I was reading and thinking about a post discussing the Stallman Report¹ and a section leapt out and resonated for me:
"My biggest pet hate is the narrative that 'you, the user, will be free if you use Free Software'. No you won't, especially not if you are not technically inclined. We are freed together as a community, not as individuals."
And it crystallized a thought that has been knocking around my mind for months: …
1/2
¹: todon.eu/@carmenbianca/1133247… / @carmenbianca , ht: @mos_8502
Carmen Bianca BAKKER (@carmenbianca@todon.eu)
https://stallman-report.org/ The thing that frustrates me about this is that the #FreeSoftware community wastes so much fucking time on #Stallman.Todon.eu
![Despite all of this, the sometimes decent CoinDesk crypto media outlet has come out with a truly embarrassing endorsement-that-claims-not-to-be-an-endorsement of Donald Trump. (“If CoinDesk were in the business of endorsing political candidates and if crypto were the only issue that mattered, it's pretty clear whom we would back to become the next U.S. president.... [E]ven though we don't endorse candidates, we do endorse Trump's crypto platform, such as is [sic].”) Although they claim to be “troubled” by his racism and “increasingly authoritarian rhetoric” — which they describe as “the antithesis of a crypto movement focused on decentralizing authority and empowering individuals” — the opinion piece by CoinDesk’s editor-in-chief, published on behalf of CoinDesk as a whole, is full of “neverthelesses” and “even thoughs” and “howevers” as he recommends Trump anyway. The whole thing boils down to “sure, Trump is a shameless racist who’s been increasingly threatening to do things like round up immigrants and deploy the military against his political enemies, and his statements on crypto kind of seem like empty pandering, but on the other hand, Harris has been... vague.”](https://fedi.ml/photo/preview/640/600221 "Despite all of this, the sometimes decent CoinDesk crypto media outlet has come out with a truly embarrassing endorsement-that-claims-not-to-be-an-endorsement of Donald Trump. (“If CoinDesk were in the business of endorsing political candidates and if crypto were the only issue that mattered, it's pretty clear whom we would back to become the next U.S. president.... [E]ven though we don't endorse candidates, we do endorse Trump's crypto platform, such as is [sic].”) Although they claim to be “troubled” by his racism and “increasingly authoritarian rhetoric” — which they describe as “the antithesis of a crypto movement focused on decentralizing authority and empowering individuals” — the opinion piece by CoinDesk’s editor-in-chief, published on behalf of CoinDesk as a whole, is full of “neverthelesses” and “even thoughs” and “howevers” as he recommends Trump anyway. The whole thing boils down to “sure, Trump is a shameless racist who’s been increasingly threatening to do things like round up immigrants and deploy the military against his political enemies, and his statements on crypto kind of seem like empty pandering, but on the other hand, Harris has been... vague.”")
Ben Zanin
in reply to Ben Zanin • • •Software being Free (or open source, or zero cost, or even "open core" (gag)) does legitimately help developers - those very few.
But there is another role: the folks who specifically assist others to navigate up knowledge and skill gradients, and who work to diminish those gradients: the distro maintainers, the package testers & integrators, the sysadmins, the community moderators.
It is fine to want freedom yourself but we *must* work for each other's freedom too.
2/2