MatthewCopple
Matthew Copple
Contact Me
Email: MailTo(mcopple AT SPAMFREE kcopensource DOT org)
IRC: PenguinistaKC (you'll often find me in the #ubuntu-missouri room)
Ubuntu Forum Handle: Penguinista
Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/~mcopple
About Me
I am a long-time GNU/Linux user, free software advocate, and neighborhood activist. I recently began the [MissouriTeam], a LoCo organized for Ubuntu users in the Show-Me State.
My Philosophy
I believe that information, like speech, wants to be free. The widespread availability and dissemination of knowledge has made this marvelous era we live in possible. Information is also valuable, however, and there are those who seek to exploit that value at the expense of the rest of humanity.
Information Technology should be an enabler of knowledge. Regrettably, many of our fellow humans are trying to use information technology to restrict knowledge to an elite few -- those with money or power. Technologies such as "Trusted" Computing and DRM are presented to us as benign tools to protect us from terrorists and thieves. They are anything but. They are tools to control what we buy, what we perceive, and by extension, what we think. Consider a prominent software company's recent patent, in which they propose sifting through every piece of information on one's computer in order to bring "targeted advertising" to you. Now, imagine that what they are sifting through is your diary, or a heartfelt letter from a loved one...or the business plan for your next entrepreneurial venture. It gets better, though. You see, once a company gets the right to look at your information, they will soon ask for the right to *own* your information. The company will soon have the right to sell your diary, your letter, your business plan to the highest bidder, all so they can try to sell you more soap, get you to vote for a favored politician, or view a blockbuster movie. Don't think it can ever happen? It already has. If you are American, then your bank balance, your taxpayer identification number, your bank account number, and the fact of whether you prefer to withdraw money from an ATM or in person with a teller already belongs to your bank. Your credit information literally belongs to the three credit bureaus that store it and disseminate it. And Amazon owns all the information related to those books you purchased from them yesterday. Your genetic code -- the internal software that determines if you are blonde or brunette, blue-eyed or brown-eyed, red-faced or olive-complected -- is owned by hundreds of corporations. Woe to you should you ever try to discover your own genetic makeup and publish it without permission from each one!
I support Free Software because it not only enables freedom, it enforces it. I'm not a programmer; I seriously doubt I will ever get an "itch" to add a new major mode to Emacs or contribute a module to the GNU/Linux kernel. I am just a user, but I am a user who wants to know that I control the software, and that the software does not control me. If I want to know why Emacs chops every third "i" out of my letter to my wife, I can just pick up the source code and find out, or have someone do it for me. I don't have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or get told that the software is "proprietary" and therefore denied access to it.
The "Free" in Free Software is about FREEDOM. It is about the freedom to innovate, the freedom to think, the freedom to simply be free. It is about having the freedom to know what your tools are doing with your information. It is about the freedom to spread knowledge to everyone, and not to be bound by someone else's desire to make a fast buck off of information they shouldn't own in the first place.
I use Free Software because freedom is a priceless right. I know it can be difficult to make the connection between the intellectual freedom that more and more people across the world are starting to get accustomed to, and freedom in software development. Software is just a tool, right? Yes, but we interact with our world through tools. We exercise our intellectual freedom by using tools, as well -- the pen, the keyboard, the tape recorder, the podcast, the camera. If someone else controls the tool, however, it is possible for that someone to control how the tool is used -- and who uses it. And that means your freedom is at risk.
Think about it.
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