Easy prediction: people who have been taught to confuse #FreeSoftware and #OpenSource through the misleading terms #FOSS and #FLOSS will now be led to further accept the privatization of #knowledge by small, innovative (and easy to acquire) #ethical start-ups.
@Shamar
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, the obvious ambiguity of the word free in the context of software doomed the movement from ever spreading to the mainstream. Not a single non-technical person I've ever met really appreciated the phrase or its importance even after explanation, and the movement is older than I am.
Wholeheartedly agree re: ethical startups though. #WorkerOwnedCollectives need to become the norm.
@Shamar
Absolutely agree about how everyone needs to learn how to program and debug; if the Internet survives the biosphere crisis, I fully expect basic web languages to be considered a form of literacy in the future in economically prosperous countries.
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This is embarrassing but I actually need to do more reading into worker owned collectives myself, so I'll be sure to toot something at a later date. The gist as I understand it is that it's a company where each employee is also a full owner and instead of generating profits for a legally separate corporate entity, profits are fully distributed among worker-owners. I imagine it's like if the entire company is unionized instead of the historical management/union dichotomy.
I only learned about them from the CSL (I think it is) that went around the fediverse a bit ago; a software license that can only be used by individuals and worker owned collectives.
#workerownedcollectives #debug #program #freedom #proprietary #freesoftware #capitalism #corporate #us
Sorry to butt in, but personally I agree wholeheartedly. I think the best thing the FSF could do for their movement is to completely rebrand the phrase to something like "libre software".
The current name is so catastrophically bad, I have witnessed multiple people within FLOSS circles that think charging for free software goes against its principles. No amount of "I'd like to interject for a moment" will ever fix such a broken term.
@henriquesga @Shamar
I recently overheard the distinction made between "open source" and "source available," which I personally enjoy. I think it's safe to conclude "open source" won the culture war, and I can image a normie saying, "Huh?' in reply after hearing "libre software" but possibly, "What's the difference?" after hearing someone point out something is merely source available
Free Software, Open Source and Capitalism
If we had to declare a winner to a cultural war, it would be #US #Capitalism: no matter how many criticisms it faces, it can always embrace, marginalize and extinguish them.
And yes, most powerful corporations and agents out there want we to think #OpenSource (which is a #marketing tool, thus a #capitalist one) has won.
But if we are able to see the "cultural war" we should see how it's a never-ending one.
To me, a more appropriate wording would have been "#hackers' software", since the core value that actually drive #FreeSoftware development is #Curiosity: #freedom is fundamental, but ancillary.
#RMS couldn't see this because he was born in the #USA where (and when) the #Free #Market was the main driver of their internal narrative.
But freedom is not enough: you need #communion (#commons, #community...) so that we are bound together by mutual rules in the way we use the commons.
As the fight between #FreeMarket and #Communism has shown in the 1900, we need something else to balance these two fundamental values.
And such thing is Curiosity, the will to learn and to share knowledge so that others can learn more and teach us.
On this topics I'd have a lot more things to say. If you are interested see
http://www.tesio.it/2019/06/03/what-is-informatics.html
http://www.tesio.it/2018/10/11/math-science-and-technology.html
Free Software, Open Source and Capitalism
@Shamar
Thank you for sharing, I've added these links to my read later list 😀
@jump_spider
As for the "stigma" of the "free" world, tbh I've always thought it's just bullshit.
Recently I realized that it's just an #US and #corporate issue (because current #capitalism is itself a US thing, despite being an evolution of a way more ancient system).
Having said that, obviously to people who can't code #FreeSoftware is totally equivalent to #proprietary one except for the price.
There is no #freedom to study, modify and distribute modified versions for them.
This is something that we should fix, by teaching everybody how to #program and #debug.
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As for #WorkerOwnedCollectives, do you have any link to share? Sound interesting, but I know nothing about them.