"Measures Governments Can Use to Promote Free Software" (~2011) is stallman's policy document addressed specifically to governments and legislators rather than to hackers, developers, or activists. It catalogs concrete actions that governments can take to advance software freedom, grounded in the observation that governments are large-scale software users and that their procurement and policy choices have significant effects on the software ecosystem.
The document covers several categories of government action. On procurement: governments should prefer free software when acquiring systems, require that software developed on public contracts be released as free software, and not accept proprietary software that cannot be independently audited. On education: schools should use free software in their curricula, both because this is more ethical and because it teaches students skills that transfer to any software environment rather than locking them into particular vendors. On law: governments should reform copyright law to restore the original public-benefit orientation, resist extending copyright terms, oppose software patent regimes, and not mandate or promote digital-restrictions-management systems.
stallman also argues that governments have special obligations around security and sovereignty: relying on proprietary software for critical infrastructure means relying on systems that cannot be independently audited and that may contain backdoors or vulnerabilities known only to the vendor (or to foreign intelligence agencies). Free software is not merely politically preferable but strategically necessary for national and governmental security.
The document reflects stallman's engagement, particularly during the 2000s and 2010s, with government and inter-governmental bodies interested in free software policy. The free-software-foundation and gnu-project have consistently advocated for free software in government procurement, and this essay provides the policy rationale for that advocacy.
The argument connects to why-schools-should-use-free-software for the education dimension and to surveillance-vs-democracy for the security and democratic governance dimensions.