Gregory's ServerThe thing that frustrates me about this is that the #FreeSoftware community wastes so much fucking time on #Stallman. So much time and effort is wasted on the eccentricities of one man, even though anyone with a gram of sense can see that this man is unfit to lead the social movement for our digital liberation.
And we are so utterly beholden to him. So much of our language and framing is Stallmanesque, sometimes undeservedly. My biggest pet hate is the narrative that 'you, the user, will be free if you use Free Software'. No you won't, especially not if you are not technically inclined. We are freed together as a community, not as individuals. The system of collaboration and the sharing of our digital infrastructure makes this thing liberating for all of us, not my ability to patch better Esperanto support into glibc.
And it's not like this movement needs a single leader, or that there aren't already extremely talented and dedicated leader figures in our community.
And it's not like there aren't problems with our community that aren't related to Stallman. There are so many people (men…) who make this community less lovely than it is.
But instead of lifting up other voices, or addressing other toxicity, we're stuck endlessly dealing with this one eccentric man.
The thing that frustrates me about this is that the #FreeSoftware community wastes so much fucking time on #Stallman. So much time and effort is wasted on the eccentricities of one man, even though anyone with a gram of sense can see that this man is unfit to lead the social movement for our digital liberation.
Harping a little more on one point—some people (Reddit commentors, who am I kidding) will often retort that 'Stallman was right', and that he and the FSF are the only ones with the right zeal and conviction in the struggle for software freedom and opposition to non-free software.
And it's bullshit. There are _so many people and organisations_ who are every bit as dedicated to the project of software freedom. This movement has so long outgrown this one weird man, but if we are to believe his cult of personality, software freedom dies with him.
Harping a little more on one point—some people (Reddit commentors, who am I kidding) will often retort that 'Stallman was right', and that he and the FSF are the only ones with the right zeal and conviction in the struggle for software freedom and opposition to non-free software.
And it's bullshit. There are _so many people and organisations_ who are every bit as dedicated to the project of software freedom. This movement has so long outgrown this one weird man, but if we are to believe his cult...