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hello again and welcome to the spotlight millions of new show on our t.v. and i'll be ready to name my guest on the program is richard stallman. the computer

world is divided in two confronting camps with two totally different thoughts on the one side of the corporations which sell programs and gain big bucks all the others all the people who believe software must be free the former obviously dominates the market yet free software products are starting to be commercial how can this help why isn't the market always working properly and the software world poor asking the number one person in the free software movement to true computer genius who has always confronted business with steve jobs and value spotlight gives you a unique opportunity to hear your questions also directly by richard stallman a programmer turned philosopher. richard stallman sas the purpose of his career is to come pain for users writes back in the seventy's he was a product

a programmer and a part of the newly born hacker community he could have continued in a software developer career but an attempt to introduce a. real operating system made it through. the launch of the g. a new project started the free software movement it finds were running changing and redistributing computer programs without charge thanks to richard stallman and his brands most commercial software has. stallman himself believes 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 right want what because these are two unrelated questions the program is free or proprietary depending on 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 who are paid to do this and the companies do this there are people who 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 jewett who are six who can afford to work for free so well actually lots of people do there are many people who volunteer for causes 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

say i don't believe it could exist when it does exist that's just a false belief that well if god wanted people to fly you would have given you wings you think there is no god so it is not really your meaningful question but. basically for software who originally was frequently free 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 community died in one thousand eight to proxima early and i saw myself facing

a life of proprietary software and it was ugly it was discussed. 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 other question we got from facebook came from allie and here's what he writes what motivated you to pour in the of 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 industry there is a line to 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 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 and 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 or that's not necessary the free software movement which 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 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 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 control energy policy and they are driving us towards the kind of disaster where we want to have food to eat there 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 total disaster if we don't put into extreme capitalism and reestablish democracy but this doesn't mean eliminating capitalism just to eliminate the empire 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 richard end of. the discussion that's going on in the in the internet in the in the world in general is that we're sparkled bi weekly leaks do you think that the public knowledge in depth from the public knowledge of government secrets diplomatic secrets is good is it justified is there a lie it's necessary is there a lie 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 cannot say that the best way to

control the public is free software 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 than in england and 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 he hooked free software doesn't mean it's for free so you have

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 with 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 as 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 i things these have

a 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 and coughs most sell your phones will transmit your location on remote command that's a surveillance feature and a back to work together thing to control use your credit card i mean what exactly what i that's why normally buy things only with cash. point is that 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 founded all of the free software and spotlight would be very shrewdly for a great stay with us continue to.

play. into the theatrics against technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future covered. magine assets that the phone watches show every single night. and waiting for you to stumble. i saw a man with a video camera so i moved over and he followed me with a you know we realized there were following everyone from early in the morning. the only chance to get rid of him. is to reveal him.

to. me double operation on our cheek. place. thanks. while comeback to spotlight on algor novel just 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.c. and andre he put a question on our website one. can the free software movement do to convince people to use free software instead of by have only more acute in proprietary products because. people still believe that windows in america 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. is i don't talk about practical things mere convenience because you know free software in some cases is convenient and 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 in that you live your life with the same control that your father assumed he would have when he was what is he an idealist 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 know russian gas because your son alex residents are so you're not sorry you are free from the earliest years stretching the word free yeah to include a lot of your search you to use your through so often i'm using it in a very specific way meaning freedom is having control over your own life it doesn't mean you can get anything you want if you're as supplied by the russians your life is controlled by the russians 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 but again that's a different issue i want to tell you. 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 but 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 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 the linux based national operating system funded and co financed by the government which government where 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. and you did linux is a kernel it's 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 to 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 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're 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 something similar yes i think survivor i have tried to do that i didn't quote it exactly right i posted an excerpt of 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 said that if you need us we will make you late i'm 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 that like motorola phone is better. i'm not sure i don't think it is what kind of phone to use might not know mobile phone you don't have a moment of great because all mobile phones are surveillance and tracking devices that's what's wrong about you so what's going on is 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 know the dissidents big brother doesn't have enough money to spy on everybody else and he had mobile he owns if you will it's automatic he will start spying on you doing when you stand in something you know not what you do something wrong that's assuming the government is a good guy with member and we're talking about governments of occupation that support the empire and whose purpose is to keep the people in line i've seen

a sabotage i've seen i witnessed the couple of governments comprised of good guys and they never survive more than six michael i don't know that's not the point is that i reject the assumption that we should want the government to have more power . we're 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 audience so that's why i don't have a mobile phone it's not that my movements are a big secret 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 is gone 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 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 useful for if you want to be playfully clever if what they're not required is well a full cleverness then the governing governing is competent.

people have misunderstood the word hacker since around one thousand nine hundred two i makar i'm proud to say i'm actor 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 who are 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 a week ago and in the meantime they think that this might have been used by governments to others to break into people's computers and take control of them

well that's not free software you know our christopher county 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. so 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 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 actual 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 of surveillance system that would be necessary to prevent sock puppets would be

tyranny thank you i'd rather live with suffer thank you thank you very much for being with us that was really interesting to see the facts and just to remind them that richard stallman was my guest on the show is the software freedom and that's it for now 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 of the t.v. dot are you and let's keep the champagne into spotlight we'll be back with more comments on what's going on in and outside your show so then they are to. thank you you thank .