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After reading Ploum's recent post about how Richard Stallman was right all along, I have to say that I agree with his take. This is likely going to be short, because I don't have much to say beyond what he wrote.
gemini://ploum.net/2023-06-19-more-rms.gmi
This might seem odd coming from someone who just posted about how sick he was of Linux and was moving back to FreeBSD. If only all of my choices were easily explainable in life.
I've found myself as I get older actually becoming more "radicalized" than I was in my 20's and 30's. I definitely feel like society lost it's way a long time ago. One of the things that I like most about Ploum's post is that he recognizes the larger parallels between society's ills and free/libre vs proprietary software. Everywhere you look these days you see that what used to be held in common trust is being carved up and divided among those who don't really need any more.
What if, when a house became abandoned, rather than ownership reverting to a bank, it was held in common trust? What if an enterprising person who decided to fix that house up and live in it was just allowed to assume ownership of it? Why does this seem like a ridiculous concept? The bank has no use for houses. Banks don't need to go home after their long workday and play in the yard with their dog, people do. Wouldn't the world be such a better place if this sort of thing was encouraged? There would be less abandoned houses becoming a problem for their towns, homelessness would have an obvious solution and people might not be so willing to sell their precious time just so that they could have a basic human need (shelter).
Our society in general values ownership too highly. In the US where I'm from we are perhaps the worst. I like the idea of reverting "property" back to the commons more and more, whether that be intellectual property or even inheritance. Obviously, if someone is currently using a resource then that should be respected, but when they die, or if they abandon it's stewardship, then that thing should revert to the commons, to be held until someone else needs it. In the case of knowledge, the idea of property and ownership is outdated and dangerous and should probably not apply at all beyond attribution.
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