08.04.21
Gemini version available ♊︎The Free Software Community Needs Solidarity and Stronger Resistance Against Corporate Oligopolies With Their Overlapping Interests
Don’t be fooled by the cabal of large and usually monopolistic corporations, which generally pursue back doors and government/military contracts, especially when they rear their ugly heads through their abusive operatives (social engineering with pseudo-ethical arguments)
“Userbase” or “useds” is not what we’re meant to be; Corporate overlords want us all to be their "slaves"
Summary: Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman (RMS) do not have to be idolised (“cult of personalities”) but they definitely need to be defended from a longstanding and ongoing corporate coup, which the corporations seek to justify using nicer-sounding terms like “security” (that’s how they justify added complexity such as Rust) or “safe space” (they’re collectively insulting the community as if only employees of monopolies can help combat bigotry)
Richard Stallman (RMS) has not publicly spoken since May (in his latest appearance he asked people so sign a petition in support of him being reinstated inside the FSF’s Board) and there has been no update for weeks in the pro-RMS petition. No new signatures added or at least none displayed. Is that stalled? Is the maintainer of this petition now doing that addition in larger batches (that seems to have been true before), more so after the 6,800th signature was registered and displayed? Some readers might say, “who cares!” or “why does that even matter?”
“It has now been over 40 days since an IBM employee changed the anti-RMS hate letter (removing a signature), but the defamation is still fully in tact inside of that letter.”It does not matter all that much, it might even be largely symbolic, but a similar situation happens in Linux, the kernel, where Torvalds nowadays more willingly accepts Microsoft patches that he previously blasted for their poor quality (bad coding standards, and not for the first time either; Greg K-H publicly complained about that in the distant past).
It has now been over 40 days since an IBM employee changed the anti-RMS/hate letter (removing a signature), but the defamation is still fully in tact inside of that letter. It continues to do harm by spreading false accusations. They just change the names at the bottom of of the letter. Bully de Blanc, who played a key role in it, has since been rendered unemployed. That was around the time of the last edit (21 June 2021).
“Large corporations want them out of the way because leadership vacuums give way for more corporate domination over otherwise-grassroots projects/movements.”It is very important that we defend the likes of Torvalds and Stallman, even if we do not like them or agree with them much of the time. Because they’re being targeted (they still are! It’s thinly-veiled). Large corporations want them out of the way because leadership vacuums give way for more corporate domination over otherwise-grassroots projects/movements. They want shareholders rather than a moral compass in charge. Similarly, EPO staff has been in urgent of defending the union and staff representatives, even when (or if) some of their actions were harder to support. We know what the lesser evil is; we know what the greater evil is, as we noted in passing yesterday. Interests intersect; not ours. █
Yesterday: Red Hat (IBM) happy for people to ‘buy’ Microsoft’s proprietary software (which does not even truly run on GNU/Linux) while it’s actively attacking/undercutting the FSF
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