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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/your-digital-life-is-not-yours.

Dear Free Software Supporter,

An invisible force is shaping your world. It curates the news you read, suggests the music you hear, filters the job applications you see, and may decide if you qualify for a loan. This is the work of machine learning — software that doesn't just follow instructions, but learns and makes autonomous decisions. It's a powerful new kind of code, and it has become the most profound black box ever created.

We're told this development will usher in a new era of progress, but who controls it? Who is accountable when a biased algorithm denies someone housing? What data was used to train the system that assesses your child's educational future? We're not allowed to know. The code is a secret, the data is proprietary, and the logic is often unexplainable, even to those who use or made the system. This isn't just a lack of transparency; it's a surrender of human oversight and a concentration of power unlike anything we've ever seen, and it doesn't end there.

You own your phone, but someone else dictates its functions. You may use social media, but an algorithm you can't inspect shapes the reality you see. You own your car, but you can't fix it. You own your smart TV, but it's watching you. In every corner of our modern lives, we're surrounded by things we've purchased but are forbidden from truly possessing or understanding. The culprit isn't the device itself but the invisible code running inside it, and the fight for control over that code is one of the most important battles for human rights in the twenty-first century.

This isn't a niche issue for coders and tech enthusiasts; it is about your fundamental rights. It's about whether you're the owner of your digital life or merely a tenant living at the mercy of someone else.

The term for this freedom to control your digital life is "free software," coined by activist and programmer Richard Stallman. One must understand what "free" in "free software" means. In English, the word "free" can mean "without cost," as in free beer, or "with liberty," as in free speech. The free software movement is, and always has been, concerned with liberty, not cost.

Four essential freedoms define free software:

• The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0);
• The freedom to study how the software works and change it to do what you wish (freedom 1);
• The freedom to share copies with others (freedom 2); and
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).

Anything that doesn't grant you these four freedoms is known as "proprietary" or "nonfree" software.

Free software might sound abstract, but consequences from a lack of it are profoundly concrete and affecting you right now. Consider farmers in the rural United States. They might buy a state-of-the-art John Deere tractor for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but when it breaks down, they can't repair it because the tractor's essential functions are run by proprietary software. Farmers own fifteen-ton machines but are helpless because the software obeys John Deere, not the farmers. This isn't just an inconvenience; it is a threat to their livelihood, all to protect a company's repair monopoly.

The same principle applies to your car, your smartphone, and even your refrigerator. When Apple intentionally slowed down older iPhones through software updates — a scandal known as Batterygate — it demonstrated their ultimate power over a device you supposedly own. The manufacturer decides its lifespan. You bought the device, but the company holds the keys to determining what it does and how it works.

Proprietary software is a black box you're forbidden to open, and if you try, you might be labeled a pirate and thrown in jail for years, regardless of why you wanted to do it or how important your reasons were. You're expected to accept the software along with whatever it does, and in doing so, you cede control. This power imbalance does more than just hurt our wallets; it fuels an unjust world.

This system concentrates power in the hands of a few tech giants. They become the gatekeepers of information, art, and communication. The algorithms that determine what you see on social media, the news you read, and the apps you can install are proprietary secrets. They can manipulate public opinion, silence dissent, and shape culture without any democratic oversight. We're living in digital kingdoms ruled by unaccountable corporate monarchs.

We need to demand technology that respects us and empowers us to build a digital society on a foundation of freedom where the user is in charge, rather than a system based on control and exploitation. A future where a few tech monopolies gain more and more control over our daily activities isn't inevitable, and it hasn't always been like this. To regain control, we must first understand how we lost it.

In the early days of computing, everyone had the right to run, study, modify, and share their software. It was a time of collaboration and unity, when it was unthinkable for users to have any less control than that. However, this spirit of cooperation began to wane, and with it, the world of computing underwent significant changes. Software, once a common good, began to be seen as a resource that could be owned and controlled. The era of proprietary software was replacing the one of collaborative culture. People were legally prohibited from sharing, and the spirit of community and cooperation was being replaced by control. Code became a source of division, a tool for control.

A single, powerful anecdote perfectly captures this shift. At MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, a programmer named Richard Stallman grew frustrated with a new Xerox laser printer that frequently jammed. His solution was simple: modify the program to automatically notify users on the network about the jam, saving everyone time and frustration. The problem was that he wasn't allowed to; the source code of the program was a secret. Though a programmer at another university had the code, he was bound by a non-disclosure agreement and refused to share it. This wasn't just an inconvenience; it was an ethical crisis in miniature. A practical problem had become impossible to solve, not for technical reasons, and most definitely not because it was better this way. A barrier was intentionally placed to deny users control over the software they used.

This moment of frustration ignited the spark for the free software movement. In 1983, Stallman announced the GNU Project, a plan to create an entire operating system composed exclusively of free software. Its name, a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix," was a clever declaration of its purpose: to be a Unix-like system built on freedom, not restriction. Two years later, he founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to provide the movement with a legal, administrative, and philosophical foundation.

To ensure user freedom was protected absolutely, the FSF codified the four essential freedoms discussed earlier. These freedoms weren't arbitrary; they were the direct, practical antidote to the freedoms users were losing over their software, designed to guarantee that users would always be the masters of their technology. The central argument of the movement is that proprietary software is a fundamental social and ethical problem, creating an unjust power dynamic where the developer controls the user. The four freedoms are the computer user's defense against this injustice. Unless you control the software, the software will control you. In short, these four freedoms ensure that your computer takes its orders from you, and only you.

This October marked a milestone in the history of computing: the fortieth anniversary of the FSF. Looking back over the past four decades, the achievements of the movement are nothing short of remarkable. From the initial vision of a completely free operating system, the GNU Project has blossomed into the GNU/Linux system, empowering millions of people worldwide to reclaim control over their computing. Today, thousands of free software applications exist. This success is built upon the foundational philosophical infrastructure created and championed by the FSF.

The challenges may evolve, from the original struggle with a jammed Xerox printer to the dangers of machine learning, but the core principle remains as vital as ever. This is a testament to the movement's unwavering commitment to user rights. Readers are encouraged to join this ongoing mission, ensuring the light of freedom never dims.

There are many ways that you can build this free future:

• Embrace freedom: Take the empowering step to use free software. Install an entirely free GNU/Linux distribution and discover the world of applications that respect your rights.
• Become a steward: Get involved in the vibrant free software community. Contribute skills to existing projects through coding, testing, documentation, translation, or by joining a local LibrePlanet group.
• Support the FSF: Reinforce the crucial work of the Free Software Foundation. Becoming an associate member of the FSF or donating enables the FSF to continue defending user freedoms, developing essential infrastructure, and advocating for a future where all technology empowers its users.

The code running our world can be either a tool of empowerment for all or control over all for a few. Every time we accept proprietary software, we normalize a world where we own nothing and are granted privileges at the whim of a distant corporation. We must demand to be more than just users of our technology: we must fight for the right to control it. The future of our freedom depends on it.