[libreplanet-discuss] FSF's communication, ethical discussion in consumerism, why software freedom matters

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Terry wrote:
> The FSF has incredible geniuses who understand code, technologies,
> future directions and social implications. Their philosophies are
> incredible, however some lack of people skills contributes to remaining
> exclusionary through alienating many by not understanding and embracing
> people, varying intellects, marketing and rates of comprehensive shifts
> to new philosophical adoptions.

I'm not clear on precisely what you're referring to and I don't see 
examples of your point. If you don't like what the FSF says, it would be 
fine to say that you don't agree with it. But you should point to what 
specifically you disagree with and explain why. I don't know how many 
people you are speaking for when you say "many" and I don't see any 
examples of what your criticizing. What did the FSF say when you tried 
telling them specifically what messages you didn't like and how you thought 
they should pose those issues instead? They're hiring a Deputy Director, 
and I think that job would include plenty of chances to explain software 
freedom better.

I've found the FSF to be forthright and to not suffer fools gladly (which 
requires a clarity I appreciate). They rightly speak up about their cause, 
write very clearly, and when people use language that frames an issue in a 
way they don't agree with their representatives point it out. Richard 
Stallman's recent Slashdot interview 
http://news.slashdot.org/story/15/09/09/2252212/interviews-rms-answers-your-questions 
has an example of this in the first Q&A -- a response from Stallman where 
he pointed out what was wrong with framing an issue in terms of 
"monetization". Stallman's response struck me as a well-stated and entirely 
fair rebuttal to an attempt to justify bad behavior because it might make 
more money than earning money ethically. Eben Moglen's talks are 
consistently excellent. They're packed with detail and they really earn a 
re-read/re-listen, but they're eminently understandable even for 
non-technical people I've played them for over the air on community radio 
(or so the listeners who call me tell me). I went to an FSF gathering some 
years ago and Moglen's talk alone made the trip worthwhile for my travel 
companion.

I think most people haven't begun to contemplate software freedom not 
because the message of software freedom was put to them somehow 
indelicately, but because the message of software freedom hasn't been put 
to them at all. It's hard to repeat a message as frequently as the 
billionaire proprietors repeat their ads, or even as frequently as open 
source supporters say some proprietary software is okay.




We're constantly told that our proper role in society is to buy something. 
This immediately circumscribes us as consumers rather than citizens. This 
means reducing people to accepting choices set out for them (if they can 
afford it) and never discussing doing what's just, ethical, and beneficial 
for society such as pointing out systemic corruption (what if all the 
choices are bad?), inequity (what if some people are too poor to 
participate even as consumers?). Consumerism is designed to exclude ethical 
discussion. When I try to behave ethically by purchasing the most ethical 
option available, I usually face greenwashing or I find I'm outspent by the 
wealthy who want unethical results. The narrow terms of debate are set up 
this way on purpose, not by accident, and this makes for a very one-sided 
way to live.

For example, in popular computing my choices come down to two nonfree 
software distributors and a "choice" of which proprietor's interest to 
cater to. When viewed from a perspective of software freedom, that's no 
choice at all. Any differences between the proprietors are overwhelmed by 
the similarities that one is basically picking who gets to keep me from 
having software freedom. All of the important questions about software 
freedom are immediately outside the allowable range of debate when the ends 
are staked out by proprietors. There's simply no room left for a serious 
discussion of ethics; other related issues (such as computer security) are 
off-limits too as one can't have computer security without software freedom.

But I know better things are possible because I can look at history. 
Apparently through hard work and political insistence free software hackers 
built a better system: there was a time when GNU was not a complete 
operating system and I had to run GNU programs on a nonfree OS. Now 
GNU/Linux is a complete self-hosting OS, thanks in part to Linus Torvalds 
distributing the Linux kernel under a free software license, and the 
Linux-libre team for distributing a free version of the Linux kernel. I 
didn't have hardware on which I could run a completely free OS. Now I can 
buy hardware which runs a free BIOS thanks to all the reverse engineering 
and work I'm probably not fully aware of. Sure, I have to accept that 
things take time to develop and I can't use the latest hardware in freedom, 
but things are demonstrably better now than they were just 20 years ago. I 
don't want those gains to be lost for me or anyone else who uses a computer.

There are, quite literally, life and death issues one can resolve with 
software freedom (the recent VW emissions fraud discovery, and keeping 
people safe from spying while they're telling us important details about 
what's really happening like Snowden did, to name a couple recent 
examples). Saving lives, preserving privacy & civil liberties, and 
introducing ethics into people's use of computers strikes me as far too 
important to grant anyone social permission to dismiss a message because 
they don't like how it was delivered instead of objecting to what the 
message said. If the discussion raises questions, by all means, ask! And 
feel free to state your mind, but expect to justify your statements too.