Philosophy of the GNU Project
![[image of a Philosophical Gnu]](/old?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnu.ai.mit.edu%2Fgraphics%2Fphilosophical-gnu-sm.jpg&y=1999)
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Table of Contents
Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use
software in all the ways that are socially useful. Software differs
from material objects--such as chairs, sandwiches, and gasoline--in
that it can be copied and changed much more easily. These
possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe software
users should be able to make use of them.
These articles give other people's philosophical
opinions in support of free software, or related issues, and don't
speak for the GNU project -- but we more or less agree with them.
- The
GNU Project FTP Site: A Digital Collection Supporting a
Social Movement by Michelle Bejian
- UCLA
discriminates against students using GNU/Linux.
One part of their justification is supporting the power of
software owners.
- Copyrighting fire
- The Hacker Anti-Defamation League
- Read
Them And Weep, by Simson Garfinkel, talks about the
pending bills that would give information owners sweeping new powers,
and restrict the activities of users.
- Applying Copyleft To
Non-Software Information, by Michael Stutz.
- Only
the Free World Can Stand Up to Microsoft, by Tom Hull.
- The
Free Music Philosophy, by Ram Samudrala.
- The Manifesto:
Piracy is Your Friend, by Jaron Lanier.
Note that the GNU Project recommends
avoiding the term
piracy since
it implies that sharing copies is somehow illegitimate.
- A
primer on the ethics of ``Intellectual property'', by Ram Samudrala.
- Is Self-Interest Sufficient to
Organize an Free Economy? by Loyd Fueston.
- The Free Science Campaign
is a campaign for the freedom to distribute scientific work.
- Article (in German) in the Swiss paper Neue Zuercher Zeitung about the
Netscape
decision to release source code
- People, places, things and ideas by Kragen Sitaker
- The Libertarian Case
Against Intellectual Property Rights by Roderick T. Long
- Articles
in Spanish about free software issues
- Anarchism
Triumphant:
Free Software and the Death of Copyright
- Imagined
Electronic Community: Representations of Virtual
Community in Contemporary Business Discourse
- The Death
and Rebirth of Plagiarism by Rodney Riegle.
(We don't entirely agree with this article--we think there is no
harm in asking people to make some extra effort
to write ``footnotes'' to give credit.)
- Save the Web is a website devoted
to protecting Internet users rights in Europe.
- Does Studying
Economics Inhibit Cooperation? by Frank, Gilovich, and Regan.
- Development,
Ethical Trading, and Free Software by Danny Yee.
- THE BALLAD OF DENNIS KARJALA:
A political comment in the form of a broadside ballad
by Timothy R. Phillips.
- Libranet
is collecting signatures on a petition which will be submitted
to the major producers of PC devices, asking them to make available to
GNU/Linux
developers full specifications of their devices, so that GNU/Linux compatible
device drivers can be produced for their products.
We keep this list
here.
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Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
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Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
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Updated:
25 Feb 2000 Prashant