> Even though FOSS ate the world, we didn't win software freedom, we just enabled a bunch of new tech giants to put us into consumer roles with little to no fre

> Even though FOSS ate the world, we didn't win software freedom, we just enabled a bunch of new tech giants to put us into consumer roles with little to no freedom once again. I think one of the dominant causes of this is the fact that hackers and tinkerers became viewed by many/most FOSS products not as key users, but as mild annoyances or even outright pests (and the process has been going on for a long time, at least 10 years). As FOSS projects fought with proprietary and limited use options they worked to provide convenience that mass users needed to switch. Then to gain wider acceptance they added polish -- "plug and play", "no configuration needed" that mom and pop users wanted. There is nothing sinister there, but this step puts projects a stone's throw from corporate IT that offers a lot of support / development money, but wants to lock everything to a few "approved" configurations (because crypto, corporate policy or something else). Project remains open source, everyone can fork it (but good luck making sense of it), but from this point tinkerers become persona non grata. What they want (freedom to change things) is against the payer's desire for a locked setup. And from this point on, the system is free only in name. If you want your software to stay FOSS in spirit, do not drive away tinkerers as your system matures. Leave enough hooks for them to access low level capabilities, enough knobs for them to do "what no sane user would want" and do not see them as a threat even when they stand between you and that $50k support contract from some megacorp. My 2c. Just my 2c.