Re: On gratitude and free software

[Dennis Payne]

I agree with your opinion that exploiting free software leads to
problems. Gratitude is a good thing but your arguments have a few
flaws.

An argument could be made that Truth Social isn't exploiting Mastodon.
Yeah they were reluctant to release the source and I don't think they
contribute to Mastodon development. But they do run a free server that
could contribute to spread the cost to maintain the system. (Assuming
they can keep doing that.)

The resistance to GNU/Linux comes from the term being annoying to
say/write. Lego insists that it is Lego bricks not Legos but people use
the shorter one. Also the blatant attempt to jump on the success of
Linux annoyed people. Why didn't they argue this from day one? Why
didn't they argue it with BSD? Unless you are a developer, a Linux user
may not interact with any GNU program. Why shouldn't it be
Gnome/X11/Linux or KDE/Linux? Interestingly most people do not refer to
Android phones as Linux systems. While you might argue it is because
they don't know it runs Linux. I think the knowledgeable don't because
they understand that Linux encompasses the standard tools/UI which
Android throws out.

Saying people who don't support Richard Stallman are ungrateful is
flawed. I don't think I've ever heard a non-supporter say Richard
Stallman did nothing. You can be grateful but also believe a person is
flawed enough they should step back from public roles. Hollywood is
probably the best example of people creating amazing content but the
person behind has done bad things. Don't misunderstand and assume I'm
equating Richard Stallman to some of the horrible people in Hollywood.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to look past the controversies and
say he is still a good representative for free software. I personally
disagree but that is fine.

Unfortunately I don't have any good suggestions on how to improve
gratitude.

-- 
Dennis Payne
dulsi@identicalsoftware.com
https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@dulsi