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Free Software will never be palatable to the mainstream, because the mainstream rejects socialist ideas. I think the popularity of Linux has somehow obscured th
by t-3 5y ago
Free Software will never be palatable to the mainstream, because the mainstream rejects socialist ideas. I think the popularity of Linux has somehow obscured the ideological origins of the movement, which seemed much more overt in the late 90s/early 00's when I first got into it.
- _ofdw 5y ago>Free Software will never be palatable to the mainstream, because the mainstream rejects socialist ideas. Then don't frame it as a socialist idea. There's absolutely nothing about Free Software that has a hard requirement on socialist ideology. Frame it as pragmatism: Governments/schools/etc should run free software because it's more cost-effective and thus a more fiscally-responsible use of taxpayer monies. Frame it as democratic: Why should a bunch of unelected CEOs have the right to dictate what you, a citizen of $this_great_nation, do with your devices? Frame it as nationalism: How can American kids grow up to be world-leading innovators if they can't hack their devices? We're losing to Russia and China in the hacking gap! Frame it as free speech or something: Why does the government get to decide what I do with my devices? My ipad my choice.
- ganyu 5y agoMatter of fact: Chinese smartphone users can be sued for hacking their devices. Particularly developers who develop location mocking apps.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoI think you're letting your personal beliefs/circles affect your view on the FOSS ideology. Free software has nothing to say for or against commercial software. Commercial software doesn't need to be proprietary. I was there in the late 90s and early 2000s too and it was a minority (of proponents, many opponents would slander FOSS as a form of socialism) that somehow equated open software with socialism. We're talking free as in libre here, not free as in beer.