tv [untitled] December 16, 2011 7:00pm-7:30pm EST
7:00 pm
elsie's top stories mission accomplished after almost two decades of negotiations russia's welcome to the members of the world trade organization joining the prestigious club strengthens the country's global ties and provides an incentive to business with the russian moments with its trees saying consumers can look forward to price constant over around ten percent of its fear they could be trouble ahead for some sectors warning over rough times and average culture and on a. truth teller trade how the u.s. only private accused of leaking state secrets to wiki leaks appears at a pretrial hearing in port up to spending eighteen months in solitary confinement and found guilty it could phrase the death penalty or life. under u.s. court has ruled that scene a to bring in political figures including its supreme leader provided help to the
7:01 pm
nine eleven hijackers for that tonsil america ten years ago none of the reigning in politicians have appeared in a war critics say it's part of a buildup campaign against him. and those are the headlines up next oh she's spotlight on six days software freedom richard stallman if computer software must be totally free well there's no such thing as a free lunch. hello again and welcome to the spotlight new show on the arts in alvin and today my guest on the program richard stallman. the computerworld. two
7:02 pm
confronting cabinets with two totally different thoughts on the one side of the corporation which sell programs. it's the other the people who believe software must be three. former obviously dominates the market yet please software products are starting to be commercial how can this happen why isn't the market always routine properly the software world. number one person in the free software movement computer genius who has always confronted business with steve jobs and value just spotlight gives you a unique opportunity to hear your questions directly by richard stallman a programmer ten from. richard stallman sas the purpose of his career is to
7:03 pm
campaign for users rights back in the seventy's he was a prodigy a programmer and a part of the newly born hacker community he continued in a software developer career but an attempt to introduce a top three operating system truth for the launch of the project started the free software movement. running changing. programs without charge thanks to richard stallman and his brand's most commercial software has. stalled lives in a static line of lectures and promotes his philosophy around the globe. i will richard welcome to the show and thank you very much for being with us well first of all you just when you were listening to that intro you said that it's a mistake to confront free software and commercial so really i wonder what because these are two unrelated questions the program is free or proprietary depending on
7:04 pm
whether the users control the program or the program controls the users whether the program is commercial or not that's a totally different question it's commercial if it's developed as part of a business there are businesses that develop free software and there are individuals that make proprietary software it isn't necessarily commercial also resort where means free as in freedom it's not a matter of price free software is often available gratis but not necessarily you can sell copies you're free to sell copies and proprietary software free software is sometimes gratis for instance flash player is gratis proprietary software it's not free software and it has malicious features so it subjugates the users and abuses them but it's gratis if you like that producing and working on free software can be a business i mean yes it is it can be a million people are paid to do this and companies do this there are people who
7:05 pm
have small businesses where they develop solutions for clients and they improve as they go the free software that they use in the solution i think you partly through the question that we got on facebook from mr joe it who asks who can afford to work for free so well actually lots of people do there are many people who volunteer for courses. and many people who have hobbies so developing free software is a sort of hobby for many people and it's a political cause for many people but the crucial thing is there is lots of free software if somebody believes a simple minded economic theory that says there can't be free software well that theory must be false it's like someone who has a theory saying satellites can't stay up well they do look up at the moon one day and you realize satellites can stay up so that theory must be wrong now you might want to ask how people develop free software that's an interesting question but to
7:06 pm
say i don't believe it could exist when it does exist that's just a false belief that will if god wanted people to fly you would have given the wings you think there is no god so that it's not really a meaningful question but. basically for software originally was frequently for you back in the one nine hundred fifty s. as soon as there were more than one computer that was an identical model and that the same programs would run on and there were various users doing things that sometimes had an overlap they started sharing software between them and free software was still common around one nine hundred seventy when i entered the field but during the seventy's it was driven out by user subjugating proprietary software but i had the good fortune to work at a place where the software was free so i experienced life in freedom but then that
7:07 pm
community died in one thousand eight to approximately and i saw myself facing a life of proprietary software and it was ugly it was disgusting so i said i'm going to dedicate all my efforts to creating another free software community to replace the one that was gone and the question we got from. facebook came in for a mic earlier and here's what he writes what motivated you to pioneer the free software movement when everybody else thought this was insane well i had already really believed i had already exist experience life in a free software it is there that is why i knew that it was possible and that it was a good way of life and i didn't think that money could compensate for the ugliness of life that i would have with proprietary software i didn't want
7:08 pm
to be subjugated and i didn't want to subjugate others in fact it made me morally ashamed of the idea it was it was morally wrong in my view so the only thing that was worth doing with my skill as a programmer was creating a free world richard you say i quote it will take many steps in many years to reach a world in which it is normal for software uses to have freedom and quote do you think the existing economic system should be changed to to help your dreams well true or that's not necessary the free software movement was started in a capitalist society and has always existed in a capitalist society there is no in compatibility between free software and capitalism now extreme capitalism the empire of the corporations which is what we have since the globalization and the unfair trade
7:09 pm
treaties of the ninety's that's a different story i don't know if anything decent in society can co-exist with extreme capitalism extreme capitalism means that in each area of life the business is interested in that area rule society control the government and in particular the oil and fossil fuel companies can. troll energy policy and they are driving us towards the kind of disaster where we won't have food to eat it was only a year and a half ago in russia that the harvest burned up due to an extreme heat event of course global heating makes those happen more frequently as well as creating floods and droughts and many kinds of disasters so. we're heading for a total disaster if we don't put an end to extreme capitalism and reestablish democracy but this doesn't mean eliminating capitalism just to eliminate the empire
7:10 pm
of corporations doesn't mean we stop having businesses so we don't need to stop having businesses we don't need to get rid of capitalism free software combines capitalist ideas and socialist ideas and at our cost ideas it doesn't fit into any one of those camps at richard end of the leather discussion that's going on in the in the internet in the in the world in general is that the sparkle bi weekly leaks do you think that the public knowledge in depth from the public knowledge of governmental secrets diplomatic secrets is good is it justified is there a lie it's necessary is there a line that should be generally now that our governments betray the citizens when the empire of the corporations imposes its governments of occupation these governments exist to keep the public under control of business there they may have democratic form but they don't really carry out the law say that the best way to
7:11 pm
control the public is free software and yet we're way internet free software doesn't control the potter no it's the opposite free software is software that the users control. in order for the users to have control over the programs they use and have control over the computing they do with it they need certain freedoms these for essential freedoms are the criterion for whether a program is free if the users don't have control over the program and the program controls the users and of course the developer controls the program and that means that this non free program is an instrument of power you know what my dad always taught me and i was raised in a capitalist society in the in england in france with my parents he said listen. as long as you can afford to buy things here free but as soon as you start getting things for three you hooked free software doesn't mean it's for free so you're
7:12 pm
misunderstanding here but in this case he is assuming your father was assuming that when you buy something you control it yeah and that used to be true and waffen it still is true but not was software if you buy or even get gratis a copy of a proprietary program you don't control what it does it's designed frequently to mistreat you it's very common for users of proprietary software to have malicious software this is where we tell you some examples microsoft windows has known malicious features has features to spy on the user features to restrict the user these are called digital handcuffs and it has known back doors with which microsoft for instance can change anything remotely. mac os has known digital handcuffs to restrict users the recent apple products the things these have been
7:13 pm
known back spy features known digital and coughs the nastiest ever and unknown back door flash player which is gratis but not free software has surveillance feature and digital handcuffs most cellular phones will transmit your location on remote khamenei and that's a surveillance feature and a back to work together thing to control using a credit card i mean what exactly why that's why normally buy things only with cash but the point is that the non free software because a corporation typically it's a corporation has control over the users through this program it uses that power to abuse them it puts it intentional malicious features how can we protect ourselves free software is the only known defense says richard stallman founder of the free software and spotlight will be back shortly for a grade and stay with us we'll continue in a. except
7:16 pm
7:17 pm
a reminder that my guest on the show today is richard stallman founder of the free software movement richard we've got we've got dozens of questions from our viewers and here's one from a man called k.z. and under a he put a question to you on our website what can the free software movement do to convince people to use free software instead of by heavily more acute in proprietary products because. some people still believe that that windows are mad well it works better than that free software they don't realize that it's full of malicious features it's basically an instrument to give someone else power over them and this power is being abused constantly so what i do to try to show people why they should move to freedom respecting free software. it is i don't talk about practical things mere convenience because you know free software in some cases is convenient
7:18 pm
in some cases less so just as proprietary software in some cases convened in some cases less so they're not all incompetent i'm not going to claim that but they never respect your freedom and once you have come to understand this then you'll realize that it's worth making sacrifices to gain control over the things that you live your life with the same control that your father assumed he would have when he what is he denied how can you consider yourself to be free if you have a computer if you have a computer you hooked if you live in europe you hope for russian gas because your son alex resumes are sorry you're not sorry you are free from the earliest years stretching the word free yeah to include a lot you are here to see earth results i'm using it in a very specific way meaning freedom is having control over your own life it doesn't
7:19 pm
mean you can get anything you want if you're asked to supplied by the russians your life is controlled by the rich who actually know what it means is western europe is to some extent vulnerable to threats from russia. but after all it's an interdependent world to some extent but that doesn't mean an individual person in western europe doesn't have freedom and no i'm not i am and i don't want to be free will but again that's a different issue i want to be interdependent but that's different you see freedom doesn't mean that you have no social relationships it doesn't mean you're an island what it means is nobody is controlling you and making you do this and making you not do that now. in a free society people generally have. their homes where they have where they own things and they can do with those things what they want to do of course their thing
7:20 pm
there are things where you affect others where you have to respect their rights but . you have a sort of smear of your own freedom around you but not if you're using a computer with proprietary software because they're the developer the owner of the program controls everything mrs ormonde a what's your opinion on the g n u linux based national operating system funded and co financed by the government which government while government bodies are any garrido well first of all good new is the name of the operating system i started in one thousand nine hundred three but i was given a good linux is a kernel which one program that we use with the system that was the one piece that we hadn't developed and mr torvalds provided one so good newsflash linux is the combination it's basically could do with linux so this is a complete operating system now in fact it's normally not funded by governments but we're happy to have government help in improving it so some pieces have been funded
7:21 pm
by governments along behind and government agencies must insist on using only free software for the sake of the computing sovereignty of the state if a state agency uses a non free program that means a private entity has control over the states computing that must not be ok commenting on the death of steve jobs you are quoted to say i'm not glad he's dead but i'm glad he's gone well i think the same thing was said about the mayor of chicago about his designs that are similar yes i think survivor i have tried to do that i didn't quote it exactly right i posted an x. and a correction well what's what was wrong with me mean the idea of easy jobs figured out how to build computers that were prisons jails for the user and how to make them stylish and chic which say that if you need us we will make you late
7:22 pm
in an evil genius he did harm to the world because he convinced people to rush to stores saying put the handcuffs on me please. and that is extremely harmful. that's what we fight against so so does that mean that's that like motorola phone is better than i'm not sure i don't think it is what kind of phone to use my stuff no mobile phone you don't know because all mobile phones are surveillance and tracking devices let's see what's wrong with it you see what sort of that are available and sign for anybody even from a sad story i don't care i do care because i don't want big brother to know all about me or all about you well the dissidents big brother doesn't have enough money to spy on everybody else and with he would mobile phones if you will it's automatic he will start spying on you do it when you start doing something you know not what you do something wrong that's assuming the government is
7:23 pm
a good guy with members were talking about observance of occupation that support the empire and whose purpose is to keep the people in line i've seen a sabotage i've seen a witness the couple of governments comprised of good guys and they never survive more than six months i don't know that's not the point the point is that i reject the assumption that we should want the government to have more power to govern. we are in a state that has too much power right now that's not the way things should be the u.s. senate just passed a law saying that even american citizens should be sent to guantanamo given no legal representation it's an attack on fundamental human rights so i don't want that government to have any more knowledge of anybody that it can than we can prevent it from having this go on with the with questions from the orders so that's
7:24 pm
why i don't have a mobile phone it's not that my movements are a big secret or it's not that i actually am concerned whether they would know where i'm going. i am against any system whereby this state can see where everyone has gone good and then run from the audience wouldn't widespread adoption of open source code programs make the public more vulnerable to hackers who would be able to analyze the code and find its weaknesses well first of all i'm not in favor of open source open source is of the name of a philosophy that rejects my views so i am not in favor of any i don't talk about open source except to say why i disagree with it if you want to cross that out and replace it free software then i could answer the question does first but then there's another problem with that question it assumes that hackers are speedball who are trying to hurt you how king means playful cleverness and computers are very
7:25 pm
useful for if you want to be playfully clever if what they're not requires playful cleverness then the governing governing is competent no. people have misunderstood the word hacker since around one thousand nine hundred two i makar i'm proud to say a mac are which means i practice playful cleverness in a lot of ways it generally has nothing to do with computer security it's a mistake to use the word hacker to mean breaking computer security i call that cracking and the people do order crackers so the question is if you use free software are you more vulnerable to cracking and the answer is no in pyrrhic li our software has better quality and you are not more vulnerable we found out. just a week ago that there was a bug in our i tunes security hole that apple knew about for years and only announced a fix
7:26 pm
a week ago and in the meantime they think that this might have been used by governments to and others to break into people's computers and take control of them well that's not free software you know our christopher. asks us on facebook rather asks you what do you think of social networks like facebook acting too so secretive in their finances and very secretive in their in their privacy plans well these are two different questions social that working is one question and facebook is another face to face and social well it's one cause it's one particular case social networking in the abstract i don't have anything against that i don't do it because it's not convenient for me but if it's convenient for you do it however facebook facebook is very nasty you should unfriend facebook today you should never touch it because facebook does systematic surveillance of people even on facebook
7:27 pm
users if they if you visit a page that shows a like button of facebook facebook knows you visited that page well we're developing something that's going to cause these like buttons not to show up so that facebook won't know where you went but facebook does other nasty things like facebook if you're a facebook user facebook would use your face in paid advertisements without asking you so. i don't and there are many other bad things about facebook i'll tell you shouldn't touch that but a social networking site can be ethical question from a user nickname bathala me he announced you are known as being very wary of publication of personal data on the internet but what's your take on the problem of false online identity in order to deceive people the so-called sock puppets. i think that's bad but i don't think anything can be done about it because the kind
7:28 pm
of surveillance system that would be necessary to prevent sock puppets would be tyranny like i'd rather live with sucks up thank you thank you very much for being with us it was really interesting to talk to you thanks and just a reminder that richard stallman was my guest on the show is the software freedom and that's it for now from all of us if you want to have yourself a spotlight or have someone in mind when you think i should interview next time to drop me a line that i'll do in our out policy team are you and let's keep the show into spotlight we'll be back with more comments on what's going on in ten adults on your show so then play on our team and. thank you thank you.
7:29 pm
the close of team has been on the black sea coast for future developments depend on the good way. to go area first place to many flights champions. the most ambitious couple. has ruined the lives of many innocent families across the region. where the oldest city in russia is for clocking in more than five thousand years. to dagestan russia close up on r.t. . culture is the same i understand nationally and therefore you will miss some of the beautiful years in the market here over traders these are among the labels described.
35 Views
Uploaded by TV Archive on