Society's Lessons or Takeaways From Royal Mail and the Post Office
False accusations kill. Free software lessens the chances of false accusations.
THE UK Post Office is now a private company. I hadn't even realised this until a friend told me this. My friend works there. The Post Office is being accused of killing its workers (my friend got bitten by a dog while on the job*; being a postmistress is dangerous in general, visiting many homes and walking streets with drug addicts). A few weeks back the Post Office scandals returned to headlines, especially here in the UK. For those who don't know, staff of the Post Office was falsely accused of misappropriating or stealing money when the real issue was the software used. It was proprietary (secret) software.
"While there is attention on the Post Office's proprietary software," a friend said to me, "it might be opportune to point out that it is proprietary software and thus without transparency or oversight. These problems might easily have been avoided with a proper FOSS system."
Blame games like those in the Post Office teach us that proprietary software can kill in more than one way. Yesterday in Daily Links we included another link, regarding another country, about many suicides of false-accused people. This was not about proprietary software, but there are overlaps. We also mentioned Dieselgate the other day, as did Professor Eben Moglen and others (at the time), commenting on what it demonstrated (the need for software freedom).
We must strive to live in a society where transparency is assured at least by software freedom, though of course there are many other facets like free hardware designs, free access to information/data and so on.
The Post Office is one of many examples and constant reminders (like Windows TCO) that proprietary software has no room in society. █
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* She moaned in length about how the employer did not even care. She was attacked by a dog, bled all over the place, and she said that they simply didn't care about anything other than profit. Staff was fleeing the employer for many reasons back then. She cautioned about delays and no guarantee of deliveries due to a severe lack of staff. Many lost envelopes, orphaned parcels and so on. That's privatisation in action. Cover-up, lies, mistreatment, and then gaslighting.