On the planet Earth, happenings of humans revolve mainly around little pieces of paper – and these little pieces of paper had a lot to do with the happiness and sadness of humans, which is strange because the pieces of paper were neither happy nor sad. In fact, the most they did was suffer in silence as they were passed around, torn, and occasionally used to light cigars. Large grants have been given by governments around the world to study why the pieces of paper never become disgruntled or even depressed, but since the grants consist of little pieces of paper, they are doomed by the Heisenberg Principle (and Planck's constant does not apply to emotions).

The pieces of paper were used to allow for bartering; they permitted people with paper to get things that were usually not paper. This system worked pretty well, but some institutions were not satisfied that the system worked well enough. So they handed out pieces of plastic which in turn could be used for bartering – but this is a strange system, since the plastic was never lost in the transaction. Instead, they were trading virtual pieces of paper and using the plastic as a part of an extended abacus. The problem with this system was that it magnified debt while making one have to pay the debt to continue the credit. Soon everyone had a piece of plastic, and debt became a commodity to be bought and sold.

This is not a story of plastic and paper. Well, maybe not directly.

During this same era, humans figured out how to get transistors to work together, which is interesting considering how little humans work well together. But in getting these transistors to work together, they created a thing that they called a computer, and people who liked to see things work together (but were unable to work together well with other people) were drawn to them. Then other people became drawn to them.

The computer beeped, it spat out text and it could do your math homework if you were smart enough to program it. This is funny because one had to really understand the homework to explain it to the computer well enough to have it do your homework for you. But this was done, and people who could explain things to computers became known as programmers (which was a lot shorter than 'those-strange-people-who-can-talk-to-collections-of-transistors'). They called their creations – strings of 1s and 0s – 'software', which confused a lot of people because it seemed very hard to create software.

The computer was separated into hardware and software – the physical and non-physical, respectively – and they were sold for pieces of paper or through plastic transactions together, for the same price, and one could do what one wished with them once bought. To further the recursion, these computers used little pieces of plastic called diskettes, which held software. This is much like other pieces of plastic; the plastic itself has no value, but the contents on the plastic do.

But then someone who depended on plastic a lot thought of something which he thought was a great idea. He decided he would use software like plastic, only instead of magnifying his debts, he was able to magnify his credit. He 'licensed' software he bought from someone else, and he got a certain amount for every bit of software distributed.

This is an interesting trick, since the software required the hardware to run, and vice versa. But people were still put off by the fact that it was very hard to communicate with clusters of transistors, so they decided to pay a corporation instead of having to deal with large clusters of transistors. All would have been well, except when people had problems with the software they could not see how it worked and fix it, and a few people began to realize that when they 'bought' the software they did not actually 'own' it. It was simply licensed to them for a fee, and they could not use it in any way that the license did not permit.

People began to also realize that software was intangible – one could copy it and give it to a friend, and it would work on the friend's computer once the friend's computer was of the same type as the original.

Realizing that people were getting smart, avid marketers for software decided that intangible things are difficult to sell, so they promptly placed them on diskettes in very pretty boxes so that people would buy the pretty boxes. A lot of money was spent on the boxes, but the boxes themselves had no value when it came to using the computer. Software was then sold as boxes, and to this day it still is. But boxes have no value. If you do not believe this, try buying an empty box at a software store.

One day, in a place of learning known for Artificial Intelligence and for not being a cave, someone with intelligence scratched his beard (sans a rabbit bone, despite urban legends to the contrary). He demonstrated some severely high non-artificial intelligence, as well as morality. He saw the problems with not being able to fully use software. He saw a lot of other things as well, but for the purposes of this story, we'll focus on software.

This individual, rather than lie down in front of the raging pretty boxes of no value, decided that he would do something effective. Maybe he hopped off to the pub for a pint (The Free Beer Foundation is another story), maybe he didn't. Either way, he decided that there should be freedom for the users to access information stored on plastic diskettes - which, incidentally, they bartered for with paper or plastic. They were also asked if they wanted the pretty boxes in paper or plastic, since boxes get put in bags on Earth.

After some thought, and perhaps some scratching of the beard, he decided that software, or programs, should allow users the following freedoms:

(1) The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
(2) The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
(3) The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
(4) The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

There was no burning bush, and it's possible that the wording has changed over time, but the concept is as much there as the page you are reading. This one. No, over here. *Whistle*. Right.

These points, which at first may have been more or less than 4, are now 4, and are now showcased in the Free Software Advocates Guide To the Galaxy as a part of the Free Software Definition.

The bearded man is commonly known as RMS, which is difficult to pronounce in Human English, but perfectly sensible in the native language of Betelgeuse 52. On Betelgeuse 52, RMS sounds exactly like it looks on Betelgeuse 52.

Now, software needed something called an Operating System to run things while the user manipulated data and generated sufficient PEBKACs. The problem that faced RMS was that the Operating Systems at the time did not have these 4 points, which at the time may have been more or less than 4 but equal to the present 4.

So, using his skills as a programmer, he started a project to write an operating system which gave users these liberties. Others joined him to write this operating system, using cooperating silicon based machines connected by copper wires and long strands of what is called 'optical fibre'. Word has it that this project is powered by the Brownian motion found in tea as well as coffee, and is known as the 'Infinite Possibility Drive'. The project progressed quickly, and is of note to the Free Software Advocate for practical purposes.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world continued to purchase pretty boxes with plastic in them, but never truly owned the contents of the plastic. The corporations that specialized in selling boxes grew rich, and created other things to get richer. They did things which were at first allegedly naughty and later found, in fact, to be naughty. But their naughtiness when it came to the pretty boxes isn't as interesting as their naughtiness in assuring that the things contained on the plastic in the boxes never truly belonged to anyone who 'purchased' them. Everything here is rumoured to be powered by the random calculations of discounts and rebates at consumer electronics stores, a branch of mathematics known as 'Rebatomathematics Drive'. This is also of note to the Free Software Advocate, but only for informational purposes.

And in between Rebatomathematics and the Infinite Possibility Drive, many people tried to tie the two together. Some penguins were purported to have been changed into eagles when the two were mixed in varying proportions, and this was considered good for the few seconds before they were sucked into what is called a Rebatomathematical Entropy Field of Infinite Possibilities, which on some planets is considered Hades.

Others have had more luck. For now.

Life forms on other planets were interested in these issues because of the phenomenon of strange creatures, such as lawyers, appearing on their planets, starships and so forth. Gambling debts were accrued as to what would appear when and how, and as such the various extremities of creatures across the galaxy were broken by a mysterious being named 'Guido'. This caused large medical bills, and it is only because of these large medical bills that the Encyclopaedia Galactica sent out 3 of it's best correspondents.

As a result of Rebateomathematical Entropy Fields of varying strength, these correspondents suffered strange fates. One of them appeared briefly before the Ravenous Bugblaater Beast of Trall without a towel, and lead a brief but quite interesting interview which wasn't sent due to the problems with very sharp teeth and electronic devices and flesh. The second became part of a Montey Python movie, for eternity (nobody knows which one because Brian can't communicate from the movie). The third turned into a Penguin and was last heard of on a planet which is labeled as 'Mostly Harmless' in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The third Encyclopaedia correspondent started the chain of events which are written of in these pages.

The last message sent by him was, "I've turned into a Penguin, and the fish are very good here."

In a chain of events which are supposed to be temporally impossible in the standard Universe, this signal was sent to the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy main repository, where it was printed and promptly sat on for 3 years by a Cravenous Pigeon who was filling in for a security guard. It was only after the Cravenous Pigeon was ousted by the appearance of a large feline that anyone could enter the office and find the message, but it's fortunate that it was sent back in time 3 years, such that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was able to send it's worst correspondent to evaluate Penguins which used to be Encyclopaedia Galactica correspondents.

Little did they know...