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I'm not a big fan of FOSS.
Was that controversial enough? Do I have your attention now?
I really appreciate shared source code. Being able to see what's going on under the hood is great for a number of reasons. I also really appreciate people who choose to allow their work to become the basis for other people's iterations. That's a really awesome thing to do and it helps create a really fascinating ecosystem.
But that's not FOSS, is it? If that was FOSS we'd have lots fewer angry rants. We'd have way less gate keeping and arguments about beer and freedom.
I have tried to use the terms libre and gratis as much as possible in my own discussions about software licensing and shared source communities. Open Source is a charged term religiously defended. Free software, likewise, means a very specific and narrow thing. I don't care for any of it.
The posturing, the anger, the entitlement, it's all shit.
I'm very tempted to ignore the licenses completely. I have most of my software stuff under GPL and much of my writing under Creative Commons. I really want to share my work in a way that helps others and builds an ecosystem of continued sharing, but the attitudes around this stuff pisses me off. I suppose it's like having a parent yell at you to clean up your room while you're already in the middle of cleaning your room. Now I don't want to.
Recent chatter on Gemini on this topic isn't the only thing leading to this gemlog, so I'm not going to link this as a reply to anything. It's just a general rant at all of it.
I want to be explicit here: this isn't about one type of FOSS license vs another. Yeah I use GPL more than BSD because, well, I don't do free labor for companies. If they want something I've built and shared, they can pay for it, either to me or to an employee who can build their own. Or, they could do what seems just impossible. They could share their work under the same terms.
But that's not the point. Even GPL is toxic. Part of it is this libre idea itself. Free as in freedom? It's a freedom "to", not a freedom "from". And with that comes this entitlement. My choice to share my work with others is not a gift anymore but an expectation. My daring to put limits on it or express concern about how my code is used is now seen as limiting someone else, not empowering them. The entire thing is flipped on its head from an act of generosity into a wailing child screaming demands of you. It's gross. I hate it.
Gratis is simple. Money or no money. It's not gross, just a boolean. I like that. I have no issues with gratis, but FOSS people will be the first to tell you that's not what FOSS is about. If you want to wear their name badge you better follow the rules. You better not put a restriction on what people might do with your code. Military limitation? Don't like your sorting algorithm killing kids in drone strikes? Sorry, that's not FOSS, bro. Ye be shunned now.
Fuck that. And if you are saying that shit to others, fuck you too.
Originally Published 2021-11-02 at:
gemini://tilde.team/~tomasino/journal/20211102-freedom.gmi
If you have questions or thoughts to add please send me a link to your response.