Right to Software Liberty

From ADFA: Audenshaw Digital Freedom Association

Levels:

Computing is a new area of life, its only about 15 years now, that in a few most advanced countries, most people use computers. That's not a long time to debate what human rights should belong to a user of software.

-Richard Stallman

Software liberty is defined and explained on the freedomware page. This aim of this project is to spread the idea that software liberty is a human right. The ethical reasons for software liberty can be found in this table.

[edit] For activists

Many people can not be bothered to make changes to there lifestyle for ethical reasons - but there is one group that already does for other issues - human rights (and other) activists. We believe that software liberty issues should be important to any Human rights activist who uses a computer (most of them). There are some relatively simple reasons for this:

• At the very least, they should try to use Freedomware to avoid monitoring by governments etc. that may disapprove of what they are doing. Without access to the source code, it is impossible to know exactly what a program is doing, and some are deliberately designed to spy on you to a certain extent (WGA, DRM enforcement)
• Freedomware is good for poorer countries as it allows them to build up their own IT industry without having reliance on companies in MEDCs (rich countries).

[edit] Human Rights

However, there are also some more controversial reasons such as the idea that software liberty in itself is a human right.

• Freedomware encourages curiosity and learning about "how stuff works", whereas proprietary software prevents this very human action.

Human rights are about making sure everyone is as free from control and restrictions as possible and has as much freedom as possible. However, sometimes two rights contradict each other (Right to freedom of action - murder and Right to life) and we must choose one (hopefully in this case the Right to life). In the case of software, there are two conflicting rights:

• The users right to freedom over the software (run, study, share and improve it)
• The developers right to profit from the program

From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• Article 2 - Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind...

Therefore it must be possible to exercise all the rights in the declaration without being forced to use proprietary software. This means that governments (article 21) and public institutions, such as schools (article 26), should support freedomware.

• Article 12 - No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Proprietary software causes a problem with this right, as it can be used to spy on you, and without the source code, there is not way of verifying if it does so or not.

• Article 17 - (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Many proprietary software applications restrict what you can do with your copy (your property), so therefore contradict this right.

• Article 27 - Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

People should be able to exercise the four freedoms, in order to share in the scientific advancement of software.

As for the developers rights, it is still possible for developers to make money from free software. It may not be as easy, but surely they shouldn't make money at the expense of the rights of their users.

For more details, see this blog post.

[edit] Religious Groups (Churches etc.)

A lot of major faiths have passages that tell believers how they should treat others. Free software is about supporting the community and helping your neighbour.

Its importance to Christians is suggested by passages such as "Love your neighbour as you love yourself"[1].