free software resistance

 the cost of computing freedom is eternal vigilance

### free-software-isnt-a-revolution *originally posted:* aug 2025 free software shouldve been a revolution. i wanted it to be a revolution. ive seen "revolution os" several times, i even bought the dvd (used) for $5. cause thats how you make revolutions happen, by doing consumer shit. anyway, the goals stated by free software advocates were good goals. i wasnt against them. im not against those goals now. i want to draw a big bold line between the rhetoric and promises and history of free software, and also what happened to the movement that isnt much of a movement anymore. but first, whats the point of words if you dont know what they mean? you know what free software is, what open source is, what liberal, left wing and right wing mean. or maybe you dont, but ill define them so at least you wont be surprised when i use a word or phrase in a way that doesnt make sense when compared to your own experience: free software is a movement that started in the 80s. today it (still) promises the freedom to freely use, study, change and share both software and the source code used to make it. the goal of free software was for all software to be free. no time limit on this goal will be enforced here, only talk of which direction the movement has gone in so far. perhaps someday it will change. 40 years later though, it seems unlikely. open source is a larping festival starting in the late 90s where corporate types at places like google, microsoft and amazon pretend theyre taking over the companies they work for. both of these ideas were largely ego driven, by large egos, but open source pandered more to egos and some handwavey catch-all notion of "pragmatism" implying that the very notion of real freedom is sort of naive, while still using it as a selling point. a republican, or tory, is a person who favours tradition for its own sake and the privileged groups it creates through exploitation and theft of one sort or another. a democrat, new labour member or liberal is a person who likes to reform republican and tory policies so that revolutions can ultimately be avoided, even if this guarantees perpetual exploitation. and a revolutionary is someone who thinks life might not be worth living if its lived according to the various bullshits we come to expect from politicians- although to be fair, some revolutionaries are not entirely against voting "strategically". i personally have qualms about it, when it extends completely unacceptable deal breakers like genocide for years if not decades, or sometimes even centuries. well, i want to be clear that im not siding with martyrs on this. you can argue that a martyr is someone who is too willing to lose for a greater good that might not be won. most revolutionaries can be revolutionaries without TRYING to be a martyr. im not talking about people who dont have the choice. you cant have a revolution of course, without making sacrifices. but theres an enormous difference between everyone making sacrifices, and sacrificing everything as some kind of strategy. getting back to the topic of free software, when it was a new movement, it seemed revolutionary enough to actually do a lot of what it set out to do. it found an operating system that was particularly easy to recreate, it found existing software with terms that suited the cause and could be extended and built on to suit the cause even better, it started working towards those goals one user program at a time- and it started to build a working operating system and compiler. the founder thought of the project as something that could take its time. i agree mostly, though there were aspects of the project that had a limited time to get things done before poaching started happening. considering that the whole concept of free software WAS INTENDED to stop the poaching which happened at the mit artificial intelligence lab, maybe poaching shouldve been considered more of a threat. instead, the gnu project plodded along- quite heroically mind you, pretending that all they had to do was keep putting one foot (or hoof) in front of the other. the choice of operating system was good. the choice of kernel had a lasting impact on the viability of the project. both apples darwin os and the gnu hurd kernel were based on the free mach kernel project. darwin chose a monolithic design, and gnu decided to choose a much more sophisticated design. the sophisticated design is still causing problems decades later. at the time, it let a simpler monolithic kernel steal the spotlight in the early 90s. the gnu project begrudgingly, eventually began to support the combination of a gnu user space and compiler with a kernel written by linus torvalds. i dont like linus torvalds. i think hes a douchebag and a sellout. not that he was ever required to be anything else- i mean, he was not required to kiss the gnu ring. i dont kiss the ring either, instead ive tried very hard to ultimately get away from both gnu and linux. but for many years, i wanted to believe in free software. the idea is appealing. the reality is a serious disappointment. note that i used gnu and linux from 2007 to 2020. note that i created my own distro. i am glad to put both of those things behind me. everything that linus did wrong was covered in a letter by bruce perens to the debian mailing list in 1999- just one year after co-founding the open source initiative with eric raymond. perens didnt go after linus personally, and may not have intended to target him at all, instead he went after "open source" which both perens and torvalds were heavily involved with. what perens held against open source in 1999 is what ive held against open source and torvalds for more than a decade. open source co-opted free software and was cynical, destructive and in my opinion, dishonest and misleading. open source was a corporate coup against what free software was trying to accomplish. and free software should have expected that sort of opposition. but it was too diplomatic, trying to educate its enemy and calling it a fight. the enemy didnt care. linus torvalds didnt care. perens, may have cared. but open source will never care, because open source was never about the user. it exists to outsmart or entice or simply appease corporations, depending on who you ask and when. open source is free software as done by monopolies. it is more counter-revolution than revolution. but free software is still not a revolution. the founder of free software does not know what a revolution is. free software was, a real movement with real goals- it succeeded in some of those goals beyond the expectations of its own creators- credit where credit is due. but the creators were never revolutionaries. they were reformers. and they succeeded, like liberals, at reforming companies who make proprietary software. when asked about a comparison between free software and communism, the founder of free software dismissed communism as anti-freedom, and described stalinism. this is a person who has talked about politics and activism his entire life, but he doesnt know what communism is. you may think that im sympathetic to communism because i think its foolish to conflate it with what stalin did. as far as im concerned, the definition of communism (or if you prefer, socialism) as it existed before the rise of stalin is not something i consider terrible. at worst, it has drawbacks i dont necessarily think are worth having- they are worth debating. the october revolution was a historical step forward for russia, and without the ruthless tyranny of stalin it might have made russia the forefront of the greatest experiment in the history of humanity itself. if only the people had retained control. the founder of free software doesnt seem to know anything about this, because when it comes to history or most politics hes an idiot. in fact i think its safe to say that everyone begins their political journey as an idiot, but some people get wiser along the way- others become entrenched in their own idiocy. he thinks communism is the same thing as what stalin did. thats idiotic. but hes certainly no revolutionary. this is of little academic interest to me, because i would be content to have an idiot at the helm of a movement, if the movement remained a success and the idiot managed to do well enough despite the fact. i dont care if youre a revolutionary, provided you arent standing in the way of a good revolution. these are the real problems free software has today, but free software does not seem to care much about its own problems- it prefers to deny them. funnily enough, that was the same problem that stalin had. stalin and the free software leadership both forgot what the point of revolution was, who they were doing it for, and how any of this shit actually works. in the end, both were destroyed by their own people. but it was far too late for the revolution to simply pick up where it had left off. software, like the vestiges of american democracy and the leadership of british labour, is a thing that has no real left. in megacorporations, it has the republicans and tories, who prefer the "traditional" (not original, just the very old capital-driven status quo) route of making software proprietary and creating lock-in. in free software, it has the liberals and new labour, who have a monopoly on progress- gatekeeping any attempts by revolutionaries or even the disenfranchised, borrowing their words and slogans for their own lobbyist-driven pro-corporate agendas, and a history full of real progress made, but also limited, by co-opting and exploiting otherwise progressive endevours. on their best days, these are the reformers. on their worst, they join hands with the republicans and tories. there havent been a lot of "best days" for years now. its as if theyve stopped pretending. in open source, it has the libertarian douchebags like esr and torvalds, who talk a lot of revolution but sell out to the right so much faster than the liberals ever manage to. their entire brand is on being more different than the liberals, but when it comes to selling out the only difference is how long it takes them to find the necessary connections. then their flag is lowered but the bullshit fuckboy rhetoric goes on and on. there is no revolution in software, there is no left at all. and though some in open source have indeed taken truly revolutionary stances on issues adjacent to, and not so separate from software development- again, credit where credit is due- the idea of any of us "controlling our own computing" or anyone "fighting for our freedom" is just as ridiculous as the idea that candace owens cares about your civil fucking rights. you will be free to use, study and change and share your software until the next time the right figures out how to limit it further. the reformers will keep giving you software with free licenses, licenses that say YES! youre legally entitled to move the orbit of the moon a little bit to the left- if youre able. free software isnt "fighting for your freedom". it even stopped fighting for free software. open source never cared in the first place. its a fucking joke. it gets a lot of stuff done, because it works WITH the enemy. as long as the enemy WANTS it, it gets plenty done. but thats not fighting for your freedom, thats working against you. its counter-revolution. if software ever has a real left, it will presumably see this and do something to fight it- just like free software promised to originally. the closest thing i know of to a real left today is maybe bradley kuhn. he seems sincere and he still says good things. the rest? i dont know. when kuhn originally said this should be less about leaders, i thought he sounded like a traitor. with everything ive learned since then, his words were almost certainly wiser than mine (and certainly my words at the time). the left needs leaders as much as everyone else does, but it doesnt need the same kind of leader. the left doesnt need a stalin, it doesnt even need a lenin. it needs leaders who make great strides, teach others to lead, and then get the fuck out of the way of progress. software doesnt have that kind of leadership. software still exists to benefit the big corporations first, the little corporations second, the users last, and your freedom never because it only gets in the way. a real left would get in the way of the corporations, it would give every user more freedom. at a minimum it would make the honest effort that no organisation seems to make today. but the corporations love free software and "open source", because free software lost. counter-revolution rules the day. what do the corporations get? mostly volunteer labour, doing what a few paid herders are told to get them to do. i suppose thats "freedom" for someone at least. but its no revolution whatsoever. license: 0-clause bsd ``` # 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 # # Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any # purpose with or without fee is hereby granted. # # THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES # WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF # MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR # ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES # WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN # ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF # OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. ``` => https://freesoftwareresistance.neocities.org