''Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman'' is a collection of writings (mostly essays, with occasional articles, interviews and speech transcripts) by

Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman ( ; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...

. It introduces the subject of history and development of the

GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...

and the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

, explains the author's philosophical position on the

Free Software movement The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for user (computing), software users, namely the freedoms to run, study, modify, and share copies of software. Software which meets thes ...

, deals with the topics of software ethics, copyright and patent laws, as well as business practices in application to computer software. The author proposes

Free software license A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...

s (mostly GPL) as a solution to social issues created by

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

and described in essays. The introduction is written by

Lawrence Lessig Lester Lawrence "Larry" Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American legal scholar and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvar ...

, professor at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

. The book is available online allowing verbatim (without making changes) copying and distribution of the whole collection, while each essay is licensed under

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

CC BY-ND 4.0 International License.

Content

Three editions were published by GNU Press (in 2002, 2010 and 2015), each subsequent containing updated versions of the original essays and new works about emerging contemporary issues. The 3rd edition is divided into seven main parts: #''The GNU Project and Free Software'' – defines four essential software freedoms, shows ethical and social advantages of using and creating

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

and explains Stallman's personal background on starting the GNU Project. It contains the original announcement of the project which became part of

GNU Manifesto __NOTOC__ The ''GNU Manifesto'' is a direct action, call-to-action by Richard Stallman encouraging participation and support of the GNU Project's goal in developing the GNU free software, free computer operating system. The GNU Manifesto was publ ...

. #''What's in a Name?'' – is dedicated to explaining Stallman's position on many naming conventions he considers wrong (

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

), harmful (free versus open-source), or in need of clarification (

GNU/Linux naming controversy Since the 1990s, there has been an ongoing debate whether computer operating systems that use GNU software and the Linux kernel should be referred to as "GNU/Linux" or "Linux" systems. Proponents of the term ''Linux'' argue that it is far mor ...

). #''Copyright and Injustice'' – explains why current interpretation of copyright law does not meet the original purpose and goes as far as to state that it is even detrimental to that. Notably, it contains a short story entitled '' The Right to Read''. #''Software Patents: Danger to Programmers'' – does similar demonstration for patent law. #''Free Software Licensing'' – is dedicated to justifying a need for free software licenses, describing differences between them and explaining

copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...

. It contains a full text of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

, the

GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

and the

GNU Free Documentation License The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights ...

. #''Traps and Challenges'' – outlines existing dangers to software freedom, like DRM or

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

. #''Value Community and Your Freedom'' – is a set of essays on many topics, mainly Stallman's reflections on the community, society and democracy. In addition, the book contains three appendices: * ''A Note on Software'' * ''Translations of “Free Software” and “Gratis Software”'' * '' The Free Software Song'' *

References

External links

1st edition pdf download
from gnu.org
2nd edition pdf download
from gnu.org

(

epub EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes stylized as ''ePUB''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smart ...

, mobi,

xhtml Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages which mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, pr ...

)
2nd edition Russian version
on Github with TeX-sources (pdf, epub, fb2)
3rd edition pdf download
from gnu.org
3rd edition in e-reader-compatible formats
(epub, mobi)
3rd edition
on FSF webshop
3rd edition TeX source code
from gnu.org
3rd edition Chinese version Online
an
its source code
by Beijing GNU/Linux User Group {{DEFAULTSORT:Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays Of Richard M. Stallman 2002 non-fiction books 2010 non-fiction books Books about free software Works about the information economy Copyleft media GNU Project

Content

See also

References

External links