Free Software, Free Society: selected essays of Richard M. Stallman. 2nd edition.

A major cause for the purchase of some restricted computers is financial sleight of hand. Game consoles, and the iPhone, are sold for an unsustainably low price, and the manufacturers subsequently charge when you use them. Thus, game developers must pay the game console manufacturer to distribute a game, and they pass this cost on to the user. Likewise, AT&T pays Apple when an iPhone is used as a telephone. The low up-front price misleads customers into thinking they will save money.

If we are concerned about the spread of restricted computers, we should tackle the issue of the price deception that sells them. If we are concerned about malware, we should insist on free software that gives the users control.

Postnote

Zittrain’s suggestion to reduce the statute of limitations on software patent lawsuits is a tiny step in the right direction, but it is much easier to solve the whole problem. Software patents are an unnecessary, artificial danger imposed on all software developers and users in the US. Every program is a combination of many methods and techniques—thousands of them in a large program. If patenting these methods is allowed, then hundreds of those used in a given program are probably patented. (Avoiding them is not feasible; there may be no alternatives, or the alternatives may be patented too.) So the developers of the program face hundreds of potential lawsuits from parties unknown, and the users can be sued as well.

The complete, simple solution is to eliminate patents from the field of software. Since the patent system is created by statute, eliminating patents from software will be easy given sufficient political will. (See http://www.endsoftpatents.org.)

Copyright c 2008, 2010 Richard Stallman

This article was first published in the March/April 2008 issue of http://bostonreview.net and is a response to Jonathan Zittrain’s “Protecting the Internet without Wrecking It,” which was published in the same issue and is available at http://bostonreview.net/BR33.2/zittrain.php. This version is part of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, 2nd ed. (Boston: GNU Press, 2010).

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire chapter are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Chapter 38. We Can Put an End to Word Attachments

Don’t you just hate receiving Word documents in email messages? Word attachments are annoying, but, worse than that, they impede people from switching to free software. Maybe we can stop this practice with a simple collective effort. All we have to do is ask each person who sends us a Word file to reconsider that way of doing things.

Most computer users use Microsoft Word. That is unfortunate for them, since Word is proprietary software, denying its users the freedom to study, change, copy, and redistribute it. And because Microsoft changes the Word file format with each release, its users are locked into a system that compels them to buy each upgrade whether they want a change or not. They may even find, several years from now, that the Word documents they are writing this year can no longer be read with the version of Word they use then.

But it hurts us, too, when they assume we use Word and send us (or demand that we send them) documents in Word format. Some people publish or post documents in Word format. Some organizations will only accept files in Word format: I heard from someone that he was unable to apply for a job because resumes had to be Word files. Even governments sometimes impose Word format on the public, which is truly outrageous.

For us users of free operating systems, receiving Word documents is an inconvenience or an obstacle. But the worst impact of sending Word format is on people who might switch to free systems: they hesitate because they feel they must have Word available to read the Word files they receive. The practice of using the secret Word format for interchange impedes the growth of our community and the spread of freedom. While we notice the occasional annoyance of receiving a Word document, this steady and persistent harm to our community usually doesn’t come to our attention. But it is happening all the time.