DMCA, who let this happen?

In short the DMCA is a law that prohibits you from modifying electronic and digital things that you own. For more information see this link .

The DMCA is the most corrupt, most draconian, most asinine law to be passed in the United States. It is absolutely unacceptable, it exists in complete disregard for the Freedom of American Citizens. And therefore I can't accept it. Personal property was one of the things the founding fathers worked the hardest to protect. The DMCA violates both the spirit and the letter of the law they put forth, and as such is an illegally passed law and should be fought.

The DMCA causes real psychosocial harm, it teaches people that in order to truly own something, it must be "stolen". It teaches people that freedom is not an important value. It teaches people to be paranoid and mistrust the government, and one another. It teaches people not to value personal property. It teaches people that the government can make any law that they want, no matter how corrupt. It is an absolute atrocity.

I am a believer and proponent of freedom in all areas of life, as are many others. Freedom is getting attacked in every area of life in which we still have it. So why have I chosen to fight the battle on the digital front? Because this is the front where we have already lost. Our freedoms here were taken already, stolen right out from under our noses. People didn't understand technology enough to defend their rights in it. So I choose this battlefront because it is where defenders are most needed right now. The other freedom fighters continue to guard other rights, but have largely ignored digital rights because it doesn't SEEM important. Well, it is. Tyranny will spill from the virtual world into the real world. Just like the sinking titanic, water spilling from one "water tight" chamber to the next. In the world of computers is where the iceberg of oppression has hit the hardest, and we will lose this ship unless we can hold the line.

And so, I can not, in good faith, advise people to blindly comply with the DMCA. We must reject legislation that perverts our freedom into something much more ugly. Just remember that in Stalin's Russia, they posted guards at all copying equipment, and the government dictated what could be done with your property, until finally, no one HAD any property, it all belonged to Mother Russia.

We assume that our government is essentially benign, that somehow we are immune to the disease of total corruption that has afflicted every other government in history. To make such an assumption is naive. Our government is only as benign as the constitution and the people have demanded that they be. The moment they stop obeying the constitution, and the people stop demanding freedom, our system of government will degrade as quickly as all the others.

Remember, freedoms are expensive to buy, but cheap to sell. Selling freedoms is as easy as sitting on your butt and doing nothing. But buying those same freedoms back costs the price of blood. I for one, do not ever want to have to take part in a war to regain lost freedom. I love peace, I love brotherhood, I love freedom. So I beg of you all, let us defend freedom while we can still afford to do so!

It's time to tell the world

I've put it off for too long now. I know something true, and something important. I have been wanting to write about it for quite sometime, but less important things have gotten in the way, and excuses have been made. Then one night as I pondered my stance on the issues of freedom in software, it became too much, and I just began to write. Well anyway, to make a long story short, I came up with a paper, a manifesto, if you will. I posted it here in my first posting. Please, read it, think about it, and PASS IT ALONG!

My Paper

The Promise of Free Software

Men die for it, boys kill for it. Nations are created and destroyed in it's name. The history of man has been shaped and moved by it. Entire doctrines and belief systems have been defined by it. I speak, of course, of freedom, the single greatest motivator of the human spirit. As I express my thoughts on the concept, I feel, in some small way, that I better understand the men who have fought for it.

The founding fathers desired freedom from the oppression of a king. They desired full control over their lands, and freedom from unnecessary taxes placed upon them by an organization over which they had no influence whatsoever. In a similar manner, I, and many others, desire freedom of knowledge, from the oppression of those that would withhold it from us, and from the unnecessary price affixed to that knowledge. They desired a world in which the community governed itself, away from the tyranny of a monolithic entity that decreed what was law with little thought to the individual citizen of that community. My wish is the same, to be free from the monolithic entities that wish to deprive us of the freedom of knowledge in order to bolster their profitability.

This is the information age, clearly. We are part of a world in which limitless sources of information are just a thought away. Finally, the sum of mankind's knowledge is beginning to congregate in a vast network of computers. Nearly anyone can access this expansive resource, and the information is returned to the eyes of every user indiscriminately. Lines of communication have been opened between billions of people who would otherwise be unaware of each other's existence. This is the most important creation that we have ever forged together as a species. There are many pieces of technology that have come together to make this dream a reality. There is one technology, above all others, that makes this revolution possible, software. Software is the technological manifestation of man's greatest aspirations, it is the organization of knowledge into executable packages that can benefit any who run them. It can be copied, and shared, and manipulated in ways we can't even imagine. And yet, there are those that seek to limit the freedom we have over our software, thereby restricting the flow of information and suffocating the lines of communication. Whether intentional or not, these companies segregate the human race into groups, by forcing those who use their software to choose modes of communication that are incompatible with those from an opposing company. Too long has our software, and thereby our knowledge, been held captive by a corrupt group of executives and fortune seekers. This has caused confusion in the general populous. I've often heard people say things like:
“Which program should I buy?”,
“If I buy this one I lose this, but if I buy that one I lose that.”
“I'd like to use that, but I HAVE to stick with this because...” or,
“I liked what I had, but I was forced to upgrade in order to be compatible with...”
“I've been wishing my software would do this, but it can't, and I already bought this one.”
These are the statements of men and women who are not free. Obviously, this cannot be allowed to continue.

There is a better way. Years ago inventive and inspired men and women all over the globe began to create a new kind of software. They would write it, use it, and distribute it for free along with the actual source code they wrote. Source code is the foundation of all software, the building blocks, it's what the programmer writes, and what the computer can understand and convert into a executable program. This was important because it meant that their software was not only free of a monetary price, but the user was free to study, understand, modify, and improve that software because the source code was available to them. These free thinkers eventually began to organize themselves into groups in order to create even better free software. One such group, is called GNU. Gnu has created incredible tools that are free for all to use, and modify. But for quite sometime free software lovers were forced to use their Gnu tools on proprietary operating systems.

Then, on August 25, 1991 in Helsinki, a college student named Linus Torvalds revealed an operating system that he had written called Linux. He then released it, along with the source code, for free over the Internet to anyone and everyone who desired it. Many volunteered their time and talents to aid Linus in developing his fledgling operating system kernel. Coders and free software advocates everywhere began to use and improve it, to hone it's quality and power. Finally the Gnu project discovered the operating system kernel they had been searching for, and new fuel was thrown onto the fire of the free software movement. By 1994 huge data centers were running their servers on GNU/Linux, and entire desktop operating systems had been built and deployed. Some companies sold this free software, and services surrounding it for a price, but it was still Free Software because it was released under the principles of freedom. The year is now 2009 and GNU/Linux is in use more than ever before, from routers, servers, desktops and laptops, to HD televisions, personal media players, home theater equipment, and mobile phones. Truly, the age of free software is just beginning!

I recently loaded a copy of a proprietary program onto a proprietary operating system and before even being allowed to install it I had to agree to a very restrictive end user license agreement. Have you ever read the long page of legalese accompanying every copy of proprietary software? I did, and what I noticed is that I was promising not to do what I believe in. Which is, help my neighbor. I help my neighbor when I share software with him, when I share knowledge with him, when I improve the source code of the software he uses, and when I can understand it well enough to really teach it. I realized I didn't even own the software I had just purchased, the developer did. I payed for it, and didn't own it! Not only did I agree not to own what I had just payed for, but the rule laid out by those who did own it was “If you share with your neighbor you are a pirate. If you want any changes, beg us to make them.” This is the harm in using non-free software, a cooperating community is forbidden. Clearly, this methodology cannot accompany the free knowledge revolution, it's a contradiction by its very nature. Software is too important a part of our lives, it's in everything we do. We must not let proprietary software licenses build walls between us.

I work in a situation where I have the opportunity to see people interacting with, and purchasing non-free software. I see ordinary people victimized by proprietary software everyday, because they don't know there is an alternative. I see people wishing their software were different in some way, but agreeing not to modify it before using it. I see people who can't share the software they bought with even their own family members. I see people who wish to switch software platforms but are unable to because of proprietary file format incompatibility. This is all part of a grueling cycle of predatory vendor lock-in. These are people who, unknowingly, gave up their freedom long ago when they paid for that first certain piece of non-free software.
There are many, many technical advantages to the free software model as well. Since millions of people with varying technical backgrounds peruse the free software source code everyday, improving it line by line, the quality of code tends to be very high. Stability, security, speed, extensibility, and compatibility are the resulting advantages of free software. The Linux kernel is very robust, lightweight, efficient and portable. The same is true of other free software packages. And it's important to note that GNU/Linux is a POSIX compliant Unix-like operating system, giving you the power of Unix, the freedom of free software, and the price of the air you breathe. Now that is an operating system that I can really get behind!

With all these apparent benefits, and the obvious necessity of liberty in software, I often ask myself, “Why do so many continue to be bound by the licenses of non-free software. Why do so many easily, and at times happily give up their liberty? I believe this question has many answers, depending on each individual. Most commonly those who remain captive to non-free software are simply not aware of the alternatives, or the benefits of such. They lack the knowledge, and need it to be shared with them. It is up to us to educate them, to let them know what free software is, but even more importantly, why it is. Occasionally people remain bound to non-free software because of some individual feature they want, or feel they need. While sometimes this may seem valid, I have these things to say: free software often has many features and capabilities that it's proprietary brother does not. The features in question will most certainly come to the free platform in time. Lastly, every so often one must make a small sacrifice in the name of preserving one's own freedom, and the occasional feature is a small price to pay for such vast benefits.

I have personally witnessed the miraculous beginnings of the information age. The age where truly no man is an island. A time in which each individual is as great as the sum of all the knowledge accessible to him, and where the flow of knowledge and communication knows no race, gender, or station. I have witnessed an unfettered operating system grow and be developed. Not by one man, or one organization, but by mankind itself. Resulting in a truly human operating system, owned by no one, but belonging to everyone. This is the promise of free software; that in our freedom, men and women can come together to create, share, and improve our software, our knowledge, and our lives. That software will continue to march forward, unhindered by proprietary corporate machines, and that through uninhibited collaboration we will better understand one another, and mankind will better understand itself.