It's turning out to be a classic battle between Good and Evil. The Free Software movement--programmers who cooperatively write code and give it away (often in their own spare time)--is gaining enormous momentum. The darling of the free software movement--the Linux operating system--is lining up to challenge the product that Microsoft is staking its monopoly on: Windows NT (not to burst anybody's bubble, but Windows 98 is a joke inside and outside of Redmond). And Netscape captured the public eye earlier this year when a cadre of its programmers convinced their uber-capitalist CEO Jim "I kept FedEx union-free" Barksdale to not only give away its core product (the web browser), but turn over development to the free software movement--a movement better known for its anarchist tendencies then for its MBAs.

The Free Software movement (it refers to itself as a movement, and even talks about "revolution") was sparked by a 70's leftist political radical at MIT named Richard M. Stallman (RMS). Actually, when RMS first started programming, nearly all software was free. But, during the 1970s, a wave of corporate ownership swept into computer programming (along with the rising tide of Microsoft), and organizations began to "copyright" software, forcing people to pay to use it (only one machine at a time, please). This went against the old hacker ethic: "information wants to be free."

To protect free software against this onslaught, RMS created a license called the GNU Public License (GPL), which is essentially an "open copyright" license (also called the "copyleft"). The GPL says that you can do anything you want with the software. You have access to the source code, so you can rewrite the software. BUT (and this is a big BUT), anyone you give or sell the software (or a modified version of the software) to has the same rights you do; i.e., they can give it away, sell it, tinker with it, etc., but they must put anything they create from it under the GPL, too, for others to use. Hence, the GPL encourages sharing and discourages competition and property rights.

Needless to say, RMS often is accused of being a communist (possibly true), but people still like GPL software. Linux and Perl, two very prominent and popular products on the web, are both released under the GPL; in fact, the Oscar award-winning special effects for the movie "Titanic" were created using the Linux operating system. Apache, the program that serves/delivers a majority of web pages on the Internet, is also free software, although under a different license than the GPL. Sendmail, the program that moves email from one place to another, and bind, which converts domain names to IP numbers so you type http://eatthestate.org instead of http://207.207.67.91, are all free software.

One of the most interesting things about large free software projects is how they operate. They rely on volunteer labor from people who love to create efficient and elegant systems. Another unique feature of many groups is the "flat" structure. Each group is different, but often there's little or no hierarchy--just groups of people working together. Decisions are made using a "rough consensus" model. People are free to join or leave teams as it suits them, and there's a high level of cooperation between even "competing" products. Hell, since all the source code is available anyway, people copy each other's code left and right (giving credit where credit is due, of course).

For example, in the Perl community, there's an open group that fixes bugs and adds features to the product, and a rotating leadership for the person who verifies the quality of the code and checks it in. In discussions, certain people within the free software community will automatically be respected for their technical knowledge and work on past projects; nevertheless, there's always respect for anyone who knows what she/he is talking about.

The only exception to this free-love, er, free software, egalitarian utopianism is that the original creator of a project (when there is a single creator) usually becomes a de facto "enlightened dictator" for future versions. So, in the case of Perl, when consensus breaks down and no one can agree, they turn to Larry Wall, since he developed Perl 1.0. People believe that, if his leadership got them to Perl 5.0, he must be doing something right. (One interesting aside about Larry Wall: he's actually a linguist and missionary by trade. He wrote the programming language Perl to resemble real-world, natural language, and early-on saw development of a Perl cooperative "community" as very much integral to the language.)

It's important to note that "enlightened dictators" have no real or legal control over the product (Linus Torvalds of Linux fame emphasized this during an interview with NPR). People listen to them like wise elders, because they trust their advice. But once developers quit trusting the advice, they are free to take the code and do their own thing with it. Not coincidentally, the successful leaders are marked by their self-deprecating humor, humility, and willingness to let go of control (in other words, Bill Gates would be horrible at this--he better keep his day job).

Impressively, free software tends to be more stable, more reliable, faster, and more technically advanced than say, products made by a certain company located in Redmond, Washington. Linux won InfoWorld's "Product of the Year" and "Technical Support of the Year" awards last year (the latter is especially impressive, since Linux has no official technical support--just a lot of hackers on the Internet willing to help anyone out). Moreover, many (if not most) of the people who contribute to the free software movement do it for free and not for any personal financial gain.

So the next time some brain-washed idiot tells you that anarchy is utopian, egalitarianism impossible, people would rather bang each other over the head by nature, consensus decision-making is slow and disorganized, and capitalism will always produce better products than cooperative economic models, you have counter-examples to give them. Right now, the main threat to Microsoft on every front is free software (because of its superior quality), and the main threat to free software is Microsoft (because of its shrewd marketing and illegal, monopolistic behavior). This battle is going to be fun; why not join in? Its free!

For more information, check out these websites:

Linux featured on All Things Considered: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/archives/1998/980408.atc.html.
GNU ("GNU" stands for "GNU's Not Unix," a self-referential acronym): http://www.gnu.org.
Slashdot (the watering hole for the free software movement): http://slashdot.org. For a good discussion that demonstrates the variety of viewpoints in the free software movement: http://slashdot.org/features/9806080755240.shtml.

--bi8fra. (Important disclosure: I work at Microsoft, but refuse to drink the coffee.)

Editor's Note: Richard Stallman sent us the following corrections to the above article. We apologize for the errors.

From: Richard Stallman To: ets@scn.org Subject: Article about free software Sent: Saturday, July 04, 1998 12:27 PM

I was happy to see your article about the free software movement, but I'd like to correct a few details.

The full name of our usual form of copyleft is The GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short. It isn't the "GNU Public License".

Linux is not really an operating system--it is the kernel, one of the essential components of a whole operating system. The operating system in which Linux is used are variants--modified developments--of the GNU system. When Linux was written, the kernel was the last major component still missing from the GNU system; putting Linux together with the not-quite-complete GNU system made a whole system.

You can help avoid confusion, and also give the GNU project recognition for its drive to make a whole free system, by using the name "GNU/Linux" to refer to the whole system. The kernel is simply "Linux".

Please see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html for a full explanation of the history of this.

Needless to say, RMS often is accused of being a communist (possibly true)

I'm used to occasional accusations of being a Communist, but usually this is done by people who would rather argue against Communism than against my actual views. But it's a new experience to see someone who means me well by it.

It isn't accurate, though. I work on free software to give software users freedom, which is nothing at all like Communism. I've been partly influenced by leftist Anarchism, by the idea of a world in which people voluntarily arrange to work together for the general good, but not at all by Communism.

The best way to understand and explain my views is to compare them with the environmental movement and the consumer movement. They too aim to stop certain specific business practices on the grounds that they hurt the public. When proprietary software prohibits people from working together and cooperating voluntarily, that pollutes the good will at the root of society. I want to stop this kind of pollution.