Software Freedom in Perspective - Part 1 - Relativism in a World That Became Harsher
Response to The bulshitification of freedom
THIS week I heard from a reader who had expressed some views about what freedom came to mean, at least in his homeland, Argentina. He wrote an essay about 20 pages long and I wanted to respond to it because he raises some legitimate points. A discussion between us will follow (much later). I will try to give him the podium, maybe correct some typos along the way, and respond only where/when I must.
Disclaimer
This article is a response to “Software Enshittification or Freedom? It’s not a hard choice!”, by Alexandre Oliva, and published on Techrights.
I’m a daily Techrights reader since 16 years now, it’s my web browser’s home page, and with the course of years I even had the pleasure of exchanging messages with doctor Roy Schestowitz several times. I love the Techrights. However, my comments are frequently critical, and this time is no exception. For this reason I prefer to begin with clarifying my admiration for Dr. Schestowitz’s work, which I found exemplary, and that my dissents are not personal against him or his work but the product of contrasting his publications and my own experiences as part of the collective we share: the free software global community. Techright’s work is invaluable, and I recommend it every time I have the chance.
In the same spirit, I’m aware that Alexandre Oliva has years of dedicated work on free software, by which he has earned the love and respect of the community. I’m going to be critical here about some aspects of his latest article, even going to the point of using harsh language, and I don’t wish such criticism to be understood as a direct appreciation about him or his work: I also believe what he does is necessary, to criticize is much easier than standing up in front of an auditory full of people to defend your ideas, and there’s not even a comparison point between criticism through internet and to dedicate decades on protecting and divulging an eminently social project as is the case with free software or even the very GNU. Trying to lower in any way the value of Mr. Oliva’s work could not be more far from my intentions.
The point of this article is focusing on what I consider a very serious vocabulary deficiency, and thus also communicational, philosophical, and political, of free software movement, around the word “freedom”. Which is something I’ve already talked about before, and been doing for years.
Indeed, we've published some articles to that effect. We use the word "rights", too. Not the same as freedom.
I also must note that I speak Spanish: English is not my first language, so this article may have some weird expressions and most likely lots of syntax errors. I expect it to be understandable for English readers nonetheless.
Context matters
With all that considered, today is a very special day here in Argentina: it’s the second general nation-wide strike against the policies of the government that started barely 5 months ago. In that context I did not work today, by what I had some free time for my own interests, and I was thinking on using it to fix some of the several problems I have with my mobile phone using PostmarketOS. It was then that I accessed Mr. Oliva’s text through Techrights, during my morning coffee. And the first thing I felt reading it was a deep discomfort.
Mr. Oliva tells us that, between enshittified software and free software, the choice is not hard. It’s the very article’s title, and it alone should scandalize anyone with minimal knowledge in the matter between its implicit lack of touch with objective reality and its close distance with hypocrisy, all that in a very light tone that even had the intention of being somehow funny. And this discourse wasn’t even in a divulgation context, with an auditorium strange to free software: it was for LibrePlanet, where most people use free software and knows its history and details. Considering that Mr. Oliva is a public and important figure inside the community, a referent, and also considering that I can very rarely participate in this kind of community events -because I have very little free time-, I immediately asked myself: is this the kind of stuff the community is talking about? Are this the discursive lines our references tell us to follow?
No, Mr. Oliva, I’m afraid you’re deeply mistaken: choosing free software is hard. VERY hard. TOO hard, I dare say. And I have my serious suspicions that our leaders/references and the course of our communities has a lot to do with that. But let’s take a look at this argument by contrasting my context with your article.
This seems like a good and adequate point to interject. Free software does not have to be hard. It depends a lot on old habits. To me, using some "smart" phone would likely be "hard"; I am not accustomed to those things. Using "apps" would also bee harder than paying cash to a person. The list goes on and on.
For sure, what's always hard is deviating or shifting away from societal norms because people get offended when their lifetime-long lifestyle is rejected by some "outsider" and then they "offer to help" or instead shame/humiliate the person.
It's easier for oneself to simply reject the idea one is wrong. Change others, not oneself.
Peer pressure can be turned down and turned off.
This may be hard... as long as that person still "gives a shit". The moment you stop "giving a shit" what other people think (while they waste their dinner table time "playing Facebook"), the better.
Freedom in the software sense does not have to be hard. There are usually analogue alternatives out there. Here in the UK, options that don't require a computer or alternative activities typically exist.
The tip of the iceberg
Mr. Oliva tells us about different types of software enshittification in different contexts, both historical and operational. Stuff we all know and hate like forced updates, software stores, remote policying, inability to go back to previous versions, and so on and so on. Please go read the full article, as in this regards is actually fruitful if you don’t know what we’re talking about here. I believe all of Mr. Oliva’s remarks are true: enshittification is a real phenomenon, he’s not the first one to mention it (as he adequately clarifies), and it’s an actual and important issue that we all need to pay attention to. That’s all fine, and the problem with his article of course is not there. The problem is how he talks about it, specially to force his interpretations as if it where some kind of “common sense”. So it’s important to take a look at his arguments.
Let’s begin by this quote:
(…) It seems to me that it would be more advantageous to break that cycle, by choosing something that is not enshittifiable. When it comes to software, that means software that serves you, instead of being controlled by a third party, statically or dynamically, or that could lock you in. It means Software Freedom. (…)
Really? “Software Freedom” protects us from enshittification? Just like that? That’s your argument?
You see Mr. Oliva, that’s some tricky wording there. What “Software Freedom” are you talking about? Are you refering to the four freedoms, the GPL licence, and so on? This, basically? Because, let me tell you Mr. Oliva, that didn’t saved us from SystemD, PulseAudio, Gnome, Wayland, Snap/Flatpak/whatever, and lots and lots of other painful examples of people doing free software and aggressively pushing it into our lives as different kinds of “common sense” that rather sooner than later becomes de-facto standards: some of them based in the power their origin organization had over the GNU/Linux community, others using tactics like the ones Microsoft took from the illegal drugs market -a fake “it’s free, try it” first step, with later monetization in mind, while infecting the culture in the meantime-, others talking about the burdens of maintainance of previous software, others talking about the future in mobile devices… all “common sense”, even the drug-dealing stuff when you consider a profit point of view. All of that enshittified to the point of creating wars inside our own communities: from forks of forks of forks of Gnome since about 15 years ago all of them justified in “Gnome being enshittified”, to entire distros trying to avoid SystemD -emphasys on trying, not always succeding, which speaks volumes-. And what exactly did you mean by “[not] being controlled by a third party” in this context where RedHat or Debian or Canonical or whoever decide something and then we all need to adapt to it even against our will? Perhaps you weren’t talking about that kind of “Software Freedom”? If there is a way to be free from the problems of Free/Libre Software enshittification, please let us know Mr. Oliva, because we FLOSS people could really take a break from all of that crap we’ve been force-feeding on since more than a decade by now.
The first problem with the article is that supposed “common sense” implied in its non-argumentation about FLOSS being unenshittificable, which is not “common sense” at all but rather an agenda. Telling people “FLOSS is unenshittificable” is an agenda related to some organization. SystemD, Wayland, those horrible container formats, and so on, were and are all agendas related to some organizations. This are all organizations with different interests in mind: economical, social, political, technical. The problem is not having agendas, which is something I encourage: the problem is telling bullshit to support such agendas. And half truths, without a proper context, are bullshit.
This by itself alone seems nitpicking, so I’ll expand by giving proper context to such half truths, by constrasting such bullshit with my own story and experience, including my entrance by choice into the FLOSS world. However, as it’s most likely a long and boring text, you can skip all that personal context just jumping here.
One upside of Microsoft systemd (yes, Microsoft) is that it shows licensing isn't enough. We need to think further and look ahead. In the case of the Web, standards still exist, but one can see where they lead to and where "modern" browsers gravitate. Many "less famous" browsers already don't work with many Web sites, or rather, many sites refuse to work with them.
Software freedom does not mean we won't be controlled by Microsoft satellites like Canonical (or Novell); it typically means that our chances of - and means for - rescuing ourselves are massively better. There are already some distros that work towards removing systemd and many operating systems that don't have systemd at all (and still work fine; we used Alpine for years).
In relative terms, LXO (Oliva) speaks of "first world problems". And I get that, to many people their hierarchy of needs involves immediate survival. I've long believed that those fortunate enough to only experience "first world problems" have an implicit obligation to society; they have "privilege" that helps them tackle big issues; many of them become Debian Developers and others become consumption-wary environmentalists.
LXO is dealing with a few "sub-problems" (e.g. making the kernel(.org) free/libre), he may sometimes focus on the tree rather than the whole forest, but together we can make technology work better for all users. The moment nobody resists the Pentagon-subsidised tech giants is the dark time they make everybody's life miserable without being impeded, not even publicly criticised. █
