In the world of software, an undercurrent that seems to be in a state of perpetual obscurity is that of Libre. Libre is, put simply, liberty--free not just in terms of cost, but in terms of freedom. For software to be Libre, it must be freely available, open-source, and represent the philosophical value of autonomy over one's personal life, and possessions. These values are essential to not just a fair, and just software environment, but a fair and just world at large. In considering the value of Libre as software and as life, it is essential to understand its history, and practical applications.
The arguably most promenant exemplification of Libre software are the Linux operating systems, all of which contain the essential component of the GNU operating system and tools. In fact, the Linux kernel itself is inherently tied to GNU, and as such, any analysis of Linux, must start with an analysis of GNU. GNU, or "GNU's not Unix!" is a software system that surrounds a base kernel to produce a full operating system envrionment (GNU.org, n.d.). Although initially simply Unix compatible, the GNU project would be altered in trajectory when the software developer Linus Torvalds developed the Linux Kernel, and ultimately the GNU/Linux operating system (GNU.org, n.d.). Prior to this, however, the GNU project had been founded by Richard Stallman with the goal of filling the void of free, open-source software within the 1970s-1990s (as there were few instances of non-proprietary software in this era of computing). This begs the question, however: why distrupt the status quo of proprietary software in the first place? According to Richard Stallman (2002), the answer is multitudinous. Fundamental to the answer are a two principles: Autonomy, and the pragmatic avoidance of control. In respect autonomy, Stallman believes that an important aspect of a functional society is one in which individuals are free not only to act individually, but collectively as well. For Stallman, cooperation through free and open-source software drastically improves innovation, freed from typical trappings of restrictive proprietary licenses (Stallman, n.d.). If software is freely available, and the source code may be viewed and editted by anyone, any programmer can submit changes and improvements to that software, and as such, the individual act of modifying the software becomes a collective act of cooperation. This breeds innovation where properitary software breeds protectionism. Given software might be editted by anyone, anyone may improve said software, but if the software is a product, solely controlled by the corporation that owns the copyright, the goal of that corporation to maximize profit, and to protect their own profits will supercede the base improvement of said software.
Take the following thought experiment into consideration: suppose you have a computer company that develops operating system software. This company maintains its software as proprietary, and only allows those from within the company to view and edit the code that makes up their software. Now suppose that, in an attempt to better grow their profits, they find that advertizing has become a lucrative business, with a substantial potential for growth found within providing advertisement to their customers. Since their code is shut off from the general public, they could integrate telemetry, or the ability to monitor the activity of the system remotely, into their software, allowing them to gather data on their customers to better market ads to them. In doing so, they acquire a massive amount of data, not just hardware and software, but the search history, download history, upload history, and even more identifying information, such as access to their private webcams. They then sell this data to advertisers, making a massive amount of money. Now suppose a law enforcement agency approaches the company and demands them to hand over all the data they have on a particular user. At least within the United States, this software company is legally obligated to cooperate, and in doing so, hands over effectively everything you could ever want to keep to yourself to a group actively seeking to lock you into a jail cell. This thought experiment is hardly spectulative, as it is a model of many currently existing mega corporations. If the software had been open-source, and freely available all along, none of this would have been possible, as other programmers, or anyone with a moderate amount of computer science knowledge could read the source code, and detect the telemetry when it went live, giving time for those who desire it to protect their data. Here we see the fundamental fear of non-proprietary software: a lack of individul control, leading to the authoritarian control by corporations or governments. But should we value autonomy? This questions is answered through philosophical liberalism.
Philosophical Liberalism is a complex set of ideologies, many of which conflict with one another, but for the purposes of this paper, the following definition of liberalism will be used as per John Stuard Mill, with some contemporary modifications: Liberalism is the philosphy that personal liberty is a priori, or without need of empirical/experiential justification, is the default state of man, and that liberty must be protected from those that would seek to take it away (Mill, 1859), namely the state, or the corporation. Fundamental to this philosophical liberalism is one's freedom to be as they are, act as they would like, and exist as they would like to, without disruption from an authority. Here pragmatically, we see a current reality under which the violation of the individual autonomy of persons has allowed for the exploitation of billions, not only through governments within much of the world, but also corporations across the world. Thus, in existing within the current era, we see the failures of the denial of liberty, and the essential nature of this liberty. Without a value placed upon the individual autonomy of every person, the value of few persons in power takes precedence, and thus the utilitarian good of our society suffers.
This relates to software in that there is a newly-found intersection between technology/software-focused companies, and authoritarianism. This corporate authoriarianism exploits those within the third-world, and has produced a survalence state in which the private lives of individual citizens is now a product to be bought and sold. (Chossudovsky, 1979;Allan, 2023). With corporations like Micosoft and Apple increasing telemetry, and those same corporations partcicipating in brutal labor practices in the third-world (Burgess, 2021). The problem of modern exploitation and spying is born from this constant need to maximize profit, even at the cost of the individual autonomy of those that produce the capacity to gain profit.
In recognizing the need for liberty, as well as modern society's failure to properly provide for this liberty across the globe, it is important to once again return to libre software and the GNU project as a whole. If the formation of contemporary software development was centered around open-source development, the telemetry enforced by Microsoft, Apple, and so many others would be greatly midigated through the checks-and-balances inherent to everyone and anyone having access to the source code of their software. Although this still contains unresolved conflicts related to the exploitation within the third-world, applying these philsophical principles of liberalism to all, including those within the third-world and geographic south, will too make the act of exploiting others that much more difficult on a systemic level.
Allan, D. (2023). Is Windows 11 spying on you? New report detais eye-opening levels of telemetry. Techradar . https://www.techradar.com/news/is-windows-11-spying-on-you-new-report-details-eye-opening-levels-of-telemetry
Burgess, M. (2021) Micosoft, Apple suppliers exposed by anti-slavery law. The Seatle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft-apple-suppliers-exposed-by-anti-slavery-law/
Chossudovsky M. (1979). Human rights, health, and capital accumulation in the Third World. International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation, 9(1), 61–75.doi.10.2190/CTXP-RL02-QGB8-6QQ4
Mill, S.J. (1859). On Liberty.
Stallman, R. (n.d.). Overview of the GNU system. GNU.org https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-history.html
Stallman, R., Lessig, L. Gay, J. (2002) Free Software, Free Society:Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. The Free Software Foundation.. http://gnu.ist.utl.pt/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf
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