08.29.20

You Don’t Earn Freedom by Making Unnecessary Concessions or Dethroning Influential Founders

Posted in Free/Libre Software at 10:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

They put the shackles on us; “shut up,” they insist, “as anything else would be intolerant…” (or “extremist” or “not smart” or “overzealous” or “anarchic” etc.)

Summary: The attack on principled people (and by extension the organisations/institutions they founded and/or led) is not some random pattern; it’s a well-coordinated attack on Freedom, looking to replace people who have long-held principles (putting corporate puppets in their place)

THE idea that being overly “inclusive” is the way forward is often promoted by those looking to be included inside their rival’s decision-making processes. The whole “tolerance” spiel is equally misused and misapplied.

Here’s an example.

“They try to censor critics using DMCA (censorship in the name of “copyright”), RTbF (censorship in the name of “privacy”) and GDPR (censorship in the name of “privacy” again) when companies like GAFAM grossly violate GDPR at a massive scale while laughing at us all (and at the authorities/enforcers).”Remember that large corporations try to portray leakers as criminals, e.g. for exposing evidence of their crimes. They try to censor critics using DMCA (censorship in the name of “copyright”), RTbF (censorship in the name of “privacy”) and GDPR (censorship in the name of “privacy” again) when companies like GAFAM grossly violate GDPR at a massive scale while laughing at us all (and at the authorities/enforcers).

Earlier today I discussed this with figosdev, who rightly told me a thing or two about a comment that I had received. It said: “‘Cancelling’ is just a framing by people that feel personally attacked by their behavior being correctly identified as discriminatory…”

“As noted here yesterday, many high-profile people are being ‘canceled’, partly or entirely. They’re being removed from positions of authority and power so that corporations can ‘fill the void’ (which they themselves created or contributed to).”“Without even commenting on how far either of those statements are from reality,” figosdev told me, “as a pair they outline a very typical double standard: if corporations go after you, the individual should simply cede guilt, while corporations get the benefit of the doubt LITERALLY through their participation in ACTUAL GENOCIDE. So nazis can accuse someone of being a raging misogynist and the hivemind goody-goodies will rally behind the nazis and their lawyers, who proceed to sue people for things like “we invented long names 40 years ago when they were simply a workaround against our own artificial limits, and are still waiting to get paid” and “we invented rectangles with rounded bits on them”. That’s justice today.”

As noted here yesterday, many high-profile people are being ‘canceled’, partly or entirely. They’re being removed from positions of authority and power so that corporations can ‘fill the void’ (which they themselves created or contributed to).

“It’s actually about the general trajectory, which is key organisations being forced to make concessions to monopolies and proprietary software giants. If people inside those organisations stand in the way of such concessions, there are ways to engineer their removal/resignation.”Sometimes I joke with my wife, “what can they find (or fake) about me?”

I don’t claim to be high-profile or anywhere near the likes we allude to, but certainly I see a number of people trying to ‘cancel’ me since 2007 (they had several “goes” at it, including several whole sites dedicated to this purpose). It never worked. Twitter is optimal for those sorts of 'lynch mobs'; it’s a useless site, which I decided to leave when I realised the degree to which it can be leveraged by ‘Cancel Culture’ artists.

But this post isn’t about me. It’s actually about the general trajectory, which is key organisations being forced to make concessions to monopolies and proprietary software giants. If people inside those organisations stand in the way of such concessions, there are ways to engineer their removal/resignation. RMS was removed from his own creation, ESR was banned by his own creation (just months ago), and Linus Torvalds is being insulted/humiliated by the Linux Foundation, which is ironically even named after him (exploiting his name to raise money). Linus Torvalds did not leave the biggest Free software project in the hands of Gregory (way back in 2018 for about a month) because he suddenly had an urge to go on holiday in Oregon’s winter (very cold and unpleasant). He didn’t seek help/counselling because he reached some realisation (the same is true for RMS by the way; they did the same to him with “anger management”) but because people demanded it. People crave their seats and corporations want power over them. If they cannot get that easily, they resort to shaming and blackmail tactics. That’s just what they do. IBM did that to its black workers (to the point where one of them opened fire, killing colleagues). Microsoft constantly does that to Microsoft whistleblowers, one of whom writes for us occasionally.

If we want software freedom, we must defend those who defend respective (and respectful alike) organisations that fight for the cause. If monopolies and proprietary software giants don’t like that, that’s good! The last thing we need is a bunch of weak or corruptible ‘leaders’ eager to appease monopolies and proprietary software giants.

“Elephants (like all other animals) weren’t liberated from circuses until those viciously stubborn and very long protests from animal rights activists — at times boycotts — compelled or made inevitable such an outcome. SeaWorld boycotts are certainly working, so marine life seems to be next in the ‘liberation pipeline’ (from this ‘entertainment’ business).”The antiwar movement, the environmentalists etc. never really accomplished anything by cooperating and collaborating with weapons manufacturers and oil companies, respectively. They fought them. Did they win? Not yet. But they carry on fighting. That’s what’s important. It’s a very long fight. In Switzerland women could not vote until several decades ago and slaves weren’t freed in the US until several generations ago. It took a lot of determination and political work to accomplish. There were arrests, there were riots, people got killed. Society doesn’t just bend over to activists and governments/corporations would fight them to death, literally (like Coca-Cola in Colombia). For software freedom to triumph rather than gradually perish (right now it’s mostly the latter) we need to stop the obsession with ‘mainstream’ if this mainstreaming means concessions or a series of surrenders (like celebration of DRM being “supported” by Linux).

Elephants (like all other animals) weren’t liberated from circuses until those viciously stubborn and very long protests from animal rights activists — at times boycotts — compelled or made inevitable such an outcome. SeaWorld boycotts are certainly working, so marine life seems to be next in the ‘liberation pipeline’ (from this ‘entertainment’ business). It looks like COVID will do a fine job putting SeaWorld out of ‘business’, irrespective of all that activism. █

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