http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
That essay is what made me a firm supporter.
That essay is what made me a firm supporter.
What has he done to promote laws to prevent what he fears, and to fight laws that lead to what he fears?
That license, and others derived from it, are at the root of most non-proprietary software and many types of user-created content. Using the internet means you've used software that likely could not have been created without such licenses. Wikipedia is another example of something using a license derived from the one he helped create.
Helping create flourishing communities of people legally sharing each others' work, collectively creating great works, influences legislation. Imagine if no licenses existed for people to legally remix each other's work without explicit permission. Disney, the MPAA, the RIAA, and others would have had greater ability to lengthen copyright terms, increase penalties for infringement, and so on.
Microsoft had a strong play for extending from the desktop to servers when Unix was fragmented. I wonder what might have happened if apache didn't exist to compete with Microsoft -- how much more influence Microsoft might have had over U.S. legislation.
He's done a lot more than just help write the GPL, but that alone contributed a lot.
You see, the GPL takes the copyright system and turns it on its head. That's why it is named a copyleft license, an obvious pun.
How does it do that? Well, copyright prevents distribution. The GPL rides this restriction and says that you may not distribute GPL-licensed software unless (1) you distribute it with no extra restrictions + (2) the distributed binary is either accompanied by source-code or the source-code is available on request. The GPL COULD NOT demand this if it weren't for the copyright law and in regards to freedom / protecting users rights, it works out great because nobody can abuse the GPL without legal repercussions.
It's actually beautiful if you think about it and innovative - it enabled open-source / free software to really disrupt the software industry, creating the equivalent of the public commons. And this movement went viral and moved to books, music and movies. And this would have happened without the GPL, but on a much lower scale. The GPL is the spark that started the fire.
BTW - to change the world you don't need to change the laws. The alternative is to make them obsolete and technology has a habit of doing that ;-)
His speaking schedule is often published in the FSF newsletter; he appears to speak to a group about free software around once per week.
Even if GPL software had 99% market share in the US, and everyone in the country were running the same kind of computer as Stallman, the government could still step in and pass all kinds of draconian laws.
Getting regular people to adopt the GPL ethos is fine, but if the ethos doesn't permeate government as well, Stallman might as well be touring around promoting the Spice Girls for all governments will be prevented from doing intrusive things.
What's larger than freedom?
Let's assume Stallman had qualified as a Medical Doctor rather than a Computer Programmer.
Perhaps he would be making the same argument about pharmaceutical patents?
It's that his story looked much less plausible in 1997 than it does now. I remember reading the story at that time. I thought it had something going for it, but was very far-fetched and unrealistic. 14 years later, it seems way more plausible.