Re: The Imperative of Free Software

[Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net>]

I appreciated the original message and find it relevant.

Software freedom is fundamentally about power, it's not just a manner of 
software development. The concern about power is intimately tied to 
wealth in society today.

Nobody gets to be billionaire, ultra-wealthy by actually producing a 
corresponding net increase in well-being in the world (compared to if 
they had not done whatever actions got them so wealthy). That level of 
wealth *only* comes from exploitation, from taking a *disproportionate* 
share of productive output or even from capturing wealth without even 
producing value.

The tie-in to software freedom is that a notable portion of the 
wealthiest and most powerful people today gained and maintain their 
position via proprietary software. Some of it is indirect as in people 
whose main activity is in investing and other financial games.

Yes, there are other non-software-related situations with wealth and 
power as well, and the dynamics were around long before computers.

The thing is, today much of the way power gets expressed is through 
technology. For example, consider the proprietary software (even when 
built upon free software) that runs tractors, cars, factories, and so 
on. Governments, schools, and private businesses use proprietary 
software in their basic operations. This setup gives proprietary 
software companies huge power and profit. To change the power dynamics, 
to empower the general public, software freedom is essential.

Wealth is not evil (and nobody here said so), but extreme wealth 
*inequity* is a situation that undermines freedoms, and being concerned 
about it goes along with the same basic ethic that motives software 
freedom in particular. The sorts of wealth that are widely shared are 
wonderful, and free software is one example of such wealth.

- Aaron


On 2023-04-25 14:27, Davis Remmel via libreplanet-discuss wrote:
> On 4/25/23 16:01, Abe Indoria wrote:
>> I mean, even if I disagree about the whole wealth=evil equivalency,
> 
> I'm sorry that you thought I called the ultra-wealthy evil. I believe 
> their intentions might very well be noble, but when one or a few people 
> exercise control, that is undemocratic (today, being done mostly through 
> financial mechanisms), and this is a structure of society that I feel is 
> important to discuss because I believe society should be controlled by 
> the public, not the few or ones.
> 
> Free software is the best antidote to this control because it is the 
> only kind of software that legally resists capture by any individual.
> 
> It seems when the topic of social control is not discussed, the 
> situation gets worse. And, by virtue of the wealthy controlling today's 
> mass media, and especially them controlling proprietary online social 
> media and their ability to influence other kinds of small media (they 
> can even influence the fediverse by purchasing bots), some ideas aren't 
> ever heard, maybe just being drowned out in the noise, especially the 
> ideas that are critical of the establishment.
> 

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