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Because “Free and Open Source Software isn’t about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy” is one helluva take.

(And yes, you’re right, “open source” isn’t about any of those things. It’s just about the source being openly available. Not about protecting its openness or anything. It’s open as in “open for business.” But free (as in freedom) software/technology…? Well, I guess some of us would beg to differ.)

Oh, and if you want a philosophy/movement that isn’t shy or apologetic about being about freedom/privacy/human rights/democracy, see Small Tech:

https://small-tech.org/about/#small-technology

#FOSDEM #openSource #freeSoftware #SmallTech #freedom #privacy #humanRights #democracy

Small Technology Foundation: About

We’re a tiny and independent two-person not-for-profit based in Ireland. We’re working on building the Small Web.

tom jennings

@tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org replied · last month

@aral

Aral, I'm with you on nearly everything you post. But afaik FOSS has long been about access to code, and no more. "Free and open" parallels human freedom and openness but in the longstanding software "movement", no. But! it is absolutely taken as such by many people, and I'm one of them.

But FOSS doesn't not automatically mean freedom as in human, very many tech folk are tech-first, and that's that. I intensely dislike those people.

This dissonance, this dilemma is deep if not wide. It makes conversations about the use of FOSS to oppress us very messy.

We absolutely need a way to distinguish and state freedom as in human in software.

john r red-horse

@jrredho@mastodon.world replied · last month

@aral

A fair bit of your declaration seems like a straw man to me.

I've always interpreted free to mean free of payment cost. Free of cost has never meant freedom in the free from tyranny sense.

Open source? Well, open to acquire and scrutinize, etc. Also, are you saying there are no protections available for open source, that something like one of the GPLs doesn't protect the open source itself?

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