07.05.21
Gemini version available ♊︎Liberation Sentry, Not ‘Open Source’ (Openwashing)
Summary: Do not be seduced by the ‘Open Source’ crowd; it’s looking to accomplish not necessarily things that truly matter to society and actually promote justice
THE TITLE of the blog says “Sentry”; this was a suggestion made by Richard Stallman about a decade ago.
While we recognise that different crowds visit this blog for different reasons (e.g. EPO staff flocking for updates that the media fails to provide) we think that it’s important for everybody — not just computer geeks — to have computers and computing with freedom. Things aren’t improving, that’s for sure…
“Some compromises are essential for some progress, but concessions that throw away already-made progress are a regression.”One key problem is that people fail to grasp what freedom means in this context; putting aside lingual/semantic issues (e.g. liberty versus free as in zero-cost), many people rarely experience the most extreme edge cases or fail to attribute that to computer freedom (or absence thereof). For instance, some people get in trouble with a boss or a spouse because they carry around a tracking device many call “smartphone” and they occasionally post personal information in social control media. Neither of these things is mandatory; few people are strictly obliged to use those.
Recently we’ve been sharing a number of 2019 talks of Richard Stallman, mostly from his summer trip to Europe (he gave about 5 talks that year in places across Europe). These talks are not exactly concise, but taken in their totality (about 10 hours in total) they cover some of the main ‘theses’ put together by Stallman over the past 4 decades. He will turn 70 over a year from now and he wants to ensure his legacy (and the FSF) can carry on for several more decades. Last week the FSF formally advertised a job opening for its public-facing chief (not the same as the President).
We know that Leah Rowe (of SaveGNU.org) has applied for the job because she told us she had wanted that position and moreover had a solid and unique plan. Rowe is widely known for the work on Libreboot and the tantrum thrown half a decade ago.
Software freedom needs to ultimately become the normal. The “Open Source” people don’t like taking about freedom; they’re probably using Windows and Macs and what matters to them is price or marketing aspects, not human rights. In any event, we in Techrights remain focused on important goals associated with real justice, as per the foundational or objective moralities. We don’t want to ‘mob’ our way into a fake or shallow notion of ‘justice’ and we are not caving to tyrants. Some compromises are essential for some progress, but concessions that throw away already-made progress are a regression. █
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