The existence of free software is built upon the four freedoms.
- Zero: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
- One: The freedom to study how the program works and modify it according to your needs. (Access to source code is a prerequisite for this freedom)
- Two: The freedom to redistribute copies of the program to help your friends, family, and neighbors.
- Three: The freedom to distribute modified versions to others, giving the community a chance to benefit from your improvements. (Access to source code is a prerequisite for this freedom)
Thus, free software is no longer personal property, but shared by all.
In Chinese, software refers to all intelligent and thought resources, in contrast to hardware. Hardware refers to all physical facilities of construction.
Basically, we can think of software in the computer world as code, a mathematical formula with practical properties, an intelligent thought process that can accomplish certain tasks after being combined and interwoven, which people write down and deliver to computers to run. Like mathematics, software requires quite advanced professional knowledge to correctly adjust, improve, and use, which is why many people hire programmers to update and improve software.
The characteristic of free software is that individuals and groups can freely use these task-processing thought processes that exist in mathematical form. Because of this characteristic of free software, it creates links and interactions between individuals and groups, forming “communities.”
History
Historically, it originated from Richard Stallman’s major free software project—the GNU Project. Its founding was aimed at fulfilling Richard Stallman’s personal ideal of creating a completely free software Unix-like operating system, one that is different but similar (and compatible) to the proprietary Unix that was mainstream at the time. He called this operating system GNU, meaning GNU’s Not Unix. Thus, people around the world who identified with this concept united to become a community, helping each other to build the GNU operating system together.
In 1991, GNU was nearly complete, only lacking the program in a Unix-like operating system that allocates machine resources and communicates with hardware, namely the “kernel.” Coincidentally, the Linux kernel developed by Linus Torvalds could fill this gap. Many people began combining GNU and Linux, packaging them into the “GNU/Linux” operating system, marking the beginning of the free software movement.
But why did Linus Torvalds develop the Linux kernel? He himself said “Just for fun.” But precisely because of free software’s dual nature of being both personal and collective, the product of his personal enjoyment, after reaching others, if others found it convenient and useful, they could improve it and redistribute it to others (including feedback to the original author Linus Torvalds), thus creating links and interactions between individuals and groups.
Later, during the development of Linux, Linus Torvalds needed to collaborate with others and created the git version control system. This is a distributed architecture where anyone can have a repository of Linux source code, making it convenient for others to modify code on their own machines and also convenient for feeding back to the original author’s repository. People can branch out their own tributaries like rivers according to their needs, or merge back into the original main channel, reflecting the intrinsic essence of free software.
The Essence of Free Software
In the world of free software, people and code both gather together, take shape, twist, entangle, sometimes restore, break, and connect again. This is the essence of free software. This basic nature actually reflects the thoughts of many human cultures, or we can say that these cultural foundations are precisely the essence of free software’s roots.
From the perspective of Eastern Buddhist thought, free software is the embodiment of “benefiting oneself and benefiting others.” Looking at self-benefit in the free software world, such as Richard Stallman’s ideal of creating the “GNU operating system,” Linus Torvalds’ personal enjoyment of “Just for fun,” and according to the essence of free software, it will benefit others at all times. More deeply, we can see that behind these ideas, everything is constituted by all other things, that is, containing the entire universe, the concepts of self, and no-self. It is also the principle of “one is all, all is one” repeatedly mentioned in Hiromu Arakawa’s “Fullmetal Alchemist.” Furthermore, the Ubuntu spirit originating from the South African renaissance: “I am what I am because of who we all are” is also like this.
From the perspective of Western thought, free software is also the embodiment of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.” In the world of free software, everyone has the freedom to use, study and improve, and distribute programs (whether modified or not), so everyone is equal, with no situation where software is exclusively owned by anyone. The community built by free software corresponds to the Fraternité of brotherhood or quasi-brotherhood community values.
In the Shinto thought of “musubi” told in Japanese animator and film director Makoto Shinkai’s work “Your Name,” all things have spirits. Whether connecting ropes, connecting people, or the flow of time, all are musubi. The transition of all things is the power of the gods. The braided cords people make are the work of gods and also the embodiment of the flow of time: gathering together, taking shape, twisting, entangling, sometimes restoring, breaking, and connecting again. Such a description coincides with the operation of the free software world mentioned earlier, where both people and code combine into communities in this way.
The essence of free software reflects the cultural thoughts of humanity in this way. Whenever we use, contribute to, and promote free software, we are already in it; understanding this, we are not surprised why there are these people in the world, developing free software individually yet collectively in various places.
Further Reading
- GNU Project “What is Free Software?”
- Get GNU/Linux! “Common Misunderstandings about Free Software”
- Get GNU/Linux! “For a Free Society”
- Richard Stallman “Why Software Should Not Have Owners”
- Rex Tsai “The Absurdity of Software Patents”
Author: Zeng Zhengjia (Taiwan Ubuntu-tw community coordinator, Fedora Traditional Chinese community coordinator). Original: https://breezymove.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-essence-of-free-software.html. Here only converted to Simplified Chinese and modified wording according to Simplified Chinese usage. The licensing of this article is based on the original (CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Reposted from: Developer Relations »
