When many people think of hacktivists,
they think of an individual committing cybercrime for a purpose, a
cause or a "greater good", or they think of an individual
who may venture in ethically, morally or legally gray areas for a
similar purpose, cause or greater good. However, not many people
consider individuals who stir mental, ethical, emotional and
psychological responses from members of society with radical ideology
in attempt to bring forth changes towards a purpose, cause or greater
good that they believe in. Richard Stallman can be considered a
prime example of the latter, because although he is not a criminal or
a cybercriminal, he acts as a gadfly in other ways by imparting his
radical beliefs on society in a quite unusual way.
To understand Stallman, one would have
to understand Stallman's beliefs, his dedication to his cause, and
the extent to which he would go to free humans from the vices of the
copyright. He has sacrificed much in his life to attempt to rid the
world of proprietary software, excessive non-free software, software
licensing, and the proliferation of software that did not freely
contribute to the open source/free software movement. This movement,
of which Stallman's name is at the forefront, advocates individuals
being able to freely modify, distribute and promote the development
of software, while requiring that any derivatives of free/open source
software be released with the same terms and conditions. One of his
most prominent brainchildren, the GNU project, specifically embraced
this ideology, bringing forth large amounts of open source and free
software geared towards the *nix/Linux operating systems. Without
this free development, redistribution and collaboration, a large
amount of the success of operating systems that exist today would not
be possible, including Microsoft and Mac OS X, which have large
amount of code that were derived from Linux and BSD.
In addition to the numerous
foundations that Stallman has created or supported that help
proliferation of the Open Source movement, Stallman has spent much
time extensively traveling the world in attempt to not only spread
these ideologies, but to get various organizations, governments,
schools and other entities to move all their computer and computing
needs to be wholly comprised of products of the Open Source movement.
Some places of note where such efforts were made include India and
Venezuela.
The fundamental ideology behind
Stallman's movement is that he believes that there should be no such
thing as intellectual privacy, copyright and other such entities that
restrict or deny individuals completely free and open access to
software and other kinds or works. In direct relation to this, there
should also be no such things as piracy, or copyright and trademark
infringement. He has worked hard to create such terms and ideas as
the copyleft (which is the opposite of copyright, and promotes the
redistribution, duplication and transmission of works) and the GNU
Public License (GPL), which is a well drafted license that helps
users be sure that they can be legally covered when producing
material under the GPL, while still allowing their material to be
openly viewed, disseminated and proliferated.
The extremism in which he carries out
his beliefs can be seen in his one and only computer being a Lomote
Yeelong netbook, which he chose because it can run free software,
even at the BIOS level, which is virtually unheard of. Even among
other people who have similar beliefs or who have contributed to the
free software movement is it almost impossible to find an individual
who possesses a machine that can run free software at the BIOS level.
In addition to these extreme beliefs, Stallman has been known to be
obnoxiously loud and vocal about his beliefs, and is quick to
disagree and go separate ways with those that differ in their views,
even if only slightly. After Steve Jobs (president, CEO and
visionary in Apple's widely known company) died, because Stallman was
diametrically opposed to everything Jobs/Apple had ever believed and
because they had spent a larger portion of their existences at odds
with each other, Stallman said, “Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the
computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their
freedom, has died. As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the
corrupt former Mayor Daley, 'I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad
he's gone.' Nobody deserves to have to die — not Jobs, not Mr.
Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all
deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can
only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy,
will be less effective.”
One could contend that his extremism
and his refusal to yield ground on the issues and the ideologies that he believes in is counterproductive,
and ridiculous. In fact, a journalist named Andrew Leonard went so
far as to once say about Stallman: “There's something comforting
about Stallman's intransigence. Win or lose, Stallman will never give
up. He'll be the stubbornest mule on the farm until the day he dies.
Call it fixity of purpose, or just plain cussedness, his
single-minded commitment and brutal honesty are refreshing in a world
of spin-meisters and multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns.”
However, who can argue with Stallman's track record? Despite all the
numerous conflicts, difference of opinions, separation of ways with
colleagues with similar views, etc., Stallman has been the recipient
of numerous awards, acknowledgements, accolades, and recognitions
because of how far and wide his works, his ideologies and derivatives
of both have spread. Other detractors from his work argue that his
ideologies would lead to chaos and an impossible life, due to the
fact that people would no longer have intellectual property, and
people would not be able to make money to live off of their works.
However, Stallman's attitudes toward this concept can be adequately
summarized in a statement he made to a public mailing list saying, “I
think it is ok for authors (please let's not call them creators, they
are not gods) to ask for money for copies of their works (please
let's not devalue these works by calling them content) in order to
gain income (the term compensation falsely implies it is a matter of
making up for some kind of damages).”
Finally, as hacktivists go, although
Richard Stallman may not conventionally fit the stereotypical image
of a hacktivist, he has all the qualities of one. He has a moral and
ethical stance, he believes in his stance, and he means well for
society in his beliefs and his ideologies. He has produced much
free, useful and helpful works in compliance with his ideology, and
does so at no cost. He believes what he does makes the world a
better place, and places emphasis and priority on freedom and
bettering the world, rather than financial or other types of selfish
gains. He is constantly challenging the world, himself, and society
to adopt and embrace the movement, and to see the benefits of his
movements while moving away from the flawed, selfish and restrictive
ways that society currently lives in. And lastly, he doesn't care
about what people think of him; his focus is on ridding the world of
what he believes is an injustice and a detrimental cycle. Because
of these reasons, and many others, by Socrates's or anyone else's
definition, Stallman embraces all a gadfly is comprised of, and is
beyond reproach as far as gadflies are concerned.
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