Your digital life isn’t yours: The hidden battle for software freedom  fsf.org

I am very sympathetic to free software. (And I regret not using more software of this kind.) On the Free Software Foundation blog, Jason Self reinforces the importance of the four freedoms of FOSS in the face of machine learning — which, in this context, is confused with what is commonly referred to as “artificial intelligence.” He defines it as follows:

[…] software that doesn’t just follow instructions, but learns and makes autonomous decisions. It’s a powerful new kind of code, and it has become the most profound black box ever created.

His post uses AI as a threat to revisit the foundations of the movement. This is always a good thing and, from time to time (as in this case), reveals stories unknown to the public (or to me, at least). It is because of one of these — the creation of the concept of free software — that I brought this link here:

At MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, a programmer named Richard Stallman grew frustrated with a new Xerox laser printer that frequently jammed. His solution was simple: modify the program to automatically notify users on the network about the jam, saving everyone time and frustration. The problem was that he wasn’t allowed to; the source code of the program was a secret. Though a programmer at another university had the code, he was bound by a non-disclosure agreement and refused to share it. This wasn’t just an inconvenience; it was an ethical crisis in miniature. A practical problem had become impossible to solve, not for technical reasons, and most definitely not because it was better this way. A barrier was intentionally placed to deny users control over the software they used.

This moment of frustration ignited the spark for the free software movement.

The next time my printer jams, I will handle the situation with a little more enthusiasm. Stretching it a bit, it has a sacred quality, as it reproduces the moment of the creation of free software. Amen!