Bonum Certa Men Certa

Balancing Activism Against (or With) Basic Necessities and Daniel Cantarín on Our Collective Battle for Software Freedom Around the World

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 16, 2024,
updated Aug 16, 2024

Low-hanging clouds in a valley viewed from above.

Editor's note: It must be noted that many of the words below are maintained verbatim (not spoken by a native English speaker) and contain honest rants. They meet our editorial standards and are worth sharing in their crude, raw form, which some readers can hopefully relate to. We don't mince words or censor views. One must factor in emotional factors.

YESTERDAY was an exceptionally busy day because there was no lack of news regarding GNU/Linux and we worked towards finishing some series (we run 4 or 5 in parallel), including the thought-provoking 20-page rant from Daniel Cantarín [1, 2], who talked to me over E-mail and sort of proactively apologised for the harsh expressions. It's a very frustrating time for Argentinians; those who follow the economy and politics there surely understand why. We'd rather not talk about it here because we prefer to cover the technological side.

"Thing is," Daniel told me, "the article uses harsh language, and some paragraphs were written with so much anger that I'm feeling this "oh boy" sensation in my tummy already... like I shouldn't have said that stuff. But I know I should, even when it feels bad to do it. So I do it."

The gist of what he wrote is (for those who skipped or missed it), the word "freedom" is dangerous in the context of Libertarians, like the current ruler of Argentina.

"You see," he told me, "I'm VERY angry about lots of stuff happening here in Argentina, all of it shielded behind the word "freedom"."

"Just for you to know, things are absolutely awful here. It's one of the worst moments of the country's history: top 3 worst situation easily."

"Middle class families are suffering," he continued, "home and food insecurities."

"Again: "middle class", not "poor". Economy is totally devastated, already worse than during COVID isolation, all while the political system is in shock."

"And all indicators keep going worse every month: we're not even there yet, we know this can and will be even worst, and then worst, and then some worst." [sic]

"I'm actually doing lots of things so my own family and my closest friends literally don't die or go crazy. I'm the only one with a stable and good-enough job to pay the bills, so I give everyone my salary's money. I have high responsibilities right now."

"And right now my heart is divided between taking care of myself so I can keep providing for the people close to me, and to go organize the people fighting and resisting all of this on the streets because I'm one of the few adults with proper formation for that task."

"But we're waiting for the street violence to start rising up any day. And at the same time we activists like me face both government violence (policing, espionage, criminalization, repression) and also criminal organizations like narcos."

"So we activists tell our loved ones that we may end up dead any day now just because of who we are: the resistance; we're literally already saying "goodbye" in case we miss our chance to do it later."

"That's how we're living here today."

"So, I wanted to say this: all the anger in that article, is not against you. You're innocent. You don't have to answer for any of it."

"It's just me being myself, and trying to say what I believe I should be saying. I'm just some random guy from some random place saying some random stuff that he believes important. You owe me no explanation, no answer, nothing."

"And to be honest, if I feel some degree of freedom about using harsh language and angry paragraphs is in fact because I believe people like you or Mr. Oliva can actually take it."

"You guys have faced much worse stuff than having a nobody telling you stuff over Internet. And from time to time I believe it's not totally unhealthy to say strong stuff between people that can take it.

"But I speak to you not because of any personal qualities of yours, but because you're important people in our communities, and I want my agenda to be heard by some key people.

"That said, the article is about 20 LibreOffice document pages long. I don't do short. That's a thing of mine. I do essays, not tweets."

Thankfully, some people do believe in essays. Social Control Media is very error-prone, context-free, and generally meaningless. Days later nobody cares or remembers (or can even find) what some other person quipped. Speaking from personal experience, Social Control Media is a total waste of time. Daniel's 20-page essay, even with typos and imperfect grammar (English isn't his mother tongue), provides ample context and lots of information. Unlike Social Control Media...

Here in Techrights, one associate said (days ago): "Daniel's post illustrates why it was so harmful to let Microsoft gain control over universities and especially the computer science departments. Victims might feel more productive on Windows but only because they were subjected to it at the expensive of more efficient and powerful systems. If the same level of proficiency were to be tested on a real OS, their productivity would be far higher and their stress far lower."

"As Daniel reminds us, it is not an easy way out of the Microsoft trap. That's why undermining education with the 'Microsoft first' or even 'Microsoft too' tactics is so problematic. People glom onto the first tech (and especially its paradigm) they are exposed to, no matter how unsuited it is for productivity."

"Lack of reliable networking is still a real barrier in many places. However, the biggest barrier is not being able to buy a "Linux" computer off the shelf at a big box store. Heck, even Chromebooks are hidden in the storage room out of site. The Macintosh systems are back there too if they are not screen locked with a password that none of the sales staff are willing to produce."

The associate indirectly received a reply from Daniel, who said "Microsoft is a total parasite, but it's MUCH worst than just about money, and that was one of the aspects I wanted to express by my tale."

"Our jobs are often our lives. That could be because of good or bad reasons, and even both at the same time, but it doesn't matter: in the end, we do what we have to, as good as we can."

""Conectar Igualdad" for example, was bashed by FLOSS fellas precisely by the "Microsoft too" argument, which of course is correct."

"But on the other side, if we workers don't adapt to what our jobs ask us, we pay an absolutely titanic price."

"So then the State could invest in creating a workforce strictly formed in Free Software, because "the market" never do it."

"And it actually happened here: eventually other versions of Conectar Igualdad went GNU/Linux only, with a custom distro called Huayra. And universities had its distros, and a libre national system for courses and notes and shared data. But then that's "planned economy" (LIKE STALIN!!1!), and "the State getting inside people's lives", and "why are they using our taxes money on that", and "I want to choose other systems", and "this is ugly/slow/whatever", et cetera."

"And devices get stolen (you properly remember the RMS incident) and/or should be reused next year by other children, but any attempt to track the devices is a crime and controlling it is DRM, et cetera again."

"And then suddenly also "the netbooks are obsolete", just because "the market" says so. But by that time all other arguments were already a big and heavy pile, and the State was doubtfully a choice."

"In any case, starting the 2010 decade Microsoft was a joke, and ending the 2010 decade Microsoft centralized most of world's software and everyone's was suddenly using Visual Studio again. And Conectar Igualdad was no more."

"Say whatever you want about them: if people live outside history this parasites are going to always win."

"And I say workforce is the cornerstone of that problem. Which, in turn, is a thesis shared in politics since the XIX century."

"That's why I rant so much about "jobs this", "labor that", and stuff like that, and then get salty because FLOSS rarely take that angle."

"It's baffling to me that FLOSS is so rarely seen with labor rights lenses."

"But another aspect of my tale is also something like "please don't tell me all the usual arguments because I already know them, by experience"."

"Most of it was "I was there, I saw it". Other parts are more like "take a look at this other angle too"."

"In all cases the spirit is "yeah, I know about the enemies of Free Software, alright: now pay attention to all other enemies of us people too, because if we're not smart and get our shit together we're gonna be the most free people of hell"."

"The point is not winning a debate, but trying to bring light to what I feel to be some blind angles in common FLOSS folk speech. Sadly, I often have few tools but ranting."

"Anyways, I'm glad someone else recognized "is not an easy way out of the Microsoft trap". That alone felt like writing my stuff worth something."

"As always, thank you for your work."

Thank you, Daniel. Yes, thank you for the honesty. We need more "harsh honesty" in FOSS - it's the only way to weed out corporate (and hostile) entryism, going back to resistance like Boycott Novell(+Microsoft).

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