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A Critic's Free Software Dictionary

This page has multiple authors and (as of this writing) a single editor. Do not assume the authorship (or endorsement) of any entry unless it is attributed.

Antitrust law

  • A mythical, unicorn-like creature that protects consumers from monopolistic corruption. Last known sighting in 2001.


  • ClearlyRedefined

  • FTFY.


  • Dark Ages

  • The period in Free Software history beginning sometime around Free Software 9/11. Begins with the Fourth Age of Free Software "/o/2019/10/15/fourth-age-of-free-software/ and is characterised by corporate-instigated Salem-Witch-Trial-like hunting of Free Software luminaries and contributors, often carried out by traitors within organisations.


  • Data broker

  • A person or company that sells data mining./>

    Data mining

  • The same thing the FBI used to do to Vietnam War protesters, except on a much more colossal scale."/o/2019/08/18/day-and-age-of-1984/


  • Exif

  • A metadata technology for turning still photos into surveillance photos. />

    Fediverse

  • 1. A collection of Javascript-based tools for slowing down the browser, along with any tasks you want to complete.
  • 2. A branch of theoretical philosophy where admins can simultaneously brag about something being uncensorable and how many users they've censored.


  • Fitness tracker

  • A flashy and convenient gadget for insurance companies that want to spy on their clientele."/o/2019/08/18/day-and-age-of-1984/


  • FL198S

  • Also known as "FLOSS" for "Free/Libre, Open Source Software". FLOSS wrongly implies that Free/Libre and Open Source are similar, but if Nineteen-Eighty-Source has anything to do with freedom, why does everyone pushing it want to rewrite the dictionary and add telemetry to our software? The answer? It's not OSS, it's 198S. If that's too cumbersome, you can call it FL/BS for short.


  • Free/Libre Software

  • The ridiculous notion that you should be able to control the technology you own, rather than the other way around.


  • Free Software Awards

  • An annual ceremony (and watchlist?) at the Non-freePlanet conference, where the FSF does a pretty outstanding job of identifying future traitors to the organisation and its members. Not everyone who wins the award will go on to betray the movement in a significant way, though most of the people who have got an award first.


  • Free Software 9/11

  • Sept. 11 2019, as (possibly) coined by Alexandre Oliva in reference to the Stallman cancellation.


  • Free Software Renaissance

  • A theoretical but hoped-for time which ends the Free Software Dark Ages, where users and developers are no longer essentially cheap labour for monopolistic corporations who malign, decapitate and exploit our communities. Dark ages practically imply a following renaissance, but one can't come too soon.


  • FSF

  • The beta version of the Open Source Initiative. Deprecated for showing integrity; fixed and upgraded by IBM and Google in 2019.


  • GIAFAM

  • A brand of designer boots that everybody wants to walk all over them.


  • GitHub

  • An assisted-living facility where Free Software and Open Source projects can lead active lifestyles before dying.


  • GNU Project

  • A joint effort between Richard Stallman, the FSF, IBM and Microsoft to toy with users for nearly 40 years before turning them into unpaid labour for IBM/Microsoft. Untying Stallman might help, the FSF will sell T-shirts instead.


  • Inclusion

  • An artificial community substitute, similar to vanillin. Created by deprotonating community guidelines, a process where valued leaders are converted to "free radicals" and catalysts for real progress become neutral.


  • Linux

  • Microsoft's effort to port the UNIX kernel to Finnish. Sometimes people pretend it's an operating system-- it doesn't even have a bootloader (except LILO).


  • Open Invention Network

  • A GitHub for bogus patents.


  • Open Source

  • A corporate scam to sell out Free Software to the same monopolies Free Software exists to liberate users from.


  • Phone

  • A small computer that can also make phonecalls (but rarely does)."/o/2019/08/18/day-and-age-of-1984/ Doubles as a wildlife tracker for humans.


  • Purchase

  • An event where the For-profit sponsor(s) of a Not-for-profit organisation or project takes control of the latter. See "Antitrust law""Open Source""/o/wiki/index.php/A_Critic's_Free_Software_Dictionary#Open_Source


  • Scooby-Doo maneuver

  • An acquisition technique that is a favourite among Microsoft execs and writers of Scooby-Doo episodes, where someone hoping to take over a property first makes it look undesirable (by dressing up as a ghost and scaring people away) so that others don't bid higher, show interest or have competition for the property at all.
  • Also used in haggling: "Oh, this doesn't look like very good quality, I could get it for a tenth this price somewhere else" except it's directed towards other potential buyers and the public, rather than the owner.
  • FUD -> sabotage -> cheaper acquisition (could also be called the Nokia Handset maneuver).


  • Shell game

  • A ruse for taking someone's money involving three moving cups and an object, where a scammer uses slight-of-hand to prevent the player from guessing which cup has the object underneath. Based on an elaborate scheme where Richard Stallman is symbolically replaced with Linus Torvalds, before Torvalds is literally replaced with Microsoft. See "Open Source"/>

    Smartwatch

  • A watch that is smarter than any person who would wear one.


  • Shut up and code

  • An extremely disingenuous argument from Open Source, which feigns an apolitical stance then (in a thoroughly narcissistic ploy) demands the same in kind. Code can have a political outcome, but Open Source creates a fallacy around this which dances around the idea that all political problems have technical solutions. It takes the fallacy further by implying or stating that technical solutions are invariably more efficient, and that politics are simply a waste of time.
  • A lot of the time it's a false dichotomy and straw man, going so far as to imply (or flat out lie, as with Debian's GR in 2020) that the party they're addressing hasn't spent plenty of time and effort creating and offering technical solutions already-- only to have terribly bad politics stand in their way.
  • Despite this front, Open Source lobbies, works with lobbyists and P.R. firms, and "talks when it could be coding" with the full weight of the corporate tech press behind it. So when they tell you to shut up and code, not only are they at that very moment doing exactly what they're telling you not to-- they're basically implying "Let us handle the politics. You just lay down and stop representing yourself." And they've played this bit for two entire decades.


  • Stallman, Richard

  • There isn't anything mean or nasty we can say about him that someone hasn't been paid to say already.


  • Systemd

  • An ostrich-sized egg for cuckolding GNU/Linux in its own nest.


  • Tech journalist

  • A full-body disguise that makes marketing droids look like real people."/o/2019/08/18/day-and-age-of-1984/


  • Torvalds, Linus

  • Inventor of electronic computing, data strings and binary-- all of which he very modestly (and only jokingly) named after himself.


  • Web browser

  • A fuel-guzzling SUV that is not only too large for your garage, but larger than your house; which is more or less required to go next door. On the plus side, now everything on Earth is next-door-- but on the minus side, at least doing some things actually used to be practical.


  • Words to Avoid (or Use with Care)

  • A similar dictionary to this one, except that instead of encouraging people to make their conscious replacements and critique of propaganda, it becomes a requirement in some communities (e.g. Trisquel's) to adopt someone else's "GNUspeak" dictionary.





  • Related Pages

  • GNU Watch