Software: The User's Rights

November 23, 2008, December 19, 2008 (revised)

Free (as in freedom) software is an ethical and political alternative to proprietary software - the majority of software "purchased" - that respects the freedoms of the user. Unlike the user of proprietary software, the user of free software is freely allowed to run, study, modify, adapt, improve, copy, distribute, and redistribute the software. Free software developers give access to the software source code that determines how a program functions and release the software under free licenses that impose few restrictions.

Free software has four distinct characteristics, referred to as the four essential freedoms in The Free Software Definition. First, there must be no restrictions on using the software. Second, the user of the software must be able to study, modify, and adapt the software using its source code. Third, the user must be able to freely copy and distribute the software. Finally, the user must be able to improve the software using its source code and redistribute these changes to the public.

Proprietary software does not grant the user these four essential freedoms. As the primary motivation behind developing proprietary software is business and profit, the publishers of proprietary software focus on maximizing profits by imposing restrictions on the software's use, modification, distribution, and redistribution. The software source code is kept a trade secret and End-User License Agreements (EULA's) restrict the user's rights. While free software licenses explicitly state the user's rights, End-User License Agreements generally contain no limits on restrictions.

All proprietary software programs and most free software programs are copyrighted, as copyright is automatically granted in the United States. Proprietary software owners utilize copyright as a tool to restrict the user. Nevertheless, most free software is also copyrighted. Some free software is released into the public domain by authors who release all rights to the software with no strings attached. The majority of free software, on the other hand, is released under free licenses that grant all four essential freedoms, but do not allow the user to remove these freedoms in copies or modified versions distributed to another user. These licenses are referred to as copylefted licenses as they "reverse" copyright to prevent free software from becoming proprietary, rather than the other way around.

Both free software and proprietary software may be developed commercially and non-commercially. As free software refers to freedom and not price, a person may sell a copy of the software. In fact, software must be available for commercial use to be considered free; non-commercial use would be a restriction that would render the software non-free.

Most widely-used free software is both non-commercially and commercially developed, often by volunteers and commercial organizations that modify existing free software for various commercial reasons and provide these modifications to the public. Most proprietary software is commercially developed, but there is nothing inherent in the idea of proprietary software that prevents it from being developed non-commercially. Of course, the sole motivation behind proprietary software development is profit, and proprietary software is therefore rarely non-commercially developed.

The restrictive nature of proprietary software results in it being promoted and generally developed by separate commercial organizations, which do not share ideas in the form of source code. Due to the free nature of free software, widely-used free software is promoted and developed with others through the free software movement by a large community of volunteers, individuals, and commercial institutions, referred to as the free software community. As a result, free software has become a social phenomenon, harnessing the power of large numbers of people to work together. Where proprietary software development has failed due to high costs or work required, free software has often succeeded.

Although at first glance it may seem that proprietary software is more natural, being marketed as a product like food, upon further analysis it can be determined that free software is actually more natural, following the natural flow of information with few restrictions. In the same respect that the printing press allowed knowledge to be distributed and expanded on a wide scale, digital technology and computers allow free software to be copied and modified as information.

With this in mind, it becomes clear that proprietary software is a system designed to use knowledge to give a few people power over a helpless public. The proprietary software system encourages publishers to distance themselves from the user for profit. The duplication or modification of a piece of software is strictly prohibited. Free software, on the other hand, endorses cooperation, the idea of "helping your neighbor," and the freedom to form a community. Proprietary software owners call this kind of cooperation "piracy."

To further the insult to the user, proprietary software provides no method of making sure that a program is actually working for the user and not for a software company, since the source code instructing the software is a trade secret. Malicious features often secretly exist in proprietary software, spying on the user or opening a backdoor) for disguised outside access into the user's computer. And even when a malicious feature is found, the user is not allowed to modify the software to remove it. In this respect, free software respects human rights, while proprietary software has no respect for anything more than the owner's profit.

Free software is a political and ethical idea that incorporates the old ideas of spreading knowledge and information in today's digital world. Unlike proprietary software, it emphasizes developing software knowledge as a cooperating community following the spirit behind the development of science for centuries. Proprietary software, unfortunately, is designed to maximize profits at the expense of the user.