FSF individualism in Logic Magazine

FSF individualism in Logic Magazine

[Danny Spitzberg]

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Hi all

this article <https://logicmag.io/failure/freedom-isnt-free/> on the
"failure" of free software ran last month (long before the recent scandal)
and offers what could be an important wake up call — especially in light of
the wild hand-wringing about RMS.

The following quote feels prescient:

“Free software pioneers like Stallman tended to approach the issue from an
individualized perspective, drawn from the 1970s-1980s hacker culture that
many of them came from: if you could change how enough hackers wrote and
used software, you could change the world. This highly personalized model
of social change proposed an individual solution to a structural problem,
which necessarily neglected the wider social context.”

As we look forward from this RMS fracas, I wonder how other folks here feel
about this article.

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   Hi all
   [1]this article on the "failure" of free software ran last month (long
   before the recent scandal) and offers what could be an important wake
   up call — especially in light of the wild hand-wringing about RMS.
   The following quote feels prescient:
   “Free software pioneers like Stallman tended to approach the issue from
   an individualized perspective, drawn from the 1970s-1980s hacker
   culture that many of them came from: if you could change how enough
   hackers wrote and used software, you could change the world. This
   highly personalized model of social change proposed an individual
   solution to a structural problem, which necessarily neglected the wider
   social context.”
   As we look forward from this RMS fracas, I wonder how other folks here
   feel about this article.

References

   1. https://logicmag.io/failure/freedom-isnt-free/

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Re: FSF individualism in Logic Magazine

[Dmitry Alexandrov]

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Danny Spitzberg <stationaery@gmail.com> wrote:
> this article <https://logicmag.io/failure/freedom-isnt-free/> on the "failure" of free software ran last month (long before the recent scandal) and offers what could be an important wake up call — especially in light of the wild hand-wringing about RMS.

> As we look forward from this RMS fracas, I wonder how other folks here feel about this article.

Well, I am not much aware of that fracas, and probably missed the connection.  From a sideways glance, it looked like yet another malevolent hype started by professional SJWs, completely unrelated to software freedom.  If I am wrong, please enlighten me.

> The following quote feels prescient:
>
> “Free software pioneers like Stallman tended to approach the issue from an individualized perspective, drawn from the 1970s-1980s hacker culture that many of them came from: if you could change how enough hackers wrote and used software, you could change the world. This highly personalized model of social change proposed an individual solution to a structural problem, which necessarily neglected the wider social context.”

I am not that familiar with RMS’s views to say whether a claim that “if you could change how enough hackers wrote and used software, you could change the world” may be really attributed to him either.

But if you could change _how_ hackers write software, you could change the world.  Free software + bazaar development is exactly about that, not about quantities.

And I do not observe any failure on that front.   Unfulfilled expectations for immediate and huge success (did anybody really share them?) != failure.

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