Bonum Certa Men Certa

Activism and Free Software

People all around the world still bought so-called 'fur' (dead farmed animals reduced to mere skin) for 'fashion' until animal rights activists got their act together and put an end to it in most places

Pom Pom Fur



Summary: The fight for software freedom ought to go on; software used to be free before it was stolen from us, soon becoming a de facto private monopoly of barons who amass software patents and buy control over all the work (e.g. GitHub)

THE term "Activism" and sometimes "Hacktivism" does not imply some sort of radicalism. Being active can be good, especially when a cause is noble and worth fighting for. After all, women and poor people (and people of all races) earned the right to vote not by sitting idly, waiting. They had to become active and demand change. The same is true for liberation of slaves (although many millions of 'classic' slaves remain on this planet to this very day, usually in very poor countries). The word "Hacktivism" may seem loaded only if one misunderstands the term "hack" or "hacking". There's even a font called "Hack". It's what I've long used in my text editor to write articles, including this one.

"Gates is fighting back of course, e.g. by buying GitHub, passing back all the code written to replace Microsoft... into Microsoft's own proprietary claws."The "hacker" movement predates proprietary software as we know it. It fought for its very survival rather than to overthrow something long in existence. Revisionist history might tell us otherwise, but good luck checking if Charles Babbage, Alan Mathison Turing, Tom Kilburn, and maybe ENIAC's inventors across the pond (J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly) did proprietary software. Back then it was rather natural, especially in a scholarly setting, to share and publish one's findings. I myself started coding in my early teens, then continued throughout my time in university; my code was never kept secret, ever. What's the point? If the code is decent, why not publish it?

Peace outFree (as in freedom, libre, livre) code is sort of the 'default' mode. In the era of the Internet, moreover, publishing code and distributing it widely is very easy. There are many forms of publication, including public vaults and repositories of code. So why did some companies work so hard to prevent dissemination of work? Especially given the zero cost associated with such dissemination? Well, people like Bill Gates created artificial scarcity and became rich in the process, in effect taking from the Commons and monopolising what was prior to that public.

A lot of today's activism works towards reversing that trend. Gates is fighting back of course, e.g. by buying GitHub, passing back all the code written to replace Microsoft... into Microsoft's own proprietary claws. Pillage and plunder? Looting? Those words are rarely used to describe what the rich and powerful "master" do to us, their "slaves"...

One could easily come up with analogies and parallels involving vaccines, typically developed using taxpayers' money to enrich few oligarchs who monopolise the solution (while denying poor taxpayers access to it).

Society would be not only just when Free software is the universal norm, a default everywhere. It would also be more equal (in this age when inequality and economic gap/disparity only seems to grow at astronomical rates).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
 
Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues
Links 30/04/2025: Censorship in the Guise/Clothing of "Combatting Deepfakes", Mass Surveillance Increasingly Framed as Catchphrase "AI"
Links for the day
Why Techrights Attracts SLAPPs From American Microsofters Who Literally Strangle Women and Rely on the Most Unscrupulous Law Firms
"the SLAPPs targeted at TR [Techrights] shows that Orwell was right: Journalism is about exposure, everything else are PubRels."
The Problem at the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Is Vastly Bigger Than Its Rigged Elections
Elections and election-rigging at the OSI are a symptom
IBM Allegedly to Sell More Parts of the Company While Outsourcing to India, Microsoft Now Goes After Unions
They both have cash and debt problems
Slopwatch: Google Noise ("News"), Linux Security (Slopfarm), and BetaNoise (Serial Slopper)
Today there's no lack of LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Links 30/04/2025: "Brian Lumley’s Necroscope Series" and "Death In The Afternoon"
Links for the day
Links 29/04/2025: Microsoft Infosys Layoffs, 'Popcorn Lung' With Vapers, Hong Kong Banning Possession of e-cigarettes in Public
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2025: Hey-Hi (AI) Isn't Your Friend/Lover, Mastodon is a Mess, and Mandelbrot Programming
Links for the day
Just Sending More and More Threats Does Not Change the Fact We Got Abused for Many Years and Women Got Strangled
Wanting a "gag order" - or sometimes injunctions - by sending many threats
Links 29/04/2025: Water Scarcity, LLM Slop Backfiring Again in Legal Documents
Links for the day
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025