Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------
## author : nettime@bbs.thing.net
## date : 20.11.99
---------------------------------------------------------------------
<http://www.anatomy.usyd.edu.au/danny/freedom/ip/aidfs.html>
Development, Ethical Trading, and Free Software
Last modified August 14th 1999
Abstract
This paper makes the political and ethical case for the
adoption of free software by Community Aid Abroad and
other members of Oxfam International. It should be
applicable to development agencies generally and to other
organisations with similar values.
Free software has obvious pragmatic advantages for
community development processes, most notably in its
empowerment of users. But the ideological foundations and
social structure of the free software movement are also
consistent with community development at a theoretical
level.
Feedback on this document would be appreciated:
additional case studies would be particularly useful. A
Community Aid Abroad appropriate information technology
group has been set up, including a mailing list for
discussions in this area.
Contents
* Introduction
* Software: Drawbacks and Dangers
* The Advantages of Free Software
* Free Software in Action
* Conclusion and Recommendations
Introduction
Informational goods make up a sizeable and increasing
fraction of the world's trade - and an even larger
fraction of profits, since margins tend to be higher.
(Compare Microsoft's profit/turnover ratio with General
Electrics'.) This trend towards an "information economy"
is continuing. Ethical trading and appropriate technology
policies should therefore cover informational products.
With some goods the major ethical concerns are in their
manufacture or the effects on the environment of their
use. Examples are wheat, iron, refrigerators, and so
forth. Such goods are covered by a draft Oxfam GB Ethical
Purchasing Policy, which advocates products that "are
produced and delivered under conditions that do not
involve the abuse or exploitation of any persons" and
"have the least negative impact on the environment".
The policy mentioned considers weapons and baby milk
powder as special cases. But there are many products
other than weapons and baby milk powder whose production
and delivery may raise no or only minor environmental and
ethical concerns, but which may still have effects of
major concern in the way they affect the autonomy and
independence of users. It is the contention of this paper
that software falls into this category.
This paper addresses only computer software. Other
intellectual property issues are also of great
importance. Control of genetic variability through gene
patents is one example; World Intellectual Property
Organisation treaties on copyright are another. (The
latter ought to receive the same sort of critical
response that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
did.)
This is the context for intellectual property rights
enforcement. This world market in knowledge is a major
and profoundly anti-democratic new stage of capitalist
development. The transformation of knowledge into
property necessarily implies secrecy: common knowledge
is no longer private. In this new and chilling stage,
communication itself violates property rights. The WTO
is transforming what was previously a universal
resource of the human race - its collectively,
historically and freely-developed knowledge of itself
and nature - into a private and marketable force of
production. (Allan Freeman, Fixing up the world? GATT
and the World Trade Organisation)
A good deal of the world's primary resources are located
in the poorer countries of the world's "South", even if
their exploitation is often in the hands of external
corporations. Systems for controlling the distribution of
information, on the other hand, are (like possession of
capital) overwhelmingly centralised in the rich "North".
This should be of great concern to organisations such as
Oxfam International members which take a long-term
perspective in their attempts to reduce the inequitable
distribution of resources. As the United Nations
Sustainable Development Networking Program says:
Information and Communication Technologies are now
fundamental to dealing with all development issues in
developing countries.
An Oxfam International Education Now report presents some
of the consequences of an information economy for
educational equity.
_________________________________________________________________
Software: Drawbacks and Dangers
The following analysis of potential political and ethical
dangers in software is not meant to be complete. Nor is
it an analysis which applies equally to all kinds of
software. There are certain key components, such as
operating systems, application programming interfaces,
and software with mass deployment, on which many
implementations and many other software systems depend.
These are more critical than software systems with
peripheral roles.
The Expense
Software is often prohibitively expensive. The standard
price for an ordinary office package might be a year's
income for most of the world's people. As one Mexican
project adopting free software wrote:
The primary reason for reaching this decision was the
kind of money we would have had to pay if we went for
proprietary software: at US$55 for each machine with
Win98 and Office, US$500 for every NT license and an
average of 6 workstations and one server for 140000
labs, that's a lot of money.
Though "discounts" are often available on software, these
tend to either be in exchange for accepting a local
monopoly for the vendor's products, or an attempt to gain
market share at the expense of competitors. Consider, for
example, Microsoft's attempts to bribe universities and
colleges into using NT.
So called software "piracy" is obviously an option for
those unable or unwilling to purchase software, and
indeed it is a common choice throughout the South, where
copyright law is often poorly enforced. But this places
users at the mercy of the law, increasing their
vulnerability to those rich and powerful enough to use it
to their own advantage. Also, development organisations
themselves are vulnerable to enforcement in their home
countries, so they can not support or encourage such
practices.
As well as the up-front costs of software, there are
usually hidden costs. Often licensing is per-user, so
costs will increase with the size of the user base and
inhibit growth. Support for proprietary software is
almost always prohibitively expensive. Frequent software
upgrades may be required to maintain compatibility and
functionality (consider the deliberate modification by
Microsoft of the file format in successive versions of
Word, in order to force users to upgrade to newer
versions). And software tends, especially with upgrades,
to require more powerful, and hence more expensive,
hardware. These hidden costs are often recurrent.
Lack of Openness
Open standards and protocols are in the interests of
consumers, and indeed of most businesses: they allow
genuine market competition, giving users options and
choices. Closed standards and protocols and technical
secrets, on the contrary, benefit only those seeking to
maintain or attain monopoly control of markets by
decommoditizing software. (Proprietary software can, of
course, use open standards and protocols, but much of it
doesn't.)
Security and Privacy
The use of black-box proprietary software without source
code creates security risks, since it makes the detection
of Trojan horses rather difficult. One high-profile case
is the Melissa Virus. An extreme case is government
surveillance: an Australian government report (the Walsh
Report, see sections 6.2.10 and 6.2.11) has recommended
that security agencies arrange for back doors to be
inserted into mass-market commercial software to allow
eavesdropping. Perhaps it is paranoia to think that the
United States National Security Agency has already
arranged for this to be done, but when peoples' lives are
at stake, can one really trust (say) Microsoft Word when
vulnerable West Papuan or East Timorese activists are
involved?
From a privacy point of view, some worrying features are
known to have been built into popular proprietary
software packages. Microsoft Windows and recent versions
of Office include a unique computer identifier in all
documents - an identifier which is sent to Microsoft on
registration of software, as well as in cookies set by
Microsoft's web site. The implications of this for anyone
trying to maintain anonymous - whistle-blowers and
activists most obviously - are frightening. (See analysis
and a news report from CNET; Paul Ferris points the
obvious argument for free software in "Of Corporations,
Privacy, and Open Source Software".)
The Creation of New Dependencies
Proprietary software increases the dependence of
individuals, organisations, and communities on external
forces - typically large corporations with a very poor
track record on acting in the public interest. There are
dependencies for support, installation and problem
fixing, sometimes in critical systems. There are
dependencies for upgrades and compatibility. There are
dependencies when modification or extended functionality
is required. And there are ongoing financial dependencies
if licensing is recurrent.
Political dependencies can result from the use of
proprietary software, too. For example, an Irish ISP
under attack for hosting the top level East Timor domain
.tp was helped out by hackers and community activists
(setting up a secure Linux installation). Given that this
attack was probably carried out with the connivance of
elements of the Indonesian government, it is hard to see
a commercial vendor with a significant market presence in
Indonesia being so forthcoming with support.
Nearly exact parallels to this exist in agriculture,
where the patenting of seed varieties and genome
sequences and the creation of non-seeding varieties are
used to impose long-term dependencies on farmers.
An Analogy: Baby-milk Powder
The effects of baby-milk powder on poor infants (which
has sparked a Nestle campaign/boycott) provide an analogy
to the effects of proprietary software.
Sending information in Microsoft Word format to
correspondents in Eritrea is analagous to Nestle
advertising baby milk powder to Indian mothers. It
encourages the recipients to go down a path which is not
in their best interests, and from which it is not easy
for them to recover. The apparent benefits (the doctor
recommended it; we will be able to read the documents
sent to us) may be considerable and the initial costs
involved (to stop breast-feeding and switch to milk
powder; to start using Microsoft Office) may be
subsidised, hidden, or zero (with "piracy"), but the
long-term effects are to make the recipients dependent on
expensive recurrent inputs, and to burden them with
ultimately very high costs.
Moreover, because documents can be easily copied and
because there are strong pressures to conform to
group/majority standards in document formats, pushing
individuals towards proprietary software and document
formats can snowball to affect entire communities, not
just the individuals initially involved.
Restrictions on Self-help
Proprietary software not only creates new dependencies:
it actively hinders self-help, mutual aid, and community
development.
* Users cannot freely share software with others in the community,
or with other communities.
* The possibilities for building local support and maintainance
systems are limited.
* Modification of software to fit local needs is not possible,
leaving communities with software designed to meet the needs of
wealthy Northern users and companies, which may not be appropriate
for them.
An Example: Language Support
Language support provides a good example of the
advantages of free software in allowing people to adapt
products to their own ends and take control of their
lives. Operating systems and word processing software
support only a limited range of languages. Iceland, in
order to help preserve its language, wants Icelandic
support added to Microsoft Windows - and is even willing
to pay for it. But without access to the source code -
and the right to modify it - they are totally dependent
on Microsoft's cooperation. (See an article in the
Seattle Times and an article by Martin Vermeer which
argues that lack of software localisation is a threat to
cultural diversity.)
Whatever the outcome of this particular case, it must be
noted that Iceland is hardly a poor or uninfluential
nation. There is absolutely no hope of Windows being
modified to support Aymara or Lardil or other indigenous
languages: the spread of such proprietary software will
continue to contribute to their marginalisation.
In contrast, the source code to the GNU/Linux operating
system is available and can be freely modified, so groups
are able to add support for their languages. See, as an
example, the KDE Internationalization Page (KDE is a
desktop for GNU/Linux). Another example of the kind of
thing that access to source code allows is the Omega
Typesetting System, a modification of the free TeX
typesetting system "designed for printing all of the
world's languages, modern or ancient, common or rare".
This sort of extension or modification is simply not
possible with proprietary word-processing packages.
Unsustainable
Sustainable development should favour unlimited resources
over finite ones. But while software appears to be a
renewable resource, its control by profit-making
corporations, as Intellectual Property, effectively turns
it into a finite resource.
_________________________________________________________________
The Advantages of Free Software
What is Free Software?
The Free Software Foundation's "What is Free Software?" provides a
good introduction to free software.
`Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy,
distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely,
it refers to three levels of freedom:
* The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your
needs.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can share with your
neighbor.
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
A key point is that "free" refers to liberty, not price.
Software is only "free" if users have the freedom to
copy, modify, and distribute it, and to share it with
others. A key necessity for this is access to the source
code.
Prominent examples of free software are the Linux kernel
and the GNU system environment, which together constitute
a complete operating system (an alternative to Windows or
MacOS), and the Apache web server and sendmail mail
transport agent, which between them provide more than 50%
of the Internet's web sites and handle perhaps 80% of the
world's email.
Pragmatic Advantages
Quite independently of any ethical and political
considerations, there are also pragmatic and technical
arguments for the deployment of free software systems.
* Some free software products are widely recognised as more reliable
and robust, more powerful, and more secure than their proprietary
counterparts, and a plausible argument can be made that this is
not just accidental, but a consequence of their open development,
implementation, and testing.
Rob Bos puts it well in 32bitsonline
Free software is better than non-free software. It
works better, it works faster, it works longer. Open
source programs are tried and proven, they are
constantly pressed from every direction to do specific
tasks, and do them well; and for the simple reason that
they are written to work, not simply to sell copies.
Free software doesn't just work better, it works orders
of magnitude better. Open sourcing an application gives
the source code to a large number of developers,
instead of a small, tight group. Free software projects
have a pool of developers and an effective budget
multiple times higher than an equivalent proprietary
development project, and will, given all other equal
things, advance at a rate many times faster because of
their access to an much larger development team. Peer
review of code isn't just a pipe dream, it is an
essential means to writing superior applications, no
matter where they are written.
* Free software can typically be obtained for the cost of the media
(typically a few dollars for a CD) or network traffic (for
distribution via computer networks). It can always be freely
distributed. The pragmatic benefits of this should be obvious, but
in some contexts the price of free software can also take on
political significance:
I live in India, one of the poorest countries in the
world, with a large number of awfully bright, poor
people. In India, today, the entry-level programmer (C
knowledge but no work experience) earns $100 a month,
and it is not routine for him to have a computer at
home. Entry-level computers at $250 and below will
attract millions of buyers in India, who will find the
difference between $250 and $750 to be a massive one.
Industry experts look at around 200 million existing
computers, 80% of which run Microsoft OSes. It's useful
to focus on the next billion computer sales. In this, I
see the price-tag of $0 as being a critical product
feature.
Ajay Shah - Unix on a billion desktops?
* Free software is often less demanding of resources, extending the
lifespan of older hardware. As an example of what this allows,
consider Project Computer Bank, an Australian venture to supply
old computer equipment running GNU/Linux to low income earners,
community groups, and disadvantaged schools.
Freedom From Dependencies
``Community Aid Abroad's vision is for a fair world in which people
control their own lives, their basic rights are achieved and the
environment is sustained.'' (emphasis added)
Free software does not create dependencies on multinational
corporations. Support commonly comes from user groups and online
communities, which often provide vastly better support than commercial
alternatives. Commercial support is available for free software
systems, but users of free software can not be tied to single
suppliers or vendors.
Access to the source code greatly increases users' options. It allows
not just the unrestricted sharing of software packages but also their
easy modification to suit local needs and requirements.
The value of free software in avoiding dependencies has been
recognised by businesses and by governments.
Let's say you are a chief technical officer (CTO) at a Fortune 500
company and you have just spent millions of dollars on a strategic
business system with software you cannot see inside and cannot
modify, software that depends on a single vendor to service. Now
are those systems going to change to serve your business plan or
your vendor's business plan?
...it probably will not be long before buying closed-source
software for your key infrastructure is considered the height of
irresponsibility.
Eric S. Raymond in Intellectual Capital
"Scandinavia, Germany, and France are some of the main centers of
Linux use. Some people say that this is because companies and the
government want to avoid becoming too dependent on U.S. -- read
Microsoft -- products."
Kalle Dalheimer, quoted in OSS Europe
Development of free software is done by those who have the necessary
skills and resources - the resulting products are available for use by
whoever needs it.
With Linux, the people who use the system get to [affect the way]
the system [develops]. It's democracy in the sense that you don't
surrender control. Anybody can do anything. It boils down to [the
fact that] you must be [competent], but that's a good way of
separating the people who do the work. And even the [people who]
don't make changes can make suggestions and can do testing and
things like that.
Linus Torvalds, interview with upsidedown.com.
Shared Values
Most free software has been produced through decentralised,
community-based development processes which are usually open to anyone
with the right technical skills (or a willingness to learn) who is
prepared to do the work. Users of free software can join software
development communities and participate in the refinement and
improvement of existing software, or in the development of entirely
new programs, building on what already exists.
Many free software development projects are almost model community
development projects. They are based on open communication,
inclusiveness, personal relationships, and working for the good of the
community as a whole. In a paper Technology and Pleasure, Gisle
Hannemyr describes the history of the "hacker" community, placing it
in the artisan tradition and in opposition to Taylorism. He describes
its imperatives as:
reject hierarchies
mistrust authority
promote decentralization
share information
serve your community
and includes among its position statements:
when creating computer artifacts, not only the observable
results, but the craftsmanship in execution matters
practice is superior to theory
people should only be judged on merit (not by appearance, age,
race or position)
you can create art and beauty by the means of a computer
The long-term effects of free software and associated changes are
likely to be significant:
Oscar Wilde says somewhere that the problem with socialism is that
it takes up too many evenings. The problems with anarchism as a
social system are also about transaction costs. But the digital
revolution alters two aspects of political economy that have been
otherwise invariant throughout human history. All software has zero
marginal cost in the world of the Net, while the costs of social
coordination have been so far reduced as to permit the rapid
formation and dissolution of large-scale and highly diverse social
groupings entirely without geographic limitation. Such fundamental
change in the material circumstances of life necessarily produces
equally fundamental changes in culture.
Ebden Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of
Copyright
In many ways the ethics of free software reflect that of the Internet
community more generally - a community which is still resisting
commercialisation of the Net.
Education and Technology Transfer
Free software both encourages learning and experimentation and in turn
benefits from it. Free software is widespread in educational
institutions, since access to the source code makes free software an
ideal tool for teaching: indeed much free software began as learning
exercises.
Due to low start-up costs and rapid change, software development and
the information economy more generally offer a possible way for the
South to build high value industries, leapfrogging older technologies
and even modes of production. The flourishing Indian software industry
provides an obvious example. But if these industries are built on
proprietary products and protocols owned by multinational
corporations, then this will only reinforce one-sided dependencies.
Free software has obvious advantages here.
Free software lends itself to collaborative, community-based
development at all scales from cottage industry to world-wide efforts
involving the collaboration of thousands of people. Internet access
potentially offers the poor the ability to communicate directly with
the rest of the world, to directly present their own ideas and
perspectives. Combined with the free software development model, it
allows them to participate in creating and moulding the technologies
and systems that will determine their future.
_________________________________________________________________
Free Software in Action
The advantages of free software for community and development
organisations have been recognised by others: The arguments sketched
above apply not just to development organisations but to governments
and to some extent even to businesses.
The United Nations
UNESCO is handing out free Linux CDROMs to community, scientific, and
educational projects in Latin America.
We believe LINUX can play a very important role in Latin American
and Caribbean modernisation, constructing networks to permit a
great number of universities, colleges, schools and educational
centers, to connect to Internet in order to use this fabulous tool
to improve their scientific and cultural levels. In a few words,
LINUX is the tool which permits to reduce the "technological gap"
between the countries. LINUX permits the acces to "the informatics
the most advanced" implemented according to the reduced economic
capacities in our region. LINUX is a new way to make informatics,
where the most important thing is "the technical quality and people
solidarity"
And the UNDP is running a Sustainable Development Networking Program,
with support from the Linux vendor Red Hat.
Mexico's Scholar Net
http://www.linux.org.mx/arturo/scholar/
I work as the project leader of the "Scholar Net", a program that
aims to bring computers and the net to every elementary and
mid-level school in Mexico. We expect to install from 20 to 35
thousand labs per year to a total of 140,000 centers in the next
five years.
Due to matters of cost, reliability and configurability, we plan to
use GNU/Linux to replace the proprietary server options and, now
thanks to GNOME, the proprietary desktop application options.
SatelLife
SatelLife is an international not-for-profit organization employing
satellite, telephone and radio networking technology to serve the
health communication and information needs of countries in the
developing world.
http://www.data.com/issue/981021/people.html
For starters, the staff of Satellife had to seek out and master
technologies cheap enough for users in the world's poorest
countries but reliable enough to deliver vital medical information
fast. And the organization didn't have the funds that corporate IT
departments have for equipment and software-so it used free and
open-source software to link users to forums. And as the Internet
became a more vital tool, Satellife had to make sure that users
without browsers could still get information via the Web. It also
used second-hand gear where possible and relied on research
institutes and discussion groups, rather than high-priced
consultants, for advice.
The Littlefish Health Project
Project Vision: "To create a user friendly patient information and
recall system on an open source basis with the focus on use by
community based primary health care health organisations in the
developing world or remote and rural areas or areas of need.
(And Daniel L. Johnson has written a paper on free software in medical
information management.)
The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA)
An impassioned but carefully put together argument for use of Linux by
the CBAA. Arguing on both technical and ethical grounds, most of this
is directly relevant to development organisations.
The open source movement, and Linux is particular, are massive
volunteer non-profit projects which share the spirit of community
media. It's a radical alternative movement creating successful
mainstream software. In fact, it's the same movement that produced
the software that the internet revolution depends on. Now the
movement has produced a cutting edge technology which suits the
CBAA's needs far better than the commercial competition. The
technology is Linux. A Linux server is one the CBAA could be proud
of.
(Also mentioned in a Newswire story on the politics of software.)
_________________________________________________________________
Conclusion and Recommendations
The free software movement embodies principles consistent with those
of Community Aid Abroad and Oxfam International. Free software
products are tools which fit the needs of Oxfam International members,
in many cases better than alternative proprietary products.
It is therefore recommended that:
* Development organisations should include software in their
policies on ethical purchasing and appropriate technology; such
policies should encourage the use of free software and open
protocols.
* Development organisations should encourage and assist project
partners in the deployment of software systems that will enable
them to "take control of their own destiny", and to reduce their
dependence on the developed world. They should consider the major
advantages free software has in this area.
* Development organisations should ultimately try to free themselves
from the shackles of proprietary software.
Danny Yee <danny@anatomy.usyd.edu.au>
_________________________________________________________________
The author is one of the Community Aid Abroad webmasters, a board
member of Electronic Frontiers Australia, and an employee of Sydney
University. But the opinions expressed in this paper are personal and
do not necessarily reflect the policies of any of these organisations.
Thanks to Cameron Tampion, Mike Gifford, Charlie Brady, Greg Taylor,
Ronni Martin, and Richard Stallman for feedback on this document.
----------------------------------
Send mail for the 'huridocs-tech' list to 'huridocs-tech@hrea.org'.
Mail administrative requests to 'majordomo@hrea.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: 'owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org'.
Archives of previous messages posted to the list can be found at:
http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.html
[Reply to this message] [Start a new topic] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index] [Subject Index] [List Home Page] [HREA Home Page]