Freedom of Science

In Free Software and Social Justice Eben Moglen writes:

As steel is replaced by software, more and more of the value in society becomes non-rivalrous: it can be held by many without costing anybody more than if it is held by a few.

The same is true for human software, our language. As long as human software is not free the revolution of free computer software will not be complete.

Parallels between free software and free science:

1. Scholasticism is a giant corporation just like Microsoft

2. Microsoft has monopoly on computer language and Scholastic Doctors have monopoly on human language

3. Freeing software and breaking Microsoft’s monopoly, even though not complete, led to new discoveries

4. Freeing human reason from Scholastic Doctors’ monopoly will similarly lead to a tremendous advancement in science

ShareThis