GNU and the Free Software Foundation. Stallman, R. M. June, 2004.
abstract   bibtex   
Excerpt: Forbidding is forbidden how is this freedom? [...] AUDIENCE: [...] saying that "you can redistribute this software but you have to comply with these four freedoms," is that not restricting my freedom too? RICHARD: No, it's restricting you from having power. To stop A from subjugating B is not a denial of freedom to A, because to subjugate others is not freedom. That's power. [\n] Now, there may be people who would like to exercise power and we're stopping them, but that's good and that's not denying anyone freedom. [\n] I mean, you could just as well say if you're overthrowing a dictator, the dictator's saying, "you're taking away my freedom to dictate to everyone!" But that's not freedom, that's power. [\n] So I'm making the distinction between freedom, which is having control over your own life, and power, which is having control over other people's lives. We've got to make this distinction; if we ignore the difference between freedom and power, then we lose the ability to judge whether a society is free or not. You know, if you lose this distinction, then you look at Stalinist Russia and you say, "well, there was just as much freedom there, it's just that Stalin had it all." No! In Stalinist Russia, Stalin had power and people did not have freedom; the freedom wasn't there, because it's only freedom when it's a matter of controlling your own life. Controlling other people's lives is not freedom at all, not for either of the people involved. [...]
@book{stallmanGNUFreeSoftware2004,
  title = {{{GNU}} and the {{Free Software Foundation}}},
  author = {Stallman, Richard M.},
  year = {2004},
  month = jun,
  abstract = {Excerpt: Forbidding is forbidden how is this freedom? [...] AUDIENCE: [...] saying that "you can redistribute this software but you have to comply with these four freedoms," is that not restricting my freedom too? RICHARD: No, it's restricting you from having power. To stop A from subjugating B is not a denial of freedom to A, because to subjugate others is not freedom. That's power.

[\textbackslash n] Now, there may be people who would like to exercise power and we're stopping them, but that's good and that's not denying anyone freedom.

[\textbackslash n] I mean, you could just as well say if you're overthrowing a dictator, the dictator's saying, "you're taking away my freedom to dictate to everyone!" But that's not freedom, that's power.

[\textbackslash n] So I'm making the distinction between freedom, which is having control over your own life, and power, which is having control over other people's lives. We've got to make this distinction; if we ignore the difference between freedom and power, then we lose the ability to judge whether a society is free or not. You know, if you lose this distinction, then you look at Stalinist Russia and you say, "well, there was just as much freedom there, it's just that Stalin had it all." No! In Stalinist Russia, Stalin had power and people did not have freedom; the freedom wasn't there, because it's only freedom when it's a matter of controlling your own life. Controlling other people's lives is not freedom at all, not for either of the people involved. [...]},
  keywords = {*imported-from-citeulike-INRMM,~INRMM-MiD:c-12169355,epistemology,free-software,gnu-project,open-source,science-ethics},
  lccn = {INRMM-MiD:c-12169355},
  series = {Engineering {{Tech Talk}} at {{Google}}}
}

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