If you are reading this you probably use free software. In fact, I think the probability that you are reading this article using free software is extremely high, whether it is “free-as-in-speech” as in Firefox, or “free-as-in-beer” as in Internet Explorer. Free software is increasingly being taken for granted and is almost treated as some kind of legal right in some quarters. And so it should be. A lot of people have had to put a great deal of effort into ensuring sufficient “free-as-in-speech” software exists for this to be so. However, over-basking in the sunshine of carefree internet surfing may be as risky as not using sunblock when going out in the sun. Drifting into over-indulging in the candy-shop of license free word-processing and spreadsheet-calculating may well cost you the IT equivalent of a jean size. The liberty of being able to use free software is still at risk.

The amazing money-making tollbooth

Roads, or the vast majority of them, are free for us to use. Yes—I know—we do pay for them in taxes and other means of government extortion, but with the exception of a relatively small number of toll roads we don’t have to pay for them when we use them. If you live in an area where toll roads have become a necessity then please let me apologize for using an inappropriate analogy.

Imagine if you could set up your own tollbooth at the bottom of your driveway though, or if not there, at your nearest major road. You could charge each car a dollar, or even more, as it drove past. Your only cost was the administration of that toll, and you would’’t have to contribute to the building or upkeep of the road. Imagine that there was no alternative route for the cars to use to get from A to B. Imagine if it was all legal and above board. Wow! You could be a millionaire in no time at all. Forget about lottery tickets—This is the real way to get your yacht in the mountains—or whatever takes your fancy.

I can imagine cynics saying at this point “imagine if pigs can fly” or “imagine if politicians were honest” etc, and I admit, the above scenario is unlikely, but what if it could happen? I doubt if you, or the greater percentage of the population, think this a moral or fair way of earning money, but you would need to be very conscience driven not to fall into the temptation of earning loads of cash that way if you actually could. After all—if you dropped a hundred dollar bill in the street would you actually expect the person who found it to try to give it back? What if you found a hundred dollar bill? Would you take the trouble to trace the owner or hand it to someone with whom you think the owner may enquire it? Taking it is theft—but would that stop you? If you have been in that situation and you did the honourable thing then good for you. I salute you. However, you would be in the minority if you did. The majority of the population would pocket their newfound wealth for an extra treat when they next go out. And why shouldn’t they? No one would stop them and honesty is unlikely to be reciprocated if the roles were reversed. In the same vein, why shouldn’t you piles of money using inappropriate toll-booths if you can?

It is very difficult for most people to resist immorally making large amounts of money if they can get away with it

It is very difficult for most people to resist immorally making large amounts of money if they can get away with it. On the other hand, life wouldn’t be so grand if someone else could legally put a tollbooth under these terms, say, at the bottom of your driveway. Suddenly this amazing tollbooth is not quite so wonderful after all. It may be unfair on you—but so what? The person doing it would have every right to. If you don’t like it: you can just stop using your car. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the world is too nice for this to happen, there are a lot of people around who’d be more than happy to take money from you in this way if they could.

I believe, in that case, there would be a race to get as many tollbooths situated at the bottom of as many driveways as possible. It would be a dog-eat-dog scenario, with relatively few participants ending up controlling the vast majority of tollbooths. The effect that it would have would be simply to ensure as many tollbooths inconvenienced and extorted as many citizens in as short a time as possible.

Fortunately for us, there are laws that protect us from that. If any not-so-friendly neighbour tried it, all it would take is one phone call from you and the boys-in-blue would be around to take him away for some serious questioning and possibly a falling-down-the-stairs accident on the way to the cells. You have nothing to fear from a phantom booth mysteriously appearing where it doesn’t belong. Your freedom to use the roads is more or less guaranteed. Of course, that’s assuming there are sane (or at least not too insane) governments in control of things. There’s no danger of your freedom being eroded in this way, or at least, I hope not.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the freedoms of using free software. Government legislation doesn’t protect the freedoms of free software, as much as other aspects of life, due to the fact it’s considered unimportant and isn’t really understood.

Government legislation doesn’t protect the freedoms of free software, as much as other aspects of life, due to the fact it’s considered unimportant and isn’t really understood