Location: FRAW Main index » The 'Browser Alert!' campaign
Browser Alert!
This page provides some information about the issues of proprietary software, digital rights management and software patents, and some ways in which you can address the problems raised.
The Issue
Free and open source software is a matter of liberty, not price. Think of
"free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer."
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change
and improve the software.
The Free Range electrohippie collective's campaign on free software and open information access. This is more than an issue about simple "ownership" – proprietary rights are being increasingly used to restrict the our freedom of expression and communication.
Information technology, from computers to mini-disc recorders, is a tool that
extends your creativity. It doesn't matter if you browse the Internet for learned articles,
word process your poetry, or file share samples to create your mash-up music –
your creativity relies on the fact that the tool does what you want it to rather than what
someone else believes that you should be able to. Today we have a problem. It's not just
that proprietary software is becoming an increasingly
"black
box" environment, but those writing the software now wish to decide what
you should and should not do with their programs.
For hundred of years, from the early master builders and painters onwards, people have copied
and borrowed from each others' work and as a result the knowledge and creativity of
humankind has been enriched. Today, in the name of protecting intellectual property rights,
we are looking up knowledge using technological and legal locks to prevent not only
illegitimate access, but also access which (for a paper copy) would normally be permitted
under the law. Intellectual property rights represent the last, modern-day land grab of the
"commons"
– and we will all be intellectually impoverished as a result of it. As
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once said,
"property
is theft" – extending this principle to the modern day can't we fairly
say that "all intellectual property is stealing our creativity" since we must not
think or dream of using anyone else's ideas in case it offends their right to
exclusively think it and charge others for the privilege of doing so too.
Not content with warnings and threats of legal actions, the intellectual property (IP)
establishment are now ensuring that creative tools are knobbled to preserve their dominance
over information/content. The
Digital
Rights Management (DRM) systems now being incorporated into the latest proprietary
systems, such as Microsoft's Vista operating system or the BBC's iPlayer
program, are there to make sure that you do what is in the interests of others, not what is in
your best interests.
The most recent onslaught in the struggle for free computing is the development of
software
patents. These give exclusive rights to the producers of computer programs as if they
were 'hard' technology – like a car or a pen. What this means is the it is illegal to write
a program that can read or utilise information that is generated by or utilises patented software.
Even if you were to write a program just for yourself, the act of writing a program to read
something produced or processed by a patented program is itself unlawful.
This might seem all quite abstract except for one important process – the
digital
switch-over. We're currently junking all our old TVs, video recorders and radios in favour
of now digital technologies. However, not only are these technologies patented, but much of the
software involved in decoding the digital data is too. For this reason your options to read the
digital transmissions are limited to what the patent owners choose. At this point you should know
about something called the
broadcast
flag. This is information embedded in the transmission that tells your equipment
whether or not it is allowed to record the information. The station/service provider can arbitrarily set the
broadcasting flag
when they want to stop you recording transmissions even though this interferes with your legal
fair
dealing rights for "private study and criticism and review and news
reporting" (as defined in sections 28 to 31 of the
Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988).
In the modern world, or as politicians call it the Information Economy, proprietary software is bad news for everyone. It's not in our interests to support or use proprietary software and we should not do so where alternatives exist.... this is the reason you have been redirected to this page; alternatives DO exist!
The Alternatives
They (the IP protection "acronym Mafia", centred around groups such as WIPO, FACT, or FAST) would like you to believe that there is no alternative to this state of affairs, but there is – free and open source software.
Of course, in the best of all possible worlds, you'd immediately switch-over to using a wholly free, open source operating system – such as Gnu/Linux (we'd recommend Fedora or Ubuntu in particular). For many people that's difficult because of the compatibility problems some people will experience, especially those who must use documents generated by Microsoft's Vista system. In general most of the things you do on a Windows system are do-able, but sometimes you need to download extra programs (but that can be an issue for those not used to playing around with their computer).
In the short term you can begin by looking at just a
few simple steps – and as the first three point below will also run on
Windows systems the transition is less problematic (for more details see the Free Software Foundation's
Software
Directory site):
- Web Browsers
There are various free web browsers but the most popular is
Firefox – this has an easily downloadable Windows version.
As well as getting a good browser, Firefox can be radically customised by
loading a large variety of plug-ins that can perform different functions
within the browser, some of which are made to work with specific web sites
to make accessing data easier. If you like Firefox you can also get involved in
promoting it through the
Spread Firefox initiative. - Office Suites/Word Processing
Again there are various office suites – word processors, spreadsheets, etc. – available for free software systems, but on Windows systems the simplest option is
OpenOffice. This is fully compatible with most of the files generated
by Windows systems, and provides the same functions and usability for most users.
Also, unlike many Windows-related sources of help, there are many free, on-line
sources of help, information and tutorials to get you started using OpenOffice. - Email/Messaging
What email programme are you using? Again, there are many different options for free software users, but for Windows users the simplest option is
Thunderbird.
The email counterpart to Firefox, Thunderbird offers much of the same functions
as Outlook and is runs a whole lot better. Again, like Firefox, if you like
Thunderbird you can get involved in spreading the message about free software
through the Spread
Thunderbird initiative. - Finally of course, ditch Windows!
Your long-term goal should be to make the transition to a wholly open operating
system. There are many examples of this happening and the benefits it can bring.
For example the recent transition of the the entire
French
Gendarmerie Nationale to Ubuntu Linux; the police force is to switch 70,000
desktops over to Linux, two years after switching its browsers to Firefox, and three
years after dumping Microsoft Office for OpenOffice (the is projected to save
€7 million per year!). The
Free
Range Community-Linux Training Centre Project will be producing new
resources to help people to install and use free software operating systems (see
the J-series
of publications).
Also, don't forget that this is "free software" that we're talking about – you can quite legally copy the CD or DVD that you receive your software on, give copies to your friends as presents, and then encourage them to make the transition too!
The change of course will take a little time and effort, but the benefits in the
longer-term (both practical and financial) will pay-off quite quickly. The
difficulty in changing systems is of course the whole point about proprietary
approach – by locking users into the restrictions of specific
programs or systems, by preventing them easily configuring their system to do
what they want to, or removing any expectation that the user should be able to
change how they run their computer, the proprietary business model de-skills the
computer user and thus creates a situation where alternative options are
practically impossible for the average computer user to consider.
Looking at this relationship in its most simplest terms, proprietary software
is a form of exploitation –
it demands that the user part with their money if they wish to continue using a
program/their computer, either to get support or more/new software, rather than
finding ways to solve the problem themselves or with the help of friends and
associates.
About the 'Browser Alert' Tool
Of course, this page/this campaign could be seen as an anti-Microsoft action. The fact is that all intellectual property rights are a problem. However, Microsoft, because of their market dominance and their use of a business model which stresses the need to lock-up intellectual property in preference to developing good software, are emblematic of this wider problem. In that sense, due to their demonstrable hostility to free software and open systems/documentation this is in essence, albeit not solely, an anti-Microsoft campaign.
Click to
test your browserThe 'Browser Alert' tool (it's actually version 3 – an upgrade of the older versions developed over the last few years years ago) will be formally released in the Autumn once we've evaluated it's performance on these new pages. At that point we'll release the code (under and open license!) so that anyone else who wishes to can include it in their web pages.
If you have any feedback on the 'Browser Alert' tool you can email the electrohippie collective – ehippies@fraw.org.uk.
