argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Technology
When views change
Diana Franco Eguren 2022ko irailaren 14a

I will take part in a workshop and the professor has asked me for a favor. Before I explain the favor, I have to tell this professor that he asked a group of social educators to explain what free software is. It is an interesting challenge because, although this group has a great sensitivity and commitment to human problems, the influence on technology has not yet been internalized among the tasks necessary to influence society.

I was very fascinated by what the professor asked me: he wants to work with a small theater the experiences of Richard Stallman, creator of the free software movement. Instead of telling, Stallman wants to imagine how this situation lived and how these experiences changed the point of view to better understand it.

In this story, as in many human stories, the experiences to question the nature of things are fundamental. I would say that changes are more experiential driven than intellectual process. Then humans will look for ways to make sense of everything to bring together points and complete the story.

And so that you do not feel like it, I will tell you the experience of Stallmen, your experience in creating a free software dissemination movement. At the research center where I was working, a company gave them a laser printer, a new technology that would give them problems. Stallman, used to programming machines, created and improved systems, wanted to improve the printer, but didn't have the code of the machine. A researcher from another university knew his code and came to him. But he refused because he had an agreement with the company that created the machine not to extend the code. Stallman realized that in the world he couldn't improve technology for a better society by such agreements. And he changed his view to influence technology. He began to understand a different way of influencing technology, related to the way of understanding technology itself. The program proposed by this professor, Margarita Padilla, is interesting.