Editor's Note
*************

The waning days of the 20th century seemed like an Orwellian nightmare: laws preventing publication of scientific research on software; laws preventing sharing software; an overabundance of software patents preventing development; and end-user license agreements that strip the user of all freedoms---including ownership, privacy, sharing, and understanding how their software works. This collection of essays and speeches by Richard M. Stallman addresses many of these issues. Above all, Stallman discusses the philosophy underlying the free software movement. This movement combats the oppression of federal laws and evil end-user license agreements in hopes of spreading the idea of software freedom.

With the force of hundreds of thousands of developers working to create GNU software and the GNU/Linux operating system, free software has secured a spot on the servers that control the Internet, and---as it moves into the desktop computer market---is a threat to Microsoft and other proprietary software companies.

These essays cater to a wide audience; you do not need a computer science background to understand the philosophy and ideas herein. However, there is a ``Note on Software,'' to help the less technically inclined reader become familiar with some common computer science jargon and concepts, as well as footnotes throughout.

Also it is important to note that many of the essays have been updated and revised from their originally published versions. And since every chapter has a verbatim copying notice on it, you are free to make and distribute copies of the text.

The ordering of the essays is fairly arbitrary, in that there is no required order to read the essays in, for they were written independently of each other over a period of 18 years. The first section, ``The GNU Project and Free Software,'' is intended to familiarize you with the history and philosophy of free software and the GNU project. Furthermore, it provides a road map for developers, educators, and business people to pragmatically incorporate free software into society, business, and life. The second section, ``Copyright, Copyleft, and Patents,'' discusses the philosophical and political groundings of the copyright and patent system and how it has changed over the past couple of hundred years. Also, it discusses how the current laws and regulations for patents and copyrights are not in the best interest of the consumer and end user of software, music, movies, and other media. Instead, this section discusses how laws are geared towards helping business and government crush your freedoms. The third section, ``Freedom, Society, and Software'' continues the discussion of freedom and rights, and how they are being threatened by proprietary software, copyright law, globalization, ``trusted computing,'' and other socially harmful rules, regulations, and policies. One way that industry and government are attempting to persuade people to give up certain rights and freedoms is by using terminology that implies that sharing information, ideas, and software is bad; therefore, we have included an essay explaining certain words that are confusing and should probably be avoided. The fourth section, ``The Licenses,'' contains the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser General Public License, and the GNU Free Documentation License; the cornerstones of the GNU project.

If you wish to purchase this book for yourself, for classroom use, or for distribution, please write to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) at sales@fsf.org or visit http://order.fsf.org/.  If you wish to help further the cause of software freedom, please considering donating to the FSF by visiting http://donate.fsf.org (or write to donations@fsf.org for more details).  You can also contact the FSF by phone at +1-617-542-5942.

There are perhaps thousands of people who should be thanked for their contributions to the GNU Project; however, their names will never fit on any single list.  Therefore, I wish to extend my thanks to all of those nameless hackers, as well as people who have helped promote, create, and spread free software around the world.

For helping make this book possible, I would like to thank:

Julie Sussman, P.P.A., for editing multiple copies at various stages of development, for writing the ``Topic Guide,'' and for giving her insights into everything from commas to the ordering of the chapters;

Lisa (Opus) Goldstein and Bradley M. Kuhn for their help in organizing, proofreading, and generally making this collection possible;

Claire H. Avitabile, Richard Buckman, Tom Chenelle, and (especially) Stephen Compall for their careful proofreading of the entire collection;

Karl Berry, Bob Chassell, Michael Mounteney, and M. Ramakrishnan for their expertise in the helping to format and edit this collection in TeXinfo, (http://www.texinfo.org);

Mats Bengtsson for his help in formatting the Free Software Song in Lilypond (http://www.gnu.org/software/lilypond/);

Etienne Suvasa for the images that begin each section, and for all the art he has contributed to the Free Software Foundation over the years;

and Melanie Flanagan and Jason Polan for making helpful suggestions for the everyday reader. A special thanks to Bob Tocchio, from Paul's Transmission Repair, for his insight on automobile transmissions.

Also, I wish to thank my mother and father, Wayne and Jo-Ann Gay, for teaching me that one should live by the ideals that one stands for, and for introducing me, my two brothers, and three sisters to the importance of sharing.

Lastly and most importantly, I would like to extend my gratitude to Richard M. Stallman for the GNU philosophy, the wonderful software, and the literature that he has shared with the world.

Joshua Gay

josh@gnu.org

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