Seize the Means of Computation
Seize the Means of Computation
Without the mention of FOSS, these types of pro-market "solutions" will always end up dead in the water.
This is not just a matter of competition for its own sake. This is about guaranteeing users the fundamental right to technological self-determination, a right that corporate monopolists will not yield willingly. This is nothing less than empowering users to seize the means of computation.
Can't have tech self-determination if everything's a black box controlled by corporate entities.
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Frankly I'm hesitant about FOSS as a movement these days. It has a libertarian bent a mile wide (actually giving your license clauses that stop people from doing harm with your software in various ways makes it "no longer free"), is poorly applicable to the actual user, and doesn't care about anything other than itself (free software should be intersectional but the FSF continues to champion and cater to white men and sex pests)
Libertarians want proprietary. Libertarians believe the highest form of human to be the scammer. FOSS people don't scam. FOSS isn't libertarian.
Libertarians open source (not free) because it ties into their idealistic notion of how individual freedom is true freedom. In the end software with open source licenses like MIT end up being free high-skill labour for megacorporations who don't give back, neither in terms of financial support nor code changes.
Libertarians love both proprietary and non-free open source licenses for this reason.
There are a lot of liberals and libertarians involved in FOSS, to the point where some FOSS and FOSS-adjacent media (ie 'Slashdot') is practically unreadable. Even the most (in)famous FOSS advocate, Richard Stallman, has appeared on Infowars and is reportedly a sex pest. But there are comrades involved in FOSS too, and there are obvious benefits from avoiding corpo lock-in and corpo spyware (what they call 'telemetry'), so... there's that.
Richard Stallman, has appeared on Infowars and is reportedly a sex pest.
He was kicked out of MIT for defending Epstein so yeah. Classic libertarian.
This seems probable but do you have a source for this? Last time I read he was "cancelled" for being weird to his colleagues especially women.
Here's the first link I found. This was after a long history of publicly and internally making similar comments. I've heard rumors of that type of behavior but I don't know if anyone ever publicly came forward.
Honestly kind of surprised that people here are defending him.
I remember it now. The enitrely willingly part reignited the memory. Yeah this is unacceptable.
I think he was cancelled by ableist people. If I would leave my home, I would also be seen as "weird" by neurotypical people.
Doubt it honestly
He also reportedly told female students he'd kill himself if they don't go out with him and had a mattress in his office specifically for the insinuation women could come and have sex with him on it. As far as I'm concerned he shouldn't be trusted with the FOSS movement at all, much less be an idolized leader within it.
Well the mattress was because he lived in his office. But yeah I've heard similar things. Really don't think you gotta hand it to him like some commentators do. Kind of a disgrace that the FSF brought him back
Besides how fucked up that is, that is the quintessence of "weird hill to die on".
Stallman is pretty much one of us, actually. He has a relationship with Cuba, opposes US sanctions, and literally invented copyleft licensing.
Use the search bar on his site for "Cuba": https://stallman.org/
He at least supports Julian Assange, but he supports many other causes of US imperialism (in the first political note on his website as of now, he claims that Russia blew up the dam), supported the invasion of Afghanistan, and called the Chinese population brainwashed slaves. I would consider him a slightly more enlightened radlib if anything.
He can't be a libertarian because he does not worship money or scamming. Also, Microsoft dug through his whole life to find something to discredit him and if this completely blown-up story is the worst thing they found... well they could probably find worse things in the history of more than half of americans.
Stallman definitely a weird dude but his contribution to FOSS is undeniable. Thanks to the GNU project we have free software.
There are definitely way too many questionable individuals in the movement but it's definitely a thing where everyones interests align.