come. Many people cannot afford to buy new hardware every two years. With free software they can use their hardware without any issues for up to fifteen or more years and still benefit from new features and security updates. Using our hardware for as long as possible is also a way to protect the environment. Normally, we cannot ensure that the manufacturers adhere to current standards to protect the environment or that they respect their workers rights and not exploit them. A longer utilization time and buying hardware second-hand is a way to not support abuse of workers and to conserve our environmental resources. We are living in a society that promotes consumerism. Free software helps to gain a new perspective on these issues, also by encouraging the users to contribute. +Free software makes sustainability possible. You can run recent software on quite old hardware because it's technically possible and there is no company hindering you from doing that because they think that this may be bad for their business model. And in the same way, you can be sure that you will be able to access your data or your work for many years to come. Many people cannot afford to buy new hardware every two years. With free software they can use their hardware without any issues for up to fifteen or more years and still benefit from new features and security updates. Using our hardware for as long as possible is also a way to protect the environment. Normally, we cannot ensure that the manufacturers adhere to current standards to protect the environment or that they respect their workers' rights and don't exploit them. A longer utilization time and buying second-hand hardware are ways to not support abuse of workers and to conserve our environmental resources. We are living in a society that promotes consumerism. Free software helps to gain a new perspective on these issues, also by encouraging the users to contribute. -Free software should be mandatory in education and research. Especially if I spend a lot of time to learn to use a certain software or if I for some reason strongly depend on a piece of software as part of my work, then I want to be able to use that software for any purpose and for as long as I want. Additionally, I want to share that software with others and fix issues or ask others to fix problems with the software so I can continue to use it. Only in this way, the knowledge from learning the software is not lost in some way and everybody can fully benefit from the software. Researchers should use free software and they should publish the code they write as part of their research as free software. This way, it's possible to reproduce their results and to build upon them. +Free software should be mandatory in education and research. Especially if I spend a lot of time learning to use certain software or if I for some reason strongly depend on a piece of software as part of my work, then I want to be able to use that software for any purpose and for as long as I want. Additionally, I want to share that software with others and fix issues or ask others to fix problems with the software so that I can continue to use it. Only in this way, the knowledge from learning to use the software is not lost and everybody can fully benefit from the software. Researchers should use free software and they should publish the code they write as part of their research as free software. This way, it's possible to reproduce their results and to build upon them. -Children in school shouldn't be learning nonfree software that hides information from them, collects their personal data and makes them dependent on the developers or the companies behind the software. Many companies that develop nonfree software are giving their software away at no cost at schools and universities. Later on, they can extort ridiculous amounts of money from the graduates or the companies they work for so they can continue to use the nonfree software they just learned to use with a lot of effort. In the case that the companies go bankrupt and the software development ceases, the acquired knowledge about the software is completely lost. Free software leaves us with the source code to the software, so we can continue to maintain the software for ourselves or anybody else can pick up the development of the software so we can continue to use it. Free software promotes collaboration and encourages to take a look inside to see how everything works. In the sense of open access to knowledge, free software allows students and others alike to discover how a computer works and what happens if we change some parts of the source code. I personally only started to enjoy using a PC in order to get work done (especially coding) as soon as I started to deliberately use free software. Meeting others of the community at gatherings like `FOSDEM <https://fosdem.org>`_ or the `Chaos Communication Congress <https://events.ccc.de/congress/>`_ increased my enthusiasm. +Children in school shouldn't use nonfree software that hides information from them, collects their personal data and makes them dependent on the developers or the companies behind the software. Many companies that develop nonfree software give their software away at no cost to schools and universities. Later on, they can extort ridiculous amounts of money from the graduates or the employers they work for so they can continue to use the nonfree software they just learned to use with a lot of effort. In the case that the companies go bankrupt and the software development ceases, the acquired knowledge about the software would be completely lost. With free software the source code of the software is available, so we can continue to maintain the software for ourselves or anybody else can pick up the development of the software so we can continue to use it. Free software promotes collaboration and encourages to take a look inside to see how everything works. In the sense of open access to knowledge, free software allows students and others alike to discover how a computer works and what happens if we change some parts of the source code. I personally only started to enjoy using a PC in order to get work done (especially coding) as soon as I started to deliberately use free software. Meeting others of the community at gatherings like `FOSDEM <https://fosdem.org>`_ or the `Chaos Communication Congress <https://events.ccc.de/congress/>`_ increased my enthusiasm. I think that free software will gain a lot more traction as soon as more people will not only value the functionality and ease of use of the software they use, but also security, privacy, sustainability and societal effects. I hope that I could give you a better understanding of these effects. All these benefits of free software stem from the freedoms we get by using free software. If you believe in a free society, then I hopefully convinced you that free software should be a part of it. We should demand these freedoms as rights for ourselves. If we don't do this, then others will be in control: governments, companies or the machines themselves. |