"Proposed Software Monopoly" Press Release

[Richard Stallman]

To the Citizens Against Government Waste,
 the state officials of Massachusetts, and others


Paul Lussier's defense of the Massachusetts initiative for free
software does not go far enough, because it endorses a grave error:
the idea that government decisions about software should be based only
on quality and cost, disregarding more important issues such as
freedom and sovereignty.

The point of free software is to give computer users the freedom to
form communities and cooperate voluntarily.  Free software is a matter
of freedom, not price: it means you have the freedom to use, study,
change and redistribute the software.  Governments should must this
freedom just as you and I should.  With free software, the users
(invidually and collectively) control what their software does.  With
non-free software, the developer controls it, and keeps you and the
other users divided and helpless.

To consider only practical quality and cost when choosing software,
disregarding freedom and self-determination, is folly.

To protect its sovereignty from private parties, the government must
maintain full control of the software it uses.  Using non-free
software hands control over government operations to the software
developer.  This violates the government's basic obligation to its
citizens.

For instance, most voting machines include non-free software.  There
are suspicions that some elections have been rigged by the voting
machine companies, whose executives have close paritisan ties.
According to http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00131.htm,

    Attempts to examine the code used by the machines in Florida were
    blocked in the courts by the GOP citing, "proprietary/trade
    secrecy" protections under a law, which made it impossible for the
    DNC to ascertain how the machines tabulated votes.

Using non-free software means you don't control what your own
computers do.  In this case, the state does not control what its
voting machines do, but losing control over other state operations is
also unacceptable.  The state has a responsibility to control all its
computers, which means using exclusively free software on them.

But there is more at stake than that.  A government has a duty to lead
its its populace in the direction of freedom and well-being.  That is
the government's overall mission.

Each government agency has a specific job to do, and should it carry
out efficiently, using public money carefully.  But they should not do
this to the neglect of the government's overall mission.  By choosing
free software, the government can encourage the public to move towards
free software.  In the long run, this will save the citizens
tremendous amounts of money.  The claims that free software is more
expensive to run come from organizations with financial tis to
Microsoft, and are suspect; anyway, the issue is irrelevant to
individuals' home computers.  But more than that, widespread use of
free software will build programming skills and promote self-reliance.

The US Army was able to replace horses with trucks in World War II
because many of America's young men had been tinkering with cars for
years.  They did this of their own choice, but they had the option to
tinker and learn because they could get the plans, open the hood, and
make changes.  Free software gives the young people of America a
similar opportunity to build skills.  Non-free software, whose insides
are a private secret, denies the public the opportunity to tinker and
learn.  It weakens the country, and it weakens the state economically.

I hope that Citizens Against Government Waste will recognize that the
investment of switching government and society to freedom-respecting
software is a wise one, and will direct its efforts toward true waste.
Massachusetts, and other states in the US, ought to adopt a strict
policy of moving to free software, with few or no exceptions, and
first and foremost to do so in the schools.



Sincerely,
Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
MacArthur fellow