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40 Years of Freedom
Today marks a milestone in the history of computing and the rights of all software users: the 40th anniversary of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This 40th anniversary is a celebration of a global movement to promote computer user freedom.
This article traces the history of the essential software freedoms, from the initial spark to the four freedoms the FSF defends today.
Today, software is ubiquitous. It runs in the phone in your pocket, the car you drive, the television you watch, and even in life-sustaining medical devices. In a world so deeply intertwined with software, the question of who is in control of it becomes deeply fundamental.
The central argument has always been that proprietary software is fundamentally a social and ethical problem. It creates an unjust power dynamic, where the developer controls the user by keeping the software's inner workings secret and restricting what users can do with it. You, the user, must be the one who decides what the software in your life is doing.
To understand why free software is necessary, let's travel back to the late 1970s and early 1980s. The world of computing was changing. The early, collaborative "hacker" culture, where programmers freely shared their programs, was disappearing - in its place: proprietary software. People were legally prohibited from sharing. The spirit of community and cooperation was being replaced by control.