Episode: 271
Title: HPR0271: Stallman on Free Beer
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0271/hpr0271.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-07 15:10:03

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Hmm.
So, my name is Henrik and I'm actually calling on behalf of Superflex.
So, you said super what?
Superflex.
Okay, I don't recall that name.
Do you remember the free beer?
Yes.
What we hoped to do with you was to ask you to taste and review the beer, which is, which
I heard from last time.
Because I don't like beer.
I also, I don't like the emphasis that most people put on getting drunk.
I have only got drunk once in my life and that was on a transatlantic flight when I had
made the mistake of putting my sleeping pills into my suitcase, which I checked.
I tried using whiskey to achieve the same effect and it didn't work very well partly because
it was so disgusting I could hardly swallow it.
Did you manage to sleep in the end?
I slept a little bit.
But I was thinking that maybe we could try and do something remotely similar to a review
just without actually talking about the taste and the hue and the...
Okay.
So, if you could pretend that you were reviewing this idea of a free beer or...
I love the idea as long as I don't have to drink it.
So, I was wondering about the name because, you know, most people will think about this only
as free beer in the free beer sense.
Well.
But there is another...
Are you selling samples of it?
Well, actually, we do sell free beer in our shop, but we also...
I hope so.
It probably costs you money to produce a batch.
Exactly.
So it makes sense to sell bottles of it or glasses of it.
And so, that will make people think they'll see.
This is free in the sense of freedom, but it's not gratis.
Exactly.
And that was also the concept from day one.
Do you have anything against or for naming a beer free beer?
I like the idea because it's a cute way of making your point.
And could it be called a hack in the sense of...
Yes.
Yes, it is a hack.
Playful cleverness is hacking.
So, this is hacking.
I remember that we received an email from you, a couple of months back,
with some very constructive comments about intellectual property
and the way we used to...
Well, actually, my comments may have been about quote
intellectual property.
Exactly.
Because I never talk about...
I never used that term.
And that's what you were telling me.
And it's a mistake to do so.
Because that term mixes together various different laws
with totally different effects as if they were a single thing.
So, anyone who tries to think about the supposed quote
issue of intellectual property, unquote,
is already so badly confused that he can't think clearly about it.
Now, in this same email, you also suggested that we call the beer
a free software beer instead of an open source beer.
Yes.
I founded the free software movement
and open source is a term used to co-opt our work
to separate our work from our ideals that motivated it.
See, we developed software that users are free to run and share
and change as they wish for the sake of freedom.
Because those freedoms, we believe, are essential.
Then there were millions of people who appreciated the software
and appreciated being able to share and change it
and found that it was very good software too.
But they didn't want to present this as an ethical issue.
So, they started using a different term open source
as a way to describe the same software
without ever bringing it up as an ethical issue,
as a matter of freedoms that people are entitled to.
Well, they're entitled to their opinions.
But I don't share their opinions and I hope you don't either.
So, to support awareness of the ethical issues of free software,
the most basic thing to do is talk about free software.
Do you think this will come about, you know, by discussing, for example,
a beer that actually isn't software?
The similar kind of issue arising here.
A beer doesn't actually have source code either.
A recipe is not like source code.
You can't just compile it.
There's no program that turns the recipe into food.
What about if we speak about the general idea of taking things
from, you know, ideas from the free software movement
and from the open source movement even,
and transferring those values onto something which is not software?
I'm all in favor of it whenever they're applicable.
Now, these ideas make sense in one context.
They may make sense in another context,
but that's not guaranteed.
They're not applicable to everything in life.
They're applicable to certain things.
Specifically, they're applicable when there are works made of information.
That are useful.
So, where do you draw the line?
Does an open source cookbook make more sense
than an open source car?
I'm not a supporter of the open source movement.
That's a problem.
But I was thinking, is there a way that we could use this word
in a better way than speaking about an open source beer?
Because a free software beer also sounds strange.
Yes, they both are strange.
Neither one really fits because the beer is not software
and has no source.
If you're going to strain things to refer to a movement,
it might as well pick the movement you support.
Because we've taken a bit from one and a bit from the other.
Anyway.
We tried to recount the whole story of what happened in the early 70s
up to now to sort of explain what the idea of the beer was.
And I find this quite complex.
Is there any way that these kind of ideas could travel
to the minds of people in an easier way?
Well, I find that recipes make a good analogy
for explaining the ideas of free software to people.
Because people who cook commonly share recipes
and commonly change recipes,
and they take for granted that they're free to cook recipes
when they wish.
So imagine if the government took away those freedoms.
If they said starting today, if you copy and share
or if you change your recipe, we'll call you a pirate.
Imagine how angry they would be.
Well, that anger, that exact anger is what I felt
when they stopped me from saying I couldn't change
and share software anymore.
And I said, no way.
I refused to accept that.
What do you think this had to happen within software
and computers?
Why haven't people demanded the same kind of freedoms before?
Well, there weren't enough people using computers.
And in the early days, software was free, usually.
When you started out?
Within the 70s that software became usually proprietary.
And that change for the worse was complete by the early 80s.
But I had had the experience of participating
in a community of programmers where sharing software was normal.
And when it disappeared and died,
and I saw a morally ugly way of life as my probable future,
I rejected that.
When that happened, that was back in the beginning of the 80s.
That was in 1983 that I formed the free software movement
and launched a plan to develop a free software operating system
so that we could use computers and have this freedom.
Do you think that the way that things are now
and the way that you have a GNU-slash Linux option
or you can do many things with different kinds of open-source software
that are brought to you?
Oh, sorry.
I don't want you to use the term open-source.
I'm very sorry.
But not what I stand for.
You're putting me in a very bad position
by talking with me about my work and using the term
the name of a party that was formed to reject my views.
This is something that's very difficult for somebody like me
to actually, because I am not a computer program.
I am not somebody who has lived this for 20 years.
So for me, it is difficult, although I'm trying to...
Think of...
Of course, and free software is the name of two different political parties.
I fully understand that.
Different programs.
If you invited a leader from the Green Party,
which by the way I more or less support,
and you started talking to him about his work in the conservative party,
and you did that several times,
he'd probably get mad at you.
And I could imagine that this is something that happens often
with the popular press and journalists.
Yes, it does.
And in fact, before I give an interview, I raise this issue
and I make sure that they've agreed not to do this,
because it would be...
It would be pointless to do an interview
if I'd be misreported as a supporter of open source.
Well, you know, I actually did my homework.
And this is something that I find must be as difficult for ordinary people.
If you're not that difficult,
you're talking about changing a habit.
It takes a little bit of work and you make mistakes a few times,
but don't exaggerate it.
You can change a habit.
When you started the free software movement and the GNU project,
would you ever have imagined that this kind of ideas
would turn into something outside of the computer world,
something like a beer or something like that?
No, I didn't think for a minute about that.
When did that start happening?
When did you start seeing those possibilities?
About five years ago.
Okay.
Is that what you hope will happen in the future from now on?
I hope so.
But mainly what I'm hoping for and working for
is that software should be free.
And do you think a project like this will help?
Yes.
It'll help.
It will bring the ideas home to people
who wouldn't have thought about them otherwise.
And that's useful.
I hope this will get some repercussions
and that we can use this.
I'll happy hacking.
And thanks very much for your time.
Bye.
Okay, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.