Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Biggest Problem is Proprietary Software and Restrictions Like DRM, Including Outsourced "Trust" (Prelude to Censorship and Social Control)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 15, 2023

Freedom and choices are not the same Woman Wearing a Hat on the Beach

TODAY'S articles in Tux Machines (we encourage people to subscribe to that site too) include this long-ish post about openwashing and the importance of focus on concepts, not just brands. GNU means freedom (and "not UNIX", which is proprietary), whereas Linux is a kernel named after a Finn naturalised in the US to produce some kernel for some employer (Linux Foundation) that only devotes about 5% of its budget to Linux, which it is "only" named after. Linux Foundation is mostly an openwashing conglomerate. When companies like Google or Microsoft want a monopolistic (or monocultural) project of theirs to seem or 'feel' open, or even "vendor-neutral", they then contract the Linux Foundation to set up some new shell or offshoot. The cash register rings and Jim Zemlin comes around the bend.

Of course, as already noted in Tux Machines, we end up with things like Servo or DRM garbage being spun as "open", in turn openwashing a bunch of malware like Firefox or Chrome.

If the openwashing "camp" wins, as Tux Machines notes, we won't have freedom but instead "OSS" or "FOSS", which includes closed-source garbage that spies on users and restricts their actions.

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