
   statue of freedom "freedom"
   by Thomas Crawford
   
                             FreeDevelopers.net
                         Frequently Asked Questions
                                      
                     questions and answers prepared by:
                  Kostantinos Tsakaloglou and Tony Stanco
   
                        draft as at February 6, 2001
   `Building a Democratic Company'
   
   What is FreeDevelopers?
   
   Why is it called FreeDevelopers?
   
   What is your goal?
   
   Are proprietary developers the enemy?
   
   Who is the enemy?
   
   When and how did the idea start?
   
   How many people are currently involved?
   
   What is the proposed structure of FreeDevelopers?
   
   Will one have to join FreeDevelopers in order to vote/participate?
   
   Will anyone be able to join?
   
   Will the group be soliciting contributions from software vendors
   
   Where will revenues come from to fund the salaries to the developers?
   
   What is FreeDevelopers's position with respect to other free/open
   software companies that are not democratic?
   
   Why do you believe that this model is preferable, or even viable, in
   this environment?
   
   Is software more like law or more like literature?
   
   What are the main ways in which technology could `enslave the world'?
   
   Briefly, why do you go so far as to dub proprietary software companies
   as being `evil' and `the enemy'?
   
   What do you envisage being the biggest problems FreeDevelopers will
   face in the future?
   
   What are the more difficult decisions you are debating?
   
   Please could you give me a bit more information about the developers
   who have joined.
   
   Is everyone who wants to join allowed to?
   
   Do you all tend to have similar political views?
   
   Would it be fair to describe the free software movement as a
   `resistance movement'?
   
   What are the similarities and differences between FreeDevelopers and
   Trade Unionism?
   
   Would you say that FreeDevelopers has anything in common with the
   anti-capitalist (Seattle, WTO, etc.) movement?
   
   Please could you expand a little on the ways you see companies selling
   and distributing Open Source software as becoming `exploitative'? Is
   this a commonly held view among developers?
   
   Why do you think you can successfully build a democratic company when
   it's such a difficult thing to do efficiently?
   
   How convinced are you that it will work?
   
   Would you say that some of the principles of free software could be
   applied to research and development in any other fields?
   
What is FreeDevelopers?

   FreeDevelopers is an international, democratic company of free
   software developers, whose goal is to replace all proprietary software
   with free/open software, worldwide. The company will be owned by the
   free developers of the world, and it will pay its free software
   developers the same world wage regardless of where the developer is
   geographically located, thereby treating all developers equally.
   
   See our site at FreeDevelopers.net for more information and to join.
   
Why is it called FreeDevelopers?

   It is FreeDevelopers as in Free Software Developers, but also as
   FreeDevelopers as a free people, not enslaved by proprietary software
   companies.
   
What is your goal?

   Our goal is to defeat proprietary. Our goal is replacing all
   proprietary software with free software. Not just making trivial
   software like the print drivers free software, but all software,
   especially the latest and most innovative technology.
   
   In short, we are here to change the software development paradigm for
   the world from a proprietary software development model to a free
   software development model.
   
   This is philosophical war against proprietary software. And it is a
   war that we must win for the safety and freedom of the world going
   forward.
   
Are proprietary developers the enemy?

   No. Proprietary developers are not our enemy. They are misguided
   friends fighting on the wrong side of this war. They just don't
   understand how their actions hurt themselves and all other software
   developers, as RMS has been explaining for all these years. They may
   be mercenary fighters that currently fight against us, but they are
   not our enemy. With education and a way to pay them as much as they
   get now, they will eventually voluntarily join us and fight on our
   side against their old masters.
   
Who is the enemy?

   Our enemy is the proprietary software companies and the managers at
   the top of those companies. These are the people that
   disproportionately benefit from perpetuating the system of proprietary
   developer servitude, which results from hiding the code. As Richard
   Stallman has said, hiding the code divides and disenfranchises the
   developers, thereby empowering the proprietary software companies as
   it weakens the developers. This cabal will fight us furiously and to
   the end.
   
When and how did the idea start?

   Tony Stanco founded FreeDevelopers after consulting with Richard
   Stallman for 8 months. Richard Stallman is the philosopher and chief
   spokesman of Free Software, who in 1984 started the Free Software
   Foundation and GNU project project to replace proprietary software
   with openly inspectable software. For 16 years, the world did not
   understand him as he warned of the problems and immorality of
   proprietary software.
   
   Tony Stanco, who was a senior securities attorney in the Internet and
   software group at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in
   Washington DC, realized in 1998 that proprietary software was becoming
   a threat to world freedom (as evidenced by the fears encapsulated in
   the Y2K bug and the Microsoft trial). He realized that secret,
   proprietary software had to be replaced soon, before technology
   enslaved the world. It became apparent to him that proprietary
   software was putting the fate of the world in the hands of a few
   powerful, unelected businessmen (mostly from America). As Harvard
   Professor Lessig had stated, software is law, and Tony feared that
   machines in the very near future would be a non-human police force
   enforcing those laws and answerable only to those self-appointed few.
   
   After researching the subject, Tony quickly discovered Richard
   Stallman's work and realized that he was absolutely right and that
   free software was the solution for keeping the world free. That free
   software just HAD to replace proprietary software for the good of the
   world, as Richard had said for all those years.
   
   Tony, however, also realized that free software needed a better
   business model to pay its developers, so that free software could more
   readily defeat proprietary with its legions of well-paid developers.
   
   It was on this business plan that Tony heavily consulted Richard for 8
   months in early 2000. While it became quickly clear that a successful
   business plan for free software was feasible (because of its superior
   development methodologies), the fear arose that this software company
   would become even more powerful than any other in the world and that
   it would, thereby, simply replace one software king with another. And
   that was unacceptable because that would create more problems for the
   world, rather than solve any.
   
   The issue was that traditional corporate theory organized the
   corporation as a feudal kingdom with a king at the top, and with
   everyone else's energies used to support that king. While this system
   works fine in competitive industries, where competition acts as a
   strong check on the appetites of any particular king, it would not
   work with software, because software, by nature, monopolizes. A new
   system had to be developed for software. But what?
   
   This is where fate stepped in. While at the SEC, every day Tony walked
   from one side of the Capitol to work on the other. One day while
   struggling with this problem, he looked up at the Capitol dome, home
   of modern American democracy, and asked himself why could not the
   company be democratic? Nations are. Why couldn't companies be, too?
   Democracy, after all, was the traditional check on tyrants.
   
   Up until now, the supposed reason why companies could not be truly
   democratic was that democracy was perceived as a fair but an
   inefficient management organization. That following Plato's precepts,
   the most efficient organization was to place experts at the top.
   Democracy had always been seen as paying for freedom with efficiency.
   And while people were willing to make that trade-off in political
   governance, they were not for corporate governance. But the history of
   the last hundred years (if not for more) has refuted that proposition.
   With the fall of Communism at the end of century, democracy has shown
   itself to be not only fairer, but more efficient, too. So, why
   couldn't democracy work in business? Why not, indeed?
   
   This was a radical thought, but rationally based. Still, would it
   work? No one knows for sure, but FreeDevelopers was set up to test
   that proposition, while it protects the world from proprietary
   software for all the reasons of Richard Stallman's free software
   philosophy.
   
How many people are currently involved?

   More than 450 in less than 2 months from most countries, like
   Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, France,
   Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Netherlands, New
   Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan,
   United Kingdom, United States and others. But that was only by word of
   mouth. We have accelerating growth now and welcome all freedom loving
   people from every country.
   
What is the proposed structure of FreeDevelopers?

   The ideas are only tentative until we discuss them with a
   representative democratic, quorum, but we talking about a sober Senate
   of CS professors and project leaders, and a younger, more adventurous
   House of CS students and developers.
   
   That way the projects become extended classrooms worldwide, where the
   project leaders and CS professors mentor the coming generation as real
   work is done on the projects.
   
   Most of the decision making will go very deep because the Internet
   allows more people to be involved in decision making. So, the
   President/CEO will not be the main focal point and will be rotating
   and elected every year or 2 or 3 from the whole group of developers
   worldwide.
   
   How much decision making can be pushed down depends on the efficiency
   of the system. We plan to go as deep as possible, without an undue
   adverse impact on efficiency.
   
   Also, some dispute resolution system will have to evolve to deal with
   the inevitable conflicts and misunderstandings that will surely arise.
   
Will one have to join FreeDevelopers in order to vote/participate?

   Yes, because developer cohesion will be the only way to defeat
   proprietary.
   
   FreeDevelopers is different from what came before. We are not trying
   to replace one software king with another. Nor are we trying to make
   insider billionaires off of the unpaid work of disenfranchised
   developers. However, the success of FreeDevelopers ultimately depends
   on the cohesion of our developers to fight for our cause. Much like
   with political democracy, cohesion is much harder to achieve than
   factional division, especially when the tyrannies have the money to
   seed faithless dissent within our ranks. Still, democracy won against
   such odds before because of its ideals of fundamental fairness,
   equality and freedom, and we think it will do so, again.
   
Will anyone be able to join?

   At this time we are only looking for people who are pure of heart. We
   are too young and too few to fight the arrayed forces of proprietary
   while at the same time trying to convince people within our ranks why
   FreeDevelopers is the right way to go. Right now we just have to go
   with the people that Richard Stallman has already convinced. He has
   
   been trying for 16 years and if he hasn't done it by now, adding our
   words will not change any minds. So for now, we are just trying to
   gather up those whose hearts have already been touched by Richard
   Stallman for the cause of Free Software. We are not looking for new
   converts, nor do we seek to engage in any new evangelizing.
   
   After 16 years, the non-believers will only be persuaded by deeds, not
   more words, anyway, and so we need to perform the deeds to have any
   reasonable expectation of their future support. As such, bringing in
   non-believers at this point will only slow us down in our mission to
   defeat proprietary by bogging us down in endless arguing over old,
   well-worn issues.tion of their future support. As such, bringing in
   non-believers at this point will only slow us down in our mission to
   defeat proprietary by bogging us down in endless arguing over old,
   well-worn issues.
   
Will the group be soliciting/accepting contributions from software vendors?
If so, even those who produce proprietary software?

   The companies are not the right focal point for us. Our focal point is
   the developer, not the company. Companies don't produce software,
   people do, or more specifically software developers do. As RMS said
   with Free Software, traditional software companies are antithetical to
   a properly functioning software industry, because they divide
   developers against each other, making them constantly have to
   re-invent the wheel, since the companies hold the source code hostage.
   This is not done for the benefit of the developers (or users). This is
   only for the benefit of the companies and their insiders.
   
Where will revenues come from to fund the salaries to the developers?

   We expect to divert 1% of government IT budgets to free software.
   Because free software is such a better software development model, we
   expect to do more with that 1than proprietary can do with the other
   99%, which is obviously a much better value proposition.
   
   We view software as a public good, like infrastructure and roads, so
   the government is the correct entity to fund most of it. That does not
   mean that government should develop software itself, but it should pay
   for it. Just like it does for road projects, where private road crews
   actually go out and do the work, while government pays for it. So
   instead of paying for proprietary software as government does now, we
   expect them to pay for free software. In fact, there are a lot of
   government initiatives all over the world (e.g., the U.S., France,
   China, Brazil, Japan, Germany, etc.) that are looking to do just that.
   
   But we are not suggesting a software tax or anything like that. We
   just want 1% of what governments are paying now for proprietary
   software. Other users like businesses and people can free-ride on
   that. This is just the way most road are done. Each business does not
   construct its own roads for their own exclusive use. That would be
   ludicrous and a waste of scarce resources. We are just taking the
   Information Superhighway metaphor to its natural conclusion.
   
What is FreeDevelopers's position with respect to other free/open software
companies that are not democratic?

   We are trying to divert software money from going to proprietary
   software. That^1s where the money is and they are the ones that harm
   the industry by dividing the developers and having them constantly
   re-invent the wheel.
   
   The current free/open software companies are all doing a great thing.
   We are really not competing with them, because as long as the software
   is free, it really does not matter how it gets there. We are just
   trying to defeat the proprietary software companies.
   
   We are experimenting with a democratic organizational structure, which
   is different from other free software companies, just so developers
   have a choice.
   
   The right solution will eventually emerge. Maybe it's us, maybe it's
   someone else. It really doesn't matter as long as the software is GPL,
   so everyone can share it, and the developers are treated fairly.
   
The most successful free software projects to date have not been democratic
processes - most authority has been held either by a single individual
(Linus Torvalds for Linux, RMS for Emacs, etc.) or at very most by small,
self-selected groups (samba, apache, the BSDs). Given that no major project
that I know of has evolved from a truly democratic, why do you believe that
this model is preferable, or even viable, in this environment?

   Before the storming of the Bastille and the Boston Tea Party, there
   was a false consciousness about the viability of democracy, too.
   Paradigms change.
   
   Free software is about the eternal human quest for freedom and a
   fairer world for all. That struggle used to be fought in the sphere of
   political governance (or in other words, who got to write the laws
   that control our lives), but that story, for the most part, is over
   with the arrival of democracy worldwide. The struggle now is over who
   gets to write the code that controls our lives.
   
   Professor Lessig is right that software is really law. And, therefore,
   Richard Stallman is right that free software is really about freedom,
   not about a more efficient software development model, as Open Source
   claims.
   
   If you understand that the fight is about who gets to control whom,
   you will see that free software has an ancient lineage that goes back
   to the beginnings of time. You will also understand that the sons, and
   the sons of sons, and their sons after that, ad infinitum will
   continue to hack the mountain until the world is free and fair for
   everyone; by distributing the power to control others to the
   sovereignty in the people themselves, including for now in our time
   the fight for free software.
   
Is software more like law (as Professor Lessig claims) and therefore should
be a public good, or more like literature and therefore should be owned by
the creators?

   This goes to the very heart of the question as to why software is
   different and should not be owned by proprietary companies, though it
   may seem the same as other intellectual property. Unfortunately, it is
   also the hardest to explain.
   
   What is the difference between literature and law? Both are words on
   paper. Why does society allow literature to be owned by its creators,
   while law makers don't get to own their creative product (as a group
   or individually)? While this may seem like a trivial question, it is
   an important and fundamental one without an easy answer.
   
   No one says that law should be proprietary and that people who create
   it should own it. To even put it in those terms seems absurd. But why?
   Because law controls people and they have a inalienable right to be
   involved in what controls them (i.e., Rousseau's idea of a `social
   contract'). Establishing that right has been the ancient and noble
   struggle for democracy over the centuries.
   
   So the question is ``is software more like literature or more like
   law?'' Professor Lessig say that software is law in cyberspace, not
   just like it, because software controls how people interact in
   cyberspace just like law controls how people interact in physical
   space.
   
   If software is law, then the ancient struggle for democracy should
   also apply to software, and is the reason FreeDevelopers is
   democratic; otherwise you would have the powerful, capricious software
   tyrants the world has recently seen.
   
What are the main ways in which technology could `enslave the world' (from
an earlier question) if their model wins over free software?

   Software is the law that machines obey, and machines will define more
   and more how people interact with each other in cyberspace and real
   space. Without being careful about how those machines are implemented
   and where, and who gets to write the software those machines will
   obey, the world can quite literally be enslaved by cyber-chains.
   
   We are about to enter an age that would have thrilled all the
   dictators of the past. An age where machines can be a totally
   obedient, non-human, police force allowing absolute control over the
   movement and interaction of every individual.
   
   Just today I was reading an article in the latest edition of MIT's
   Technology that talked about `hybrid brain-machine interfaces'. Now
   granted it referred to how some are trying to develop interfaces that
   allow the brain to directly control machines. But how far are we from
   hybrid machine-brain interfaces where the causation goes the other
   way?
   
   Since proprietary software is, by definition, unseen code not subject
   to scrutiny by the public, it gives too much power to a few, unelected
   businessmen - mostly from the U.S. Looking back on human history,
   nightmarish scenarios are not hard to imagine.
   
Briefly, why do you go so far as to dub proprietary software companies as
being `evil' and `the enemy'?

   They are potentially evil for the reasons above. They are our enemy
   because our mission as free developers is to stop that world from
   becoming a reality. The goal of proprietary companies is to make that
   goal a reality, wittingly or unwittingly.
   
   Also, I see free software as a continuation of the ancient struggle
   for equality, democracy and freedom that goes back to the first moment
   of human group consciousness. Those ideals have won out in the
   political sphere after 6000 years, and now the struggle continues in
   the commercial and economic spheres. Since software is a new form of
   law, the analogy is all the stronger.
   
What do you envisage being the biggest problems FreeDevelopers will face in
the future?

   When hits the radar screens of proprietary they will come at us with
   full force. They know that only one software development paradigm can
   exist: either it is a closed-code one or a free-software one, because
   at their core these are antithetical. Since their current power over
   the developers comes from dividing developers and keeping the code
   secret, they know they have to discredit us, else lose all their
   power. Since there are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake, plus
   immense personal empires, we are expecting an incredible campaign
   against us.
   
What are the more difficult decisions you are debating between yourselves at
the moment -- I've read about the debate over when to release the first
version of the democracy software?

   Who really is a free software developer? Some, who claim to be, but
   don't understand the animating spirit of free software. So some think
   they can be a free software developer and can still keep some of their
   code secret. Open source has added to this confusion, because they
   allow proprietary layers to be shipped with free software. Thus more
   people want to join us than really should, and we really don't have a
   ready way to look into someone's heart to see what they really think
   as soon as they join. This has created some lively debates. Also, it
   is becoming apparent that there is a generation gap. People who have
   worked during the proprietary age, find it hard to conceptualize how
   free software can work and cling to old metaphors. Students coming out
   of computer science classes, however, have only been working on free
   software and understand it implicitly.
   
Please could you give me a bit more information about the 450 (or is it more
now?) developers who have joined. They're from all over the world, but what
sort of people are they?

   At the last count they were 25 countries.
   
Are they highly experienced developers with a long-term commitment to free
software?

   Most are computer science and/or computer engineering students. Some
   have been working on free software for years. Others are working at
   proprietary companies and work with us at night when they get home.
   
Any specific age band?

   Mostly in their twenties, is my guess.
   
Have most of them worked for proprietary companies in the past -- and if so,
how do most of them make their living at the moment?

   The ones who are not students are mostly working at proprietary
   companies, because there aren't many alternatives available for paying
   jobs in free software.
   
Is everyone who wants to join allowed to, or have you turned anyone down at
this early stage?

   We allow everyone in, but if they show that they don't understand free
   software methodologies and are unwilling to learn, we ask them to
   leave.
   
Do you all tend to have similar political views, or is there a broad
mixture? How have they heard about the company?

   We are technologists from all religions and political views. The
   unifying theme is a belief in free software and the harm of
   proprietary.
   
Would it be fair to describe the free software movement as a `resistance
movement'?

   In that proprietary software is the oppressive current regime that we
   are trying to overthrow, yes. But we are non-violent. Our war is a
   philosophical war over the hearts and minds of developers, showing
   them that by joining together there is a better way. A way that gives
   them more power and allows them to protect the world from
   cyber-chains.
   
What are the similarities and differences between FreeDevelopers and Trade
Unionism?

   This is a great question, because it goes to the heart of the matter.
   We are unlike a trade union because unlike traditional industrial
   companies, software companies have no physical assets. In traditional
   industrial companies, the power flows from the fact that the companies
   own the assets that workers have to use to do their jobs. So employees
   have to unite to have an equal power base to negotiate with the power
   base inherent in the owners of the assets.
   
   But now think of software companies. Where are the assets giving the
   companies the power over the developers? There aren't any. If the
   developers unite, they have the power and there is no countervailing
   power base on the other side.
   
   So do you see what I mean? In traditional companies, workers unite to
   have a countervailing power. But if software developers unite, they
   are the only ones with the power. It is a fundamental difference. That
   is the reason, by the way, that I think that it doesn't matter how
   much money and effort proprietary software arrays against us. If we
   can persuade the developers to unite, we win.
   
Would you say that FreeDevelopers has anything in common with the
anti-capitalist (Seattle, WTO, etc.) movement?

   No, we are not anti-capitalism. Free markets is just another freedom
   of a free people, in our view. Capitalism has historically been the
   greatest leveler, because it produces more for everyone to consume.
   The question has only really been one of equitable distribution of the
   production. And capitalism has been working itself pure on that front,
   too. In its quest to be ever more efficient, capitalism has targeted
   the middle-class for the production, which obviously gets a lot of
   production to the greatest number of people.
   
   But an interesting thing has started to happen in the last couple of
   decades. The ownership of the means of production has also been
   becoming much more egalitarian, because the middle class has been
   buying stock in the companies that are producing the goods in record
   numbers.
   
   There are some problems of corporate concentration by ever growing
   mergers, but appropriate government regulation can keep the size of
   corporations under control, if the political will materializes.
   
Please could you expand a little on the ways you see companies selling and
distributing Open Source software as becoming `exploitative'? Is this a
commonly held view among developers?

   We view open source companies as allies. They also want to change the
   software development paradigm to a free software one. We don't want to
   make too much of the differences because we are on the same side of
   this philosophical war.
   
   But the biggest difference between us and them is over who gets to
   share in the wealth. They have a more traditional model where those at
   the top of those organizations reap most of the rewards, and rely on
   the unpaid work of thousands of free software developers who volunteer
   their effort for the sake of their free software ideals.
   
Why do you think you can successfully build a democratic company when it's
such a difficult thing to do efficiently?

   Democracy is not necessarily about efficiency. It is about safeguards
   from abuse of the powerful. How you get to democracy usually, and in
   this case in particular, is that you back into it, after you have
   tried everything else and nothing else works. I think that explains
   political history for the last 6000 years very nicely. My prognosis
   for software democracy works on a similar logic of elimination.
   
   Traditionally, companies were allowed to be monarchical, because
   market competition acts as the control mechanism on the appetites of
   any one CEO. But in monopoly situations, say electricity or local
   phone service, market controls break down, so that another control
   system was needed to control potential abuse. Historically that was
   government regulation. In fact, the Microsoft anti-trust trial tried
   to use that same control mechanism recently.
   
   But high tech is unlikely to be controlled by government regulation,
   because it is a moving target. It is the exact dilemma that the
   Microsoft court was struggling with: how do you control the abuse
   while not stifling innovation in such a fast moving field run by
   technical experts?
   
   Direct government regulation is not going to work in this case,
   because unlike traditional monopolies there aren't the physical assets
   to regulate. There are only the experts, and government officials are
   ill-equipped to regulate them because of their superior specialized
   knowledge.
   
   Regulation of technical experts is usually conducted by
   self-regulatory organizations (SRO's). Examples of these are the state
   bar associations, medical associations, or stock broker associations,
   and they work generally pretty well in those areas. But they have
   generally failed in software. The reason is that in those other
   organizations the members can compete against each other, whereas
   software monopolizes.
   
   So after surveying all the traditions mechanisms of control and
   realizing they fall short, you are left with democracy.
   
How convinced are you that it will work?

   It has to, because the alternative is unthinkable.
   
Would you say that some of the principles of free software could be applied
to research and development in any other fields; AIDS research springs to
mind? What is it that makes software so different that this whole movement
has developed?

   I haven't looked into it in other areas. My sense is that other areas
   are functioning pretty well with the existing structures. But that
   doesn't mean we shouldn't take a second look at our old
   infrastructures every 50 or so years to see if we they haven't fallen
   into disrepair and we are just perpetuating them because they are
   comfortable habits.
   
   I would still venture to say, however, that the Internet is going to
   allow more democracy overall in R&D and elsewhere, because it allows
   for communications efficiencies not previously available. But in those
   other areas, change will probably be evolutionary, not revolutionary
   with accompanying paradigm changes.
   
   Software in an interconnected world is like law, so there must be a
   new infrastructure in place to protect the world from the
   cyber-chains. It is probably a special situation.
   
   Interviews:
   
   Arun
   (from India)
   
   Dan
   (from USA)
   
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