Free Software Needs More Activists
"Activists" come in many forms. Some physically protest, some write (because the pen is mightier than the sword), some organise and coordinate activists. This month I was repeatedly dubbed an "investigative journalist" by prominent journalists, among others... I take that as a compliment.
Activism must have some scope, as nobody can cover every facet of society. In Software Freedom activism, one might be forced to deal with matters like software patents and copyrights, which are both routinely covered by the father of the movement, Richard Stallman (who has long been "ahead of the curve" rather than a "relic". It looks like - in light of Android getting more rigid (screws tightened) - there will be more work for Dr. Stallman to do or more problems to talk about soon:
We don't exactly know what "Aluminium OS" is and whether it'll be like a "Linux distro", whether it will contain GNU, or whether it'll be another "systemd system" (i.e. GitHubware, proprietary). But as somebody put it 10 hours ago:
Technically: it uses a Linux kernel, so that would make it a "Linux distribution".Practically: when people say "Linux distro", they usually mean "an open-source OS based on a Linux kernel, with a typical Unix-style userland, with coreutils, a shell, etc., and a package manager that can install all sorts of open-source packages from public repositories". Which Android is not, and "Aluminium OS" won't be either.
Without Free Software activism and activists it'll be hard to ensure that users will benefit. To Google, this is about price, not freedom. The "StallmanWasRight" crowd would care about the latter, more so knowing how evil Google can be and will get over time (it's always getting worse over time).
Just by virtue of being a Google thing (with OEM muscle/connections), it's almost guaranteed that "Aluminium OS" will have millions of users. With some activism maybe we can collectively pressure Google not to tighten (all) the screws. █