The Limits of Freedom
Related past articles:
- Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Companies That Attack Free Speech Online (Follow the Money)
- [Meme] Social Control Media is NOT Free Speech
- [Meme] Crushing Free Speech Before Even Taking Public Office...
- Bytedance/TikTok is a Threat to Freedom, Including Free Speech
- There's Nothing "Funny" About Attacking Free Speech and Software Freedom
- [Meme] What Free Speech Ought to Mean
- Montana’s TikTok Ban Was to Protect Free Speech and the United States' First Amendment
FREEDOM means all sorts of things. The same goes for freedom of speech or "free speech" (shorter but essentially the same thing). The classic counterpoints are, you cannot swing your fist at my face - that's not "freedom". Or, for speech, don't shout "fire!" in a crowded theatre (unless there's an actual fire).
In the case or the context of software, as in Free Software, many people brought up the situation of statecraft and warfare. Some said that we should deny Russians any Internet services and even Free software (that's infeasible because of how it's distributed, but the Linux Foundation targeted Russian developers, as did Microsoft by abusing power in GitHub).
This is generally not a new problem. People like to do bad things and then justify them by saying "freedom". Or they say deeply offensive things in the name of "freedom" - to the point of putting the lives of others at risk.
Some of the posts above speak of this conundrum in the context of speech. The thing about Free Software is, due to its very nature it's not even feasible to take away or selectively deny some of the freedoms, so long as one isn't outsourcing to some company like Microsoft and/or letting the crooks from the Microsoft-dominated Linux Foundation run things. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive because other than openwashing, the Linux Foundation's "best-selling" disservice is outsourcing to Microsoft (GitHub). █
Photo source: Wikipedia (Лекция Ричарда Столлмана в Московском Политехе)