Go and China

It is said that a society casts its shadow over whatever it produces. By examining the games, the food, the writings of a society, one can catch a glimpse of how it lives, grows, believes, and prospers. Go (the chess, not the programming language) is no exception. Through playing it, one can clearly see a picture of ancient Chinese society.

Let's start with trivial stuffs. Go board has 19x19 intersections, thus 361 possible moves, which is approximately the number of days in Chinese calendar year. There are stars, signifying the importance of astrology (not astronomy, mind you) in Chinese society. The pieces are black and white, similar to yin and yang; black always moves first, since yin is at disadvantage to yang. The objective of the game is to gather territories, or "lands", and pieces survive with access to land, die without land; this shows the importance of land in Chinese culture and history; early on, great countries have great land mass, weak countries are small, with small, sometimes bad, lands.

However, the description of Chinese society and history goes beyond just these little things.

First, notice the board, and how a game usually plays out. The center is wide open, but difficult to defend; the edges and corners are small, but defensible, thus usually becomes the bases for players. Look at China. The center, basically the land area between Yellow River and Yangtze River, was the fertile area, with most people and activities. However, it was difficult to defend. On the other hand, the sides, with mountains to the west, Yangtze River to the south, desserts to the north, and sea to the east, were the land where one can "advance to strike, retreat to defend" easily. Most major dynasties (Chou, Qin, Han, Shu and Wu during 3 Kingdoms period, Tang, Yuan, and Quing), most influential states (Qi to the east, Chu to the south, Qui to the west) took advantage of this strategic elements. They first occupied an easily defensible areas (usually to the West, since it is mountainous enough to defend, but near enough to advance), then gradually expand their territories until complete dominance. Such is a standard Go strategy: first occupy the corners (easy to get, easy to defend), then extend to the edges, then strive for the center.

The second importance element to Go playing is access to land. A surrounded group of pieces is a dead one. To invade, to attack, to occupy, first the access to free land, preferably 2 eyes, are vital; then, one can think about how to fuck with the opponent. This reflects faithfully to most of Chinese history (the reason I say most is because I have not read the rest). When one reads novels and treatises on Chinese military, the first, foremost, highlighted, repeated over and over part is not the valor of the soldiers, not the strengths of the generals, not the masses of the armies, but rather food supply. Most of conflicts are like this: A attacks B, B kills of A supply, A retreats. First question before a campaign? Well, do we have enough food? Second question: how do we bring our food to where we are attacking. Third one: where is enemy's storage of food? Let's burn/rob/destroy it. A hungry army is never brave, strong, or honorable. Contrast this with Western world, in which valor seems to solve everything. It was not until near modern time that serious treatises on military matter were written. What's their content? An army matches on its stomach. Of course, this reflects on its chess: the knights, for goodness' sake, jump just about anywhere, with no blockage, no exceptions.

Thirdly, but very importantly, one can see that Go pieces are identical to each other. Chess? Well, a rook is a rook, and even if it is in the corner, it's still more powerful than a pawn. All pieces are on an absolute scale of power: a Queen is more powerful than a Rook, which is more powerful than a Bishop, etc. With Go, the world is different. A piece, in and of itself, has little power. Its position, its timing, its allies, its enemies decide its power. Even "power" is relative. An extension is strong, but with little promise; an invasion is weak, dangerous, and risky, but if it succeeds, boys, you cripple your opponents (usually, this is worth like 20 to 40 points. Huge deal). This relates to how Chinese look at a person. The Western super-hero myth is that there are super-heroes, who are just better than others (the mass, the mob) in just about any respect, and they will prevail, no matter what. This heroic quality is something built-in, born-with, and no amount of education, food, training can put it there. Chinese, on the other hand, believes that all people can become sages, gentlemen, or productive. As a popular saying goes, the situation makes the man. Any person can learn and train to be great; any person can trays down to criminals. Thus, China can be said the be the first truly democratic culture which encourages all people (well, all men) to aim higher, to become the best they can be, and to contribute to their world.

Amazing, is it not? I would say that Western classical culture (Greek and Roman) is superior to Chinese in most tangible stuffs (architecture, art, maybe even math and philosophy), but governmental and structural aspects, China just rocked. Let's face it, they had fucking to many people. Thus, their board game just rocks. Well, one may say that such is why China fell behind later. Who knows?

State of Political Debate

The other day, my sister and I had small silly discussion over various stuffs, and at one point, she said something like, "I wonder why Obama does not destroy the stock market." She went on and said that the market was only "played" by rich, white men, so it was extremely racist, and it nourished the already rich population, while left many many black (colored, I guess), poor people in poverty. As such, it should be destroyed, and Obama, as a black president, was most suited to destroy it.
I was, frankly, stunned. Not that it was a bold stuffs (believe me, my sister is always a bold, smart, and passionate person, and I have heard much more interesting stuffs), nor was it that bad of an idea either, but it was just totally out of the line. To destroy the stock market (totally, and not allowing it to pop up again) means to shift away from capitalist mode of production, and requires, literally, bloody revolution to get there. Okay, don't want to get to the dirty details here, but to destroy the stock market right now is unrealistic. Plus, there was no promise either. It's kind of like moving to a different city: you may get better, but you can also get worse, but you surely will have to pay for the price to move. In short, there is no reasons (except if you are a hard core Marxist) to "destroy the stock market."
It seems to me that my sister, much like myself when I had been at her age, was utterly under-informed about what role the stock market plays in an economy, as well as why only white, rich men benefited from it (mostly because of inequality in wealth and education). The market only seemed to her bad, racist, and bad in general. Thus, she wanted to destroy it. An utterly understandable and reasonable idea, if one knows not what a stock market is.
Worse, I also see this kind of things going on in the political debate everyday. For example, "government spending is bad during recession" (WTF?), or "gold standard will solve everything." How about this: "the government oppresses us, so we should curb it down to nothing but military"? Or, "Intelligence Creation is a science, and the 'scientific community' is stupid and rejecting anything unpopular." The list keeps going on and on and on. No, these things are not even controversial, they are flat out unrealistic, contradicting within themselves, or provenly wrong multiple times. Still, people keep on arguing for these propositions, getting passionate to the point of bigotry, pissed at anyone disagreeing with them, and refusing to even consider any contradicting evidence.
To make the matter worse, there is a weird kind of philosophy in Western world that if you hold a deeply unpopular idea, you are being Copernicus or Galileo, fighting for truth against the mindless, stupid, uninformed mob, struggling for the betterment of your world. This, of course, is bullshit. Remember, popular ideas get popular for a reason. Remember, also, that Copernicus and Galileo's works were accompanied with concrete evidences, observations, and proofs, and these proofs are irrefutable. Lastly, remember that these works were not formed in days or even months: they were accumulations of worries and questions spanning centuries (Ptolemy model was formed in 2nd century, only rejected by Copernicus in 16th century, that's 15 centuries!), and took decades to finalize, prove, and perfect; they also usually require advancement in multiple other aspects of the society (steering away from the Church, invention of telescope, etc.) to appear. Thinking up an idea from nowhere, supported by a small group of people, with no concrete evidences, you are not holding truth, but just get in the way of other people.
Yet, the political sphere seems to be filled with such people: eager, passionate, intelligent, but under-informed, under-educated, and misled; sometimes, brainwashed and conditioned. They then join political parties that take advantages of their weaknesses for different, sometimes utterly contradicting, purposes. It breaks my heart every time to see how freedom lovers get fooled into shams like Tea Party (which does not resemble the original one at all), or weird churches, or paying for incompetent people who cannot even manage their own lives (yes, I am talking about Sarah Palin and the likes).

Obama the Great President of United States of America

It seems weird to me that everyone shows unsatisfactory about Obama in some degree. Everyone, from conservative to progressive. Well, it goes without saying that conservative people don't like a progressive/centrist president, but even progressive and liberal people show a lot of impatience and annoyance about Obama, too, which leaves me with so much wonder and amazement. They accuse him of not doing anything, most importantly, to which I deeply disagree. In my book, Obama is the most productive and influential president ever since FDR. Well, maybe since George Washington.

First, let's talk about laws and policies. Obama has been in office for 2 years, and he has accomplished an array of impressive tasks:

• Rescue of the economy
• Health insurance reform
• Financial reform
• Lift the requirement for vehicle efficiency
• Pull the troops from Iraq
• Two judges in Supreme Court

Pause, breath, and think. Two years, mind you, not even a term. He has done more than Clinton did in 2 terms! So much for doing nothing. However, influence of Obama does not stop at policies. Let's look at it from a wider viewpoint.

• His skin color alone, or together with his middle name, are enough to be revolutionary. A black president with a Middle Eastern (Muslim, even) middle name. This fact is enough to shape history!
• Obama brings back some authority of the US. First, we update our environmental standard, put ourselves in a better positions to negotiate with India and (especially) China over this matter. Furthermore, we have pulled out of Iraq, gained back some good will of our European allies. Oh, and did I mention Obama administration also put 2 warring Middle Eastern leaders into peace talk?
• Being a black president with Muslim middle name, Obama ushers the conflict and stereotype of American people into the surface. Before him, everyone knows that this country hates Islam, but no one knows for sure. Now, it's clear: Islamphobia is showing its worst face, and hard-core Christians unveil their ugly sides. Obama has been wise to stand aside: these social issues must be solved, and thanks to him, they are being solved
• Also under Obama, we seem to experience the most political activity for a while. Well, expectedly, since important issues, economy, health care, wars, financial systems, environment were bring into discussion. Plus, when someone throws insults around, the insulted will respond. To bring these issues into light is a great work.
• Sexual harassment in churches. Doesn't anyone every wonder this: these things have been going on for decades, but only under Obama time that they grab headlines. Why? Maybe because of some random coincidence, but maybe because of the social unrest Obama provokes. As I argued, Obama brings many hidden issues onto surface; those court cases, thus, receive their due attention.

Let us step back, and rethink Obama. Beside the first 2 presidents (who laid down the foundation of this country), who can compare with Obama in term of influence? Teddy Roosevelt only had a few puny trust cases; Reagan only had a little recession (solved by the Fed for him, but he got all the credits; funny) and a dying opponent (again, they kill themselves, but Reagan got the credits); Kennedy really only had a few good speeches, and screwed up everything else (literally, btw). Puny presidents aside, FDR had World War II and Great Depression, but that's only a part of Obama's contribution (true, his wars are smaller, but Obama has two unpopular wars, plus the current recession was potentially as bad as Great Depression); Johnson inherited most of his issues from his predecessor, whereas Obama actually calls attention into these matters; Lincoln did have a great conflict on his hand, but he handled the Civil War badly and totally screwed up the end result. Oh, remember that those presidents only solve matters. Obama shows hidden problems. Remember last time someone tried doing that? Clinton tried with homosexuality and the army, and got flamed so badly that he stopped working altogether; Carter tried with inflation, and everyone ousted him out of the office.

One more thing to consider: Obama has always remembered to represent the whole United States of America. He is a progressive, liberal person, but his policies always seek out and (try to) please conservative crowd. This gesture brings him absolutely nothing whatsoever, but he still does it. Think about his bravery! Okay, maybe because his sponsors want it that way, but if such is the case, he would not have reformed anything whatsoever. Obama reformed, and he remember to put everyone's opinions on board! True, the result is not optimal, but it's democracy. What is more important: an optimal solution or a democratic one? Remember, we don't live under a tyranny.

All in all, Obama has been a great president. Frankly, none of his critics would have the courage and skills to do all of his doings. They would be partisan, oppressing, or forget to look at all places. They would handle the social unrest over-eagerly, or ignore those problems altogether. They would forget that their country consists of not just progressive and liberal people, but also conservative ones. True, it would be nice if everyone is progressive, or everyone is conservative (depends on your view), but real world is imperfect, and trying to impose one's wish to the real world is terrible.

Now, more than ever, Obama needs our support. He needs us to push through the remaining reforms; he needs us to solve the social conflicts; he needs us revive the economy. Of course, he also needs us to remind him and Congress what need to be done (aka criticism). However, at this particular moment, when we are so near our visions, our desired change, our destination, we abandon him, amass. For what? Because of what? Because he is different from us? Because he tries to be nice and democratic to people (something that we always champion)? Because he tries to avoid all-out tyranny? Humans are funny, eh?

Review of Ocean Thirteen movie

Recently, thanks to a silly mistake when ordering on Netflix, I got a chance to re-watch the movie Ocean Thirteen. What a delightful experience! After going through a long with too much junk, Ocean Thirteen reminds me of what Hollywood actually can do.

In Ocean Thirteen is a fight between 2 sides: the impregnable Willy Bank against a gang of professional criminals led by Danny Ocean. First, Bank screws with a friend of Danny's gang, Reuben, by cheating a contract between them; this leads to a heart attack for Reuben, and his friends (Danny et al) revenges, utterly screws Bank for good. Such is the plot. Simple, eh? Good, honorable guys destroy bad, dishonorable, and egoistical guy. Oh so typical?

The thing most impressive about Ocean Thirteen is its subtlety, in everything. It is really funny, but at no point do you see any kind of stupid face, out right jokes (except a few good natured ones shared between friends). Jokes are some details that just force the laughter out of you (young guy: She is a "cougar". Hm, good job finding out), or very funny plot development (Mexican workers, stand up for yourself! Yeah, from the middle of nowhere, a rebellion comes) or some little gestures (Guy A: you ready? Guy B: I am born ready! Guy A: rolling eyes). In fact, there are almost no swearing (well, there are a little bit. Remember, we have a bunch of friends working together), all things are kept under tight control. Yet, it is so funny, so laughable, so memorable.

Furthermore, the confrontations in Ocean Thirteen surpass those of any recent movie. You see, we are talking about a fight with billions of dollars at risk from both sides, with success and reputation of one man and survival of another. The operations range from collecting intelligence, gathering allies, raising funds, sneaking spies, buying illegal info to bombing, earthquake, perfecting defense. Everything. Well, no shooting, but we have bombing, so that's close enough. The playground extends from Las Vegas to Mexico. In other words, a large, expensive, exhausting fight. However, at all confrontations, the characters are always graceful, elegant, and at ease. There is no flashing of muscle, no swearing, no threatening (except in the very very end, when Bank has already been defeated, and there is nothing else he can do other than throwing empty threats). To be sure, muscles are required; swearing are around; threats are prevalent. However, those are things you keep in your team: outward, the team always seems so sure, so winning, so graceful. Such is height of art of confrontation. As the Chinese says: serious without anger, closeness without flirting. Everything with style.

Talking about closeness, in Ocean Thirteen, there is no hot scene of kissing and pressing each other into bed, except pressing your opponent into bed. Well, maybe because there are not enough women around. Similarly, there are no screamings, crying, or any extreme emotional showdowns. All actions, all displays, all faces, all moods are under tight control, at all time. However, this is not to say that there is no friendship, no love, no closeness. On the contrary: one can feel the worries of Danny and gang toward Reuben (any mentioning of Reuben's suffering immediately convinces any member of the gang to do anything), their mutual friendships, or Bank's pride toward his successes and his hotel, or his desperate at the end. The emotions are there, and expertly portrayed. However, in the fight, everyone keeps the head clean, stable, focus. You can't win a fight by shouting, crying, or those immature actions! You win it by calculating, planning, preparing, an executing.

Lastly, Ocean Thirteen also refuses the normal kind of winning. In movie these days, the phrase that "this is the only chance" is overly abundant. Seriously. Like, "gotta save the planet, this is the only chance" or "gotta help that guy, this is the only chance" or that kind of thing. Of course, there is only one person (usually a guy, but occasionally a girl) who can do it, and that person has exactly one chance to do it. Why? Because there is precisely no planning, only plain reacting to the opponents. Of course, since the guy must win, the opponents are always stupid and weak and exposed. Not in Ocean Thirteen. Bank is impregnable. He shows no weakness, only perfection. For important event, he works tirelessly on preparation, has test-run, and ensures everything is perfect, to the last details that he can manage. Similarly, Danny does not rely on one chance. He and his gang plan ahead. They cover all bases, have multiple plans, with exit strategy. They also go as deep as possible to avoid Bank's scrutiny, take advantage of their allies, and play on weaknesses of Bank and his associate. Such is how you win a fight. As some great people say, wars are not won in battle, but in planning rooms. Stupid attitude of "there is only one chance" can do nothing but look helpless and wait for luck.

Watching a mastery movie about mastery is refreshing. Why can't we have more movie like this? Why do people must keep churning out shit like Salt, Casino Royale (frankly, I am so sick of that movie that I did not bother with Quantum of Solar), and the likes? I mean, they are about spies, for goodness' sake. Yet, the whole movies are about "one chance" and flashing of muscles. Or guns. Oh, and stupidity and stubbornness. Like in Salt. The only one with ability to think in the beginning of the movie is the Russian spy head, who is fucking stupid. If he understands human nature enough to work on a grand plan, why can't he realize that keeping the husband alive is much more useful and secure, and killing that husband is prompting that stupid girl to rebel? Oh, and the woman is like "I will kill everyone in my way, which happens to be wandering aimlessly around." Plus, why did she leave the Russian president alive? She did not know if her husband was alive yet. If he had been, would that not had meant his death? All and all, the whole movie consists of brainless people exploding shit off, all for no particular reasons. Oh, plus, if you want "America" (The US, that is. Why, America also consists of Mexico and Venezuela, guys) die slowly and painfully, don't make a coup! Make it seems like they do it intentionally. For example, put Palin in White House. I ensure you, the US will die slowly and painfully. Or producing more Salt, as we are doing right now.

Thinking on Palin

The news of Becker's little rally today prompts me to think about Sarah Palin (since she was the only political person there). After all, Palin is the hottest political star in Alaska, and one of the hottest around the country, right?

My biggest question ever about Palin is: how can she be so popular? As a celebrity, as a potential presidential candidate, as a politician (and thus, leader). How? Some people may see her a joke, but a significant portion of the population, aka many many people, still consider her seriously. This is mind-boggling.

What don't I like about Palin? Not her political position, to be sure. Actually, I empathize with the right wing position: a small government (if possible) is good; a religious organization is important (topic for another day); honor and valor are always sexy. It is very understandable for a person to hold such beliefs! No, I don't have any problem with Palin's position. I am against her ability, personality, and style.

Let's talk about ability. What do I know about her ability? Maybe not that much, but I do know for sure that she is a bad educator and leader. How? Her daughter got pregnant pre-marital. That speaks for everything. Let's face it: A woman unable to teach her own child has no education/leading ability. A Chinese classic says: chaotic root can have no ordered branches. In other words, a person unable to stabilize his/her own family cannot stabilize a country. In the same fashion, a person not able to write a single line of C code can stop bragging about his/her future perfect operating system. It's impossible. Thousand mile journey starts with a single step (or, in our case, a single acceleration; seriously, we drive these days). If you cannot teach your daughter, tend your family, stop dreaming of the White House. It's stupid, for yourself, your friends, your people, and your country. Oh, and your party, too, since you splitting the precious votes. So much for Palin's ability.

How about her personality? After all, we can always assemble for her an all-star cabinet, and just let her keep check on everything, right? Well, so long as she is a good person. Is she? During McCain's campaign, she burned a big hole in his already lacking budget, for what? Men's underwear? Expensive clothes? What kind of people would do those things, you think? Not frugal, prudent, and careful ones. After all, you can dress decently without those things. I don't mean second hand stuffs, of course, but designers' clothes are really unnecessary. How about men underwear? Is it really okay to use other people's campaign money to dress up your husband?

No, we are not done with Palin's personality. What happened to McCain after his campaign? Well, he got a lot older, generally shut up, and tried to get his job done. Sure sure, he is no longer maverick, but he does his job. What has Palin been up to lately? She resigned right after an ethic investigation (or during it, anyway, you get the idea). If Palin indeed wants to run for president, is it not better that she gathers some more experience, given her track of record? But no, she resigned, and then started to do a bunch of PR things. Very flashy. In fact, flashy is the right word to describe Palin's action. Always big. Attention sucker. Now, in my book, those people are untrustable. Furthermore, how can you trust the person who don't even seem to care for the very man who put her into spotlight? Have you ever seen any news in which Palin shows any kind of remorse over McCain's lost? No, she was too busy blaming him for it, and preparing for her own (potential) campaign. Nice personality, eh?

Lastly, on personality issue, let's talk about the email incident. Palin used Yahoo! mail address, with easy to break password, to deal with Alaskan official matters. In my book, that means sloppiness. Oh, talking about sloppiness, since when is politics, national politics, has become a picnic matter? We are dealing with the largest economy in the world, with the most powerful army, with the most nuclear power, with the most pollution, with the most, well, you get the idea. And she kept on her stupid "soccer mom" drama. You know, Washington might be farmer, but when he was Mr. President, he acted like one. A gentleman with stately affairs to attend, not a silly little farmer doing big jobs. It shows that you take the role seriously. Not Palin. Apparently, when she was running for Vice President, she didn't even know Vice President role! This is extreme lack of care, extreme sloppiness, extreme disrespect.

Lastly, I despite Palin's style. Fire blowing one. Listen to her speech. Look at manner. It is either stupid act of soccer mom, or "look at my pretty face," or inflammation, overly hot stuffs. BTW, I have no problem with soccer mom: if you are one, good job. Taking care of the home, the kids, and the big kid (aka husband) is very difficult. Thank you for your hard work. However, please don't try to run for White House at the same time. Let your useless husband, who knows nothing about the hard-work at home, do it. Thank you. If you want to run for White House, cool, then let someone else (preferably your husband) take your kids to soccer. You have more serious affairs, most of which are not safe to discuss at soccer matches, to consider. Oh, and please act like a President, too. You are the face of the greatest nation on Earth, so please do act like the most serious person, not a silly woman needing to send her kids to soccer matches. Secondly, stop clinging to your feminine status. Some pundits argued that Palin showed that feminine was accepted in political sphere: while Ms. Clinton worked like a man to her current position, Palin winked to it. Excuse me, but do Presidents of China, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, etc. care? No. They are important men with important matters. Do you know that just because Kennedy acted like a kid in front of Soviet president that we had the Cuba Missile Crisis? Yeah, and now we are talking about presenting a woman with immature, silly, soccer mom style. When was the last time you hear a soccer mom winning a serious negotiation? Yeah, never.

However, her most dangerous style is the inflaming one. You see, the world is already a chaotic place. Next to China are Tibet and Vietnam; next to Russia is East Europe; around Iraq is Middle East (and Osama somewhere); south of America has Venezuela. We have enough flame, thank you very much, can we please work on putting them out? Criticize Obama all you want, but for one thing: he actually seems to try to calm the world down. Europe and Middle East are sick of America (obviously, that means the US) mucking around with Muslim, so he reduces the troops there. Everyone (by that I mean everyone) worries about global warming, so he sets example. By the way, look at how he deals with China: instead of bullying her into green measure, Obama first shows example. China can kick all it can, but it will have to submit: for everyone else does. That's putting out flame. Palin? Apparently, the only way she knows how to solve problem is to burn. Oh, then tell everyone that it's God's will. First, stop calling that name, it's disrespecting. Second, until you can show an angel descending from the sky holding The Lord's order, stop pretending that you are doing The Lord's will. Oh, and don't address "His" or "He", it's sexist. The Lord is neither male or female, remember?

In the end of the day, I fail to see anything positive about Palin. Well, she's pretty, and she does seem very friendly, which might make her a good soccer mom. But leading? Spare me. Spare my world.

Free Software is Not Free

Being the minority few who still believe that Free Software is fundamentally better than Open Source (except the confusing name, that is), I was always amazed by how people refuse this ideal. After all, Free Software (sometimes in conjunction with Open Source software) offers so much more than proprietary ones: free systems (GNU/Linux, BSDs) are much more stable than proprietary ones (Windows, Mac); also cheaper, easier to use (with/without command line interface), prettier, and do everything you want (except when the users are professional, but that's vast minority; even in this case, there are extremely capable alternatives). Why don't people use it? Why do they stick to those buggy, stupid, (extremely) expensive, and most dangerously, extremely invasive and rude programs and systems? What's wrong?

I spent a lot of time considering on this matter, constructing all kinds of theories, all of which can be defeated by one way or another (remember, FSF works to defeat those silly theories on daily basis), until one day, I suddenly realize: Free Software is not free. Not by normal standard, not by Richard Stallman's own standard. Free Software may be free some a minority point of view, but from the majority user base (including myself most of the time) it is not free!

Before actually explaining, let's remind ourselves of the standard of software freedom: to use, to learn, to modify/customize, to share, and to sustain/encourge more freedom. The last thing is implicit, and it distinguishes between Free Software movement and Open Source movement: OS don't really care if you use its products to enslave others, FS do. A piece software is free iff it allows the user to do these 5 things. Oh, and be reminded that we don't talk about the top 0.01% of computer users who can speak 10 different programming languages, can recompile the whole system if needs be, or even properly reinstall their system. We are talking about the general public, whom I define as with little to no skill in administrative and programming tasks. Mind you, these guys are the majority, and freedom only meaningful when they have it. After all, rich people can always work around the laws, and power users can always have the freedom they want.

Anyhow, how many of these 5 freedoms do Free Software provide? Let's check:

To Use

Let's imagine a person without driving skill is given a car; does that person has freedom to drive? No, he does not. Yes, he has permission to drive, but not freedom to, because, in the end of the day, he cannot drive anyway. Similarly, majority of Free Software are not free to use, because the users are not well educated in how to use them. When Apple launched iPhone, it also launched a huge ad campaign, in which it litterally taught everyone how to use multi-touch. There are countless classes on how to use Microsoft Windows. Professional help for these things are available everywhere. Now, except when you know the circle of GNU/Linux users, learning how to use it is painful, to say the least. When I first tried out GNU/Linux, it wiped out my personal data. It's 7 years ago, but the sentiment is still around: it takes weeks to get back to speed with a new systems, months to understand and fully employ it, provided that you have both time/effort and help to do so. A person with minimum skill and willing to master the computer is, thus, offered nothing but a free installation disc. That's not freedom to use. It's permission to use!

Worse, many of the current data is in proprietary form. For example, video codec, image formats, document formats, etc. Is it the users' fault that those things are in such format? No. It's history's fault. However, Free Software movement punishes normal users for this situation: abstinence from prorietary codec means no movies; abstinence from Microsoft Office means countless documents cannot be render properly; etc. In the end of the day, the users, who don't have tools and control over these data, don't have freedom to enjoy/work with them. Let's not pretend that we can convert these things to free formats. It's a fantasy, and should remain there. In real life, the users have no freedom to use, end of the story.

To Learn

It is ultra important to learn about the software that we use, to know what it does to our data, our identity, our hardware, right? Therefore, FSF has always pushed programmers and vendors to provide "accessible" form of the programs, aka the source code. However, how accessible is thousands of highly optimized C source code files? This question is meant to apply to everybody, including Richard Stallman himself. How many people can make sure that the millions lines of code of Linux are not posting personal data somewhere, open backdoors, and cripple the system? I doubt if Linus himself can. Those things can be embedded somewhere in the huge huge maze of stuffs of the source tree. Are you sure you can learn anything?

Thus, to a user perspective, source code is about as good as binary code: the user cannot understand either. Thus, providing source code does not give freedom to learn. Stallman can talk about how you can hire professional to check these things for you, but what if that person cheats on you? Furthermore, if you buy Windows, I am pretty sure you can hire Microsoft to do things for you, too. Thus, Free Software does not provide anymore freedom to learn than proprietary software.

To Modify/Customize

Generally speaking, there are two ways to modify/customize a program:

1. Modification of Source code
2. Extensions

The first one assume, obviously, the understanding of the source code. Refer to the freedom to learn above, please. Furthermore, in order to build a program from source, you also need to know how to use a bunch of tools (make, ant, compilers, whatnots). Therefore, to most people, including many many programmers, this freedom is really not there.

The second customization way is the same for both proprietary and free software. You can change how Windows looks, extend Photoshop, etc. as easy as customizing X, write Emacs Lisp, etc. Actually, I would argue that it is easier to customize Windows than X, because there are so many pre-built customization that you can just download and use. There are many more tools too, and some of them are easier than modifying X.conf and a bunch of other little files scatter across the system.

In concrete term: proprietary software can actually provide more freedom of customization/modification than Free Software, due mostly to its dominant position, as well as its care toward end user, and lack of assumption that everyone should just compile everything from source.

To Share

Finally, something Free Software really offers. Nothing to argue here.

To Sustain and Encourage Freedom

I personally believe GPL is an awesome license (provided that you have no NDA to worry about): it's good for normal people (you can share), it's good for vendors (your investment cannot be stolen), it's good for business (no worry in patents, unlimited customization, low cost). However, the license is not enough for the whole business of freedom. You also need education (which FSF has done an extremely bad job), encouragement (again, abstinence from proprietary formats only harms the process), marketting and informance (again, bad job, FSF), as well as earning the correct mindshare (frankly, after a while, now FSF is perceive as either nerddom or communist organization, neither title is good).

Free Software movement is hero of digital age: they are the first one to remind us of our basic freedom in a new territory. However, they have been lost. Instead of providing real alternative (like GNU system to prorietary Unix/Windows system), they have been accusing (DRM is bad, iTunes is bad, Windows is bad; and? what to do about it?). Instead of spreading the words about freedom, they have been whining about the lack of, and done a lot of counter-productive stuffs like calling for boycott and that kind of things (gee, now you are spreading Microsoft/Apple name instead of your own; as if those entities have not advertise enough). Furthermore, their dogmatism (say no to proprietary codec being the most annoying one; drivers being the second) punishes the wrong people for the situation. Those things can sustain/spread freedom in theory, but in practice, as long as you don't have a commanding majority behind your back, trying to boycott, abstain, etc. only hurt your position, because people won't switch over. When people won't switch over, how can you attain commanding majority?

In conclusion, Free Software only fully provides one freedom (to share), partially 2 others (to use and to sustain), and completely fail 2 others (to learn and to customize). Worse, proprietary software poses to provide more freedom to learn and freedom to customize than Free Software! In the end, Free Software, despite its name, its battle, its effort, is not free.

No wonder people still refuse to switch over.