We are in the digital age now, everyone has a device in hand, but future people might laugh at us for calling ourselves digital when we’re not digital enough.
A large part of the digital age relies on software, and software is divided into two types based on licensing models: one that you can freely use, study, modify, distribute, and give back (see the Free Software Foundation’s “[What is Free Software?](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html “What is Free Software?)” for details); the other is where you can’t do any of these things, and only what’s written in black and white in the license is allowed, with various restrictions attached. The former is called “free software,” the latter “proprietary software.”
Well, for digital works, whether documents or artistic creations, as long as content exists in digital form, it must be created, modified, and accessed through digital tools. Once tools are monopolized by proprietary software, there’s a threshold for accessing these works, and the overall related derivative culture creates a barrier.
How so? A major feature of proprietary software is that the software is controlled by the vendor. They can set whatever price they want and charge however they want based on their strategy. Since your assets are locked into their products, do you have the power to say no? You might say we can fight against monopoly, but today if a national government’s assets are all in the hands of this company, the entanglement between financial power and international power struggles will make it hard to be certain there’s any light at the end of the tunnel.
Now let’s talk about education. When our country’s education is built on proprietary software, it’s undoubtedly helping these vendors train future potential customers. Even so, we help unhesitatingly, cultivating seeds for a long time that vendors can directly harvest in the future, and we still have to pay software licensing fees to the vendors. Moreover, if students can’t use the software taught in schools due to economic issues, are we teaching them to use pirated versions? (Note: Many institutions have a culture of secretly passing around mysterious discs when teaching proprietary software, which shows the state of social understanding of digital products today.) Don’t fantasize about saying students can freely go to school classrooms to practice—who will open the classrooms, who will pay the salaries, who will guarantee student and hardware property safety? Not to mention these disadvantaged students who can’t afford proprietary software—if they really have the time and energy to stay in school classrooms, they’re probably working part-time or helping their families. So, starting from the software chosen by schools, class divisions are initially established. Education built on proprietary software has no equal opportunity. When we can’t guarantee students really have the energy to learn, at least we must guarantee that if students are willing to learn and have the hardware, everyone can enjoy the same resources without any entry threshold. What software students want to use after graduation depends on personal choice, company considerations, and their own abilities, but at least during the education phase, there shouldn’t be differences arising from software licensing.
Only free software is the path to liberation, accessible to everyone.
You might say, since free software can be freely distributed and anyone can obtain it at will, who will maintain free software? Who will pay free software developers’ salaries? If no one wants to develop free software, then free software must be hard to use!
No, many companies and foundations in the world have long been investing in free software development. For example, the operating system kernel used in Android phones—Linux—is also free software, but over 90% of contributions come from commercial company employees. LibreOffice, this free office suite, besides volunteer assistance, also has professional development companies like Collabora, Red Hat, etc. that employ people to develop and improve it.
So we know that free software development isn’t much different from proprietary software development. Besides enthusiastic friends who voluntarily participate, writing software is still handled by professional developers. Software development is a professional matter. We always encounter problems when using software and want to solve them. Besides being able to do it ourselves if we have the ability, if we don’t have the ability, we can hire professional programmers to develop and improve. It’s like when there are plumbing or electrical problems at home—when we can’t handle it ourselves, we must call a professional to fix it; when we encounter legal problems, if we can’t handle it ourselves, we must consult a lawyer.
There’s no free lunch in this world. If you think adopting free software means it’s free, you’re greatly mistaken. After all, even if you really have the ability to develop, modify, and maintain free software yourself, from an opportunity cost perspective, these are still costs you must absorb. Getting it for free, but having to do everything yourself, isn’t truly “free.” As for the benefit of schools adopting free software: if they’re willing to invest funds, it means the invested funds will feed back to the entire society, not specific vendors; if they’re willing to cultivate students, it means future human resources will revolve around free software, more people will use the software, software problems have a higher chance of being improved, and more free and open cultural assets will be created. Educators should understand the lasting effects that their choice of software will have on the overall culture of future society.
Programming education is rising. Imagine that in the future everyone will have programming foundations. As long as they have the heart, anyone can learn from the source code opened by free software, communicate and collaborate with friends around the world who participate in that free software project—it’s undoubtedly excellent hands-on practical teaching material. Besides being able to improve it yourself, people who can’t write code but have needs can also hire professional programmers to modify this free software to meet their expectations. Once the program is improved, just publishing it will benefit more people troubled by the same problems. People not only satisfy their own interests but also let the whole society benefit together—self-interest and altruism. Friends who contribute to free software in any way, whether through communication and promotion, sharing experiences, helping with translation, donation sponsorship, debugging and development, etc., are actually helping people all over the world.
I believe human society is where it is today by standing on the shoulders of predecessors. Humans pass down knowledge, technology, and culture from generation to generation, then develop and expand it. I believe there shouldn’t be thresholds in inheritance; knowledge, technology, and culture shouldn’t be hoarded as exclusive property. All resources should be equally and freely accessible, then let recipients develop freely according to their nature, achieving new knowledge, technology, and culture.
Free software is the future I firmly believe in.
Reprinted with permission: Developer Relations »
