Re: [Audio-video] http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ghm2013/Samuel_Thibault_Jean-Philippe_Mengual-Freedom_0_for_everybody_really_.text

[Garreau\, Alexandre]

On 2014-07-13 at 01:20, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> That article argues for a misguided definition of freedom.
> Our response is 
> http://gnu.org/philosophy/imperfection-isnt-oppression.html.

« Liberté0 » also discussed about it, we agreed on the general idea,
underlining the misunderstanding that where made about this issue, we
did it in French, but since you can read French, here the archives of
the discussion:
<http://sympa.liberte0.org/sympa/arc/liste/2014-05/msg00022.html>

It could be interesting to discuss about it with you and maybe to
publish an answer precising the exact separation between these two
separated and parallel fights (the FSF one against oppression, and the
Liberté0 one against disability/imperfection/ignorance/whatever), *and*
the strong importance of the latter, and the links they can have (at the
end the promotion of semantic interfaces development can lead to better,
more powerfull software, largely better for free software movement),
maybe ending with some promotion of this parallel fight, just as FSF did
regarding other important but separate things like Net Neutrality :) and
some standard inclusion, just as FSF did regarding other important but
separate things like internationalization.

> That speech starts from a misguided definition of freedom to equate a
> lack of functionality with oughtright oppression.

This speech tries to link the two problems: the freedom of “free
software” as defined by FSF (i.e. a social, political, and ethical
problem) and the freedom of disability (i.e. a technichal, biological,
human problem), trying to make a relationship between both problems in
the interest of “freedom” in its widest meaning. Therefore this “freedom
#0” isn’t a misunderstanding or a potentially nocive redefinition of
free software, but a *transposition* of one of its principles.

It is interesting to notice how this speech ends: nobody argued to
change the definition of free software, but instead several GNU Hackers
showed their strong interest in seeing accessibility added to GNU Coding
Standards just as internationalization, for the same reasons, and a lot
others.

On 2014-07-13 at 16:03, Luca Saiu wrote:
> That speech has the unfortunate problem of conflating the issues of
> software freedom and practical usability.

I think Samuel didn’t make a mistake/misunderstanding of free software
definition but just tried to make GNU Hackers take into consideration a
different but parallel issue and questionned their goals, trying to
transpose the freedom #0 on another layer…

> stating that people have some right is distinct from providing the
> practical possibility of enjoying such right under all circumstances,
> and the problem remains *even when the right is stated with the force of
> law*, and even despite all good-faith efforts.  (My favorite example is
> the right to life as mentioned in many national constitutions and the US
> Declaration of Independence.)

I would recall that free software has necessary two goals: the goal of
any *software* (allowing the user to do things they wouldn’t be able to
do otherwise, increasing their *technical* freedom), and the goal to do
it *freely* (allowing the user to do it without oppression of a
proprietary software, of its programmers, increasing their *social*
(political) freedom). The issue of free software is that arbitrary
limitation of technical freedom against the user will is oppression and
it should never happen. But you can’t take into consideration the social
freedom free software gives without thinking to what the software allow
to do technically, since it’s its main purpose: a free software that
doesn’t work wouldn’t be usefull and thus liberating anyway. For
instance, it wouldn’t has been so usefull that Emacs were free if it
weren’t so powerfull. The fact a useless software is free doesn’t have
any importance. The importance a software is free is proportional to
it’s usefullness.

> As you argue, freedom #1 allows one to change the software, lifting
> practical technical limitations which get in the way of exerting freedom
> #0 for some users.

We can also interestingly notice that very often we say a software has
to have good and complete documentation to be fully “free”, even if a
lot of free softwares don’t and they’re free anyway. It’s for the same
reasons that internationalization or usage of texinfo is required for
GNU packages, and for the same reasons accessibility should also be
required. Not to be a free software (we can’t enlarge so much its
definition), but to be a GNU package, for instance.

On 2014-07-13 at 23:57, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Nonetheless the GNU Project urges developers to think about providing
> accessibility in the initial design of a new free program.

If the GNU Project could urges developers not only to “think” about it
—just as for internationalization— it would be even better :) Also, an
accessible program is a semantic (better factored) one, so it’s good for
any program to be accessible, thus it shouldn’t be limited to only new
free programs, not only the initial design, but to all programs,
everywhere, even late.

> Curiously, a few days ago I was pressured hard at the RMLL by people
> who advocated the confused idea.  They have even made an organization
> called "freedom zero".  How sad -- since we could support their goal
> if only they did not make this confusion the basis of their argument.

The idea of “freedom zero” in that meaning isn’t a confusion but a
transposition. It’s a simple pun to promote accessibility linking it to
free-software culture.

On 2014-07-14 at 23:20, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Yes.  I should have said, we could support their campaign for this goal,
> if only they did not link it to confusion.

Therefore any help to the promotion of accessibility would be a lot
appreciated :)

Sorry for the largeness of mail…

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