Let’s start with a little bit of history.

In 1980, at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, programmers were refused to access the source code for a new printer in the lab. One of the programmers had modified the source code of the previous printer so that it would message a user when a print job was done.

In those days, that was a nice tweak to have when printers were slower and a lot more people shared a printer – and in this case, the printer wasn’t even on the same floor for some people. Yet with the new printer, this was not being permitted to be done.

In 1984, the programmer left to work on the GNU project. That programmer was Richard Stallman, still known by the initials RMS.

That began the Free Software movement, which later spawned the Open Source Initiative. Combined, they are referred to as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) or FLOS (Free, Libre, Open Source).

Let’s not forget where that started: The MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. That’s the first footprint regarding software.

The Present: 2024

In a world dominated by rapid technological innovation, the right to repair and the free and open-source movements have emerged as cornerstones of empowerment and equity in a world that gives more features with less empowerment and equity. While some might see these movements as niche issues for tech enthusiasts or hobbyists, their significance extends far beyond the domain of engineers and tinkerers.

These principles are crucial for a healthy society—one where individuals, small businesses, and communities are not held hostage by monopolistic practices or walled gardens. They’re not just about sticking it to billionaires; they’re about fostering innovation, protecting the environment, and ensuring fairness for everyone.

The first footprint of this was in 1976, with the Open Letter to Hobbyists. As fortunes were amassed the influence over Law increased. As influence over law increased, we ended up where we are 48 years later.

The Right to Repair: Reclaiming Ownership

When you buy a device—a smartphone, a tractor, or a laptop—you might assume you own it outright. In fact, for those of us old enough, we know it used to be that way. The reality is more complicated.

Many manufacturers use software locks, proprietary tools, and restrictive warranties to make it difficult (or impossible) for you to repair your own property. Instead, they steer you toward expensive, manufacturer-controlled repair services or push you to buy new products altogether.

Does this sound at all like the original issue that started the GNU Project, where printer software couldn’t be modified to make it more useful?

Planned obsolescence became part of the churning of packaged hardware and software that we see to this day – remember that the next time you see a Black Friday sale. That churn keeps money flowing and anything that threatens it, such as people fixing their own stuff when they can, threatens it.

Why This Matters for Society

• Economic Fairness: The right to repair levels the playing field for small businesses and independent repair shops, allowing them to compete with large corporations. This keeps repair costs reasonable and accessible, especially for low-income communities.
• Empowerment and Self-Reliance: When people can repair their own devices, they’re empowered to solve their own problems. This reduces dependence on monopolistic corporations and fosters a culture of learning and resourcefulness.
• Environmental Impact: E-waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world. Repairing and extending the life of devices reduces unnecessary manufacturing and landfill waste, making it a crucial step in combating climate change and assuring that the ground water doesn’t end up with landfill byproducts in it.

To be balanced, there are also arguments against the right to repair. The unintended consequences that article posits puts the responsibility on the consumer to make products cheaper, and yet, how much stuff do you need if you can just fix it instead of shoving it into a landfill?

In a time when the world is dealing with climate change, some parts of the world more than others, what gets into the water table and the economic cost of keeping the water tables usable has an indirect economic effect.

FOSS: Breaking Down Barriers

The open-source movement champions the idea that software—and often hardware—should be freely accessible, modifiable, and shareable by anyone. At its core, it’s about transparency, collaboration, and the democratization of technology.

Why This Matters for Society

• Innovation Through Collaboration: Open-source projects like Linux, WordPress, and Apache have driven some of the most important technological advancements of the last few decades. When ideas and code are shared, innovation accelerates, benefiting everyone.
• Transparency and Trust: Open-source systems are inherently transparent. Anyone can inspect the code to verify its integrity, identify vulnerabilities, or understand how it works. This builds trust and prevents abuse by powerful corporations or governments.
• Access for All: By removing barriers like expensive licenses and proprietary restrictions, open source ensures that individuals, small businesses, and under-resourced communities can access cutting-edge technology.

A Threat to Monopoly Power: Ecosystems and Echosystems

Both the right to repair and open-source movements challenge the dominance of corporations that thrive on locking users into ecosystems they can’t escape. With social media and social networks, these also become ‘echosystems’, where information and content that is spread across social media becomes trapped in echo chambers not only of the systems, but within it, echo chambers that can include misinformation and outright falsehoods.

These corporations argue that restrictions are necessary to ensure safety, security, and quality, but in reality, it’s often about protecting profits. This is why lobbyism by tech companies is done. Given the expectations of the political climate in the United States from 2025 onward with the new President elect , which has drawn bipartisan criticism, it seems more important now than ever to be able to fix your own stuff, or hire someone cheaply who can.

The right to repair and open source movements create options instead of driving you down railroad tracks.

Why Billionaires Don’t Like It

• Loss of Control: Billionaire-backed corporations want to maintain control over their products long after the sale. If you can repair your own iPhone or install your own software on a tractor, their carefully constructed profit margins are at risk.
• Competition: The right to repair opens the door for smaller players to enter the market. Open-source software levels the playing field for startups and independent developers, reducing the stranglehold of tech giants.

But this isn’t just about undermining billionaire control—it’s about creating a fairer economy where everyone has a chance to participate and innovate. It decentralizes control.

How It Benefits the Everyday Person

• Farmers: In rural areas, the right to repair means farmers can fix their own tractors instead of waiting for costly, manufacturer-approved technicians. This ensures their livelihood isn’t disrupted by needless bureaucracy, and could decrease the cost to produce. Do you really want farmers standing in line to get the latest tractor like people do with iPhones?
• Consumers: For individuals, it means being able to replace a smartphone battery or repair a laptop without paying exorbitant fees. It also means devices last longer, saving money and reducing waste. You can get more out of your devices for less.
• Small Businesses: Repair shops and independent developers thrive in an open-source and right-to-repair ecosystem, creating jobs and strengthening local economies. Sure, not everyone can fix things, not everyone can write code, and that’s ok – it encourages people willing to learn and create good reputations.
• Distribution of Wealth Within Local Economies: If you’re paying someone within your local economy to fix something or adapt something to your use, that money stays in your local economy, which helps decrease foreign exchange issues of smaller nations while possibly even allowing increase in foreign exchange through some aspects of open source.
• Dignity: What you own is yours.

Bridging the Digital Divide

The digital divide – where marginalized communities have less access to technology – can only be narrowed if technology is affordable, accessible, and adaptable. Open-source software like Linux powers countless low-cost devices, providing affordable alternatives to expensive proprietary systems. Similarly, the right to repair ensures that older devices can be refurbished and reused instead of discarded, giving more people access to functioning technology.

Communities using their own resources to repair and modify what they own, even at government levels, means less reliance on external entities – and that translates to more self-sufficiency.

Environmental Stewardship

We’re in the middle of a climate crisis at the point where most people are concerned about degree instead of denial. The “throwaway culture” encouraged by planned obsolescence is unsustainable. Repairing and reusing devices reduces the demand for new products, which in turn reduces mining, manufacturing, and transportation emissions. Open-source hardware designs can even lead to the development of more sustainable, repairable products.

Artificial Intelligence

All of this impacts the present hype regarding artificial intelligence – which isn’t always artificial intelligence as much as a prediction machine, or marketing hype, or both. There has been criticism of the lack of open source in models such as by ‘OpenAI’, resulting in OSI creating a definition (OSAID), and that OSAID being criticized too.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has also had AI pop up on it’s radar.

The bone of contention is the training data, and Creative Commons has weighed in on the commons and AI as well. Creative Commons also brings up creators having more control over their works, and with the recent issue of Sir David Attenborough’s voice, we may have to look beyond that. We may have to well look into what makes something the work of someone and not.

Before AI, the problem of algorithms controlling what you see on the Internet was an issue. Now with what is marketed as AI, the problem has increased exponentially, and that drives decisions of all of us.

How easy would it be to control what people see for, as an example, an election? How much will this impact the critical thinking of future generations? Given that ChatGPT is considered to be about twice as persuasive as a human in April, 2024, there should be a bit of concern. Not too long ago children were eating Tide Pods. That was before AI. What hallucinations in an AI could cause similar societal issues? Even indirectly, the inability to have insight into training models and the push for consumerist AI should be a point of concern particularly when people are so concerned about books in the school libraries.

We’re still figuring out the water footprint of AI.

In all of this, we really haven’t made progress into the insight of what is being called AI, and it requires a lot of groundwork related to open source, the right to repair, and open content and control of the content. It also begs the question as to whether a human’s voice should be considered an aspect of content.

This poses very new problems and it will impact everyone. There is an odd poetry that the GNU project was inspired by events in the MIT AI Lab. With a potential impact on so much, we as regular people have so little impact.

A Call to Action

To support these movements, individuals and communities must advocate for change:

• Support Legislation: Push for laws that protect the right to repair, such as those being passed in the European Union and some U.S. states.
• Choose Open Source: Opt for open-source software and hardware when possible. By using these tools, you’re contributing to their growth and sustainability.
• Educate and Share: Teach others about the benefits of repair and open-source. Knowledge is power, and the more people understand, the harder it will be for corporations to maintain restrictive practices. Share this article, as an example.

Conclusion

The right to repair and open source are not fringe issues—they are essential principles for a fair, sustainable, and innovative society. These movements challenge the monopolistic power structures that restrict access to technology and push us toward a future where everyone has the tools to thrive.

Given the amount of information and impact of AI in the present day, where information itself is being scraped and churned into a product with lawsuits related, means that smaller economies and individuals have less control of the information they get from them and are financially discouraged from adding content to social networks because they’re simply training someone else’s AI. That touches on privacy as well.

This is about ensuring that technology works for all of us, not just for the few.

It’s about reclaiming our autonomy, protecting our planet, and building a world where innovation and progress are truly accessible. Together, these principles can help forge a more equitable and resilient society.

Let’s make it happen.