The FSF Has Hijacked the Word "Free"

I think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has hijacked the word "free".  To most people "free" means without cost. Of course in English it has a number of other meanings, for example a seat can be free. However the FSF uses the word to describe a restrictive form of licence that ensures that any person that comes into posession of such licenced software is free to do with it anything that the FSF thinks would be good.

When the FSF Says "Free", it Means "Restrictive" in Plain English

The philosophy of the GPL, the FSF's flagship licence, is that if I give you a program you must be free to modify and redistribute it. This forces me to give you the source code the program if I give you the binary - I am not free to distribute the binary without offering the source code. Personally I love free / freeware / open source / programs, nevertheless regardless of whether this is a good or a bad restriction, it is still a restriction and thus the name "free" is being rather innapropriately hijacked from the way people understand it. The FSF says:

The simplest way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.

So "free software" means the middleman is not "free" to strip away the "freedom" of the end user. What a confusing concept.

What Freedom Means to Most People

I've given it some thought and come to the conclusion that "freedom", as in "free speech", in most peoples minds refers to being allowed to do anything that they are physically able to do.  In the United States, anyone that is physically able is free to publish a book which denies that the Nazi genocide in World War 2 ever happened. In Germany, despite one's physical ability, one is not given this freedom (it's illegal to deny the holocaust there). However a person in the United States is not free to murder someone, despite their physical ability.

Interestingly the FSF quote above refers to the freest thing there is - the public domain. If I am supplied a piece of software in source and binary form which is in the public domain, I am genuinely free to do whatever I like with it. Redistribute it with source. Redistribute it without source. Base a program on it and licence this with whatever licence I like. These are some of the things I'm physically able to do, and I'm free to do them all.

If a person received a binary program from me and I told him that he could do whatever he liked with it, would he question his freedom? No, he would gladly go ahead and do whatever he was physically able, and wanted, to do with it. That then, is genuinely free software.

To add even more confusion, you are allowed to sell "free software". This means that if the world ever swung around to FSF terminology, the following quote might be heard: "I'll sell you this software for $100, and the best thing about it is that it's free." Such a quote would thoroughly confuse the average Joe.

Terminology Defence

Now that the FSF has created this complicated definition of the word "free", people that licence their software under any form of free licence, i.e. monetarily free or restrictive-distribution free, feel compelled to qualify what they mean. "It's free as in beer" or "it's free as in speech". My advice to those that distribute software is to avoid this trap altogether. Refuse to get caught up in it, refuse to have your language hijacked, and simply use the term "free" in the way that 99% of people think of it - no money needs be exchanged. If you want to say that your software is licenced under the GPL, then say that!

Creative Commons has a Better Solution

I think Creative Commons did pretty well with the term "Share Alike".  This is their way of saying that if you distribute the work or any derivative, you must release the work under the same licence.

Let's see if we can find a term we can use for "FSF free" software. Not really sure what it should be though... perhaps "unbindable"?.  If you have a suggestion please leave a comment.

I Respect the FSF and the GPL

I'm not against the FSF. I think those guys should continue doing exactly what they believe in. In fact I love to use free software, open source software, and "FSF free" software - generally speaking I will use open source or free software if at all possible ahead of commercial software. I respect people's decisions to release their work under the GPL, and one day I myself might even release something under the GPL! I have certainly contributed to GPL licenced projects. So it's not the licence I object to - it's the nomenclature and the attempts to enforce it.

A Final Thought

The logic of the FSF gives rise to the following thought:

The GPL supresses the freedom of the middleman to do whatever he likes with the software (I don't think the FSF would dispute that truth).

In order to avoid the middleman's freedom being supressed, we should ban the GPL. By banning the GPL we are admittedly restricting (stopping) people from using it, but we are giving the middleman freedom. So banning the GPL, then, will increase the freedom of software. Now that's a thought.