On telling others “proprietary software is bad for you”, and the argument of reciprocity.
One argument that comes to mind when someone else asks me to help them with a computing task which involves using proprietary software is: I can’t help you because “it is bad for you”. Which, some say, is a strong argument: we are much better at knowing what is bad for us that what is good for us, therefore we should refrain from telling others “what’s good for them”, but instead focus on what we can feel best; pain, what hurts. We are less prone to be mistaken by pain than pleasure. John Stuart Mill goes a bit further (as far as I can remember from my readings) and says something like: only take the liberty to tell others what not to do if you have reasons to think that their actions are hurting you. Which can be the case, I think, when others I interact with (but not only) use proprietary technologies.
However, I feel that the argument “it’s bad for you” falls short of conveying a meaningful message to people who are insensitive to free software. But until recently, I had nothing else to say that was striking enough to be perceived by others, in a day to day conversation, when the idea of free software is most likely foreign.
This has changed. Another argument I now have, which I read about in the writings of Richard Stallman, is the argument of reciprocity. One could say something along the lines of “If you ask me to help you with a task that involves propagating usage of proprietary software (thus supporting the purveyors of proprietary software), I won’t help you because controllers of proprietary software will not contribute reciprocally”. In other words, why shall I contribute to the propagation of proprietary software when controllers of proprietary software won’t share their work freely (freely does not mean gratis1).
The (historical) example that comes to my mind about reciprocity in the software world is the one Stallman tells in one of his essays or in the book Free Software, Free Society (I don’t remember). That is the story Stallman tells: One day Xerox asks Stallman for a programme, which he shares freely. Xerox uses and improve the programme. Time passes by. Later, Stallman contacts Xerox to ask for improvement Xerox made to be integrated in the source code (reciprocity). However, Xerox responds negatively, they refuse. Their argument is that “their” programme is now proprietary.
Stallman sometimes recall this example to explain why he created the copyleft license (if I share a programme/application/software with you, not only you must share it with other, but also share improvements you made to it2.
Some philosophers talk about the unconditional need for reciprocity for society to sustain itself (Aristotle and others). And so, often, I think of the argument about reciprocity as stronger, or maybe just easier to perceive, than the argument “it is bad for you”.
All of this to try to reflect on how to make it easier for others to see why copyleft-licensed software matters.
and more, see the license↩︎
personal computing gnu linux trisquel digital literacy blog post
