When catching up with an old friend, I told him about my recent fascination with open source. He confided that he didn’t see the need: “My brother’s really into that too, but…” He lowered his voice. “Personally I’m happy to use pirate software.”
GNU/Linux is free software in two senses of the word: it doesn’t cost anything for the right to use it (“free as in beer” as the perplexing cliche has it); and it is supplied with the source code and the right to change it as you desire (“free as in freedom” – or, as Edward Felten puts it, “the freedom to tinker”.)
Pirate software is free as in beer. To the non-programmer with no qualms about the legality and morality of their actions, that is the only thing that mattters.
Open source demystifies software and encourages everyone to participate in its creation by giving them the tools and information with which to do so. But most users are frightened of machines. To someone fascinated with finding out how things work, open source is a great gift. To someone who wants an invisible computer that “just works” it is irrelevent.
Or is it?
I use linux as my desktop OS but I’m not a purist. I have been quite happy to install a free but closed source binary on a laptop for a friend who would never think of writing a macro let alone grepping through code to tweak a feature he didn’t like. I’m happy to taint my own kernel with Nvidia’s closed 3D drivers. But when I see the politicians throwing their weight behind calls for Digital Rights Management, encouraged by old media with deep pockets, I am reminded of the political side of open source and that “free as in freedom” means more than “the freedom to tinker”.
Perhaps zealots like Richard Stallman are society’s last defence against a creeping reduction of rights. The dystopian in me can only too easily imagine a future in which only government licenced software engineers are permitted to own programmable computers and the rest of the population make do with dumb consoles that are little more than fancy televisions.
Don Marti, editor in chief of Linux Journal has no time for such elaborate pessimism. DRM is doomed he thinks because of the free market. It doesn’t make good business sense to develop it or invest in it. If You Don’t Believe in DRM, It Can’t Hurt You.