Stallman
I received, like all those who are active both in the world of IT and on political issues, the usual email (actually there are two, one for and one against) inviting me to sign a petition. Depending on the email, they invite you to sign a pro / con Stallman petition.
You will know the history. Stallman dared to question whether a person (who is also deceased) committed sexual crimes, since there is no ruling that says so.
Obviously the usual canceling started, and he found himself having to resign from the association (which was fighting for free software, according to the definition of free that Stallman used) that he had founded.
Now, apparently, since this association intends to reinstate it, then now the masses have split in two: those for and those against. And they ask anyone to take sides.
I won't, for several reasons.
- Stallman was an integral part of the same culture that practices canceling. What happens is that the purest pure always comes and purifies you. But to say that Stallman was alien to that SJW culture who then punished him is misleading. Because Stallman wasn't just someone who had ideas: he was one who cultivated them in their purity, considering purity a goal. Ultimately, he was a fundamentalist. Like those who purged him.
- Stallman, like Torvalds, was a "benevolent dictator" in his field: as always, when you remember his fundamentalism, someone tells you that "he also did many good things". But this is said of every dictator. Torvalds also did a lot of good things.
Now, the problem is simple: because of fundamentalism the world of the OSS is stagnant. But badly stagnant. Why'? Because these people, all of the "old guard", like Stallman and Torvalds, have built churches, and as if that weren't enough they are "Catholic" churches. Full of fanatics.
We are still using the Linux kernel after 30 years. At the time the Linux kernel was not as obsolete as Tanenbaum said, but today it is. I'm sorry to say, but today “Linux is obsolete” and if not “Obsolete” it is at least true that “Linux is Legacy”.
Let me be clear, I have installed it everywhere and in my house I have never had Windows. I'm the one in the company who asks to remove windows and put Linux on their manager, even on the company laptop.
But.
"Linux is obsolete, or at least Legacy". I don't want to discuss the obvious, which is that to say it all there is no longer a need for the operating system because silicon can do everything the kernel does, and the graphics card can do. everything your interface does (while we discuss X versus Wayland), and so on.
It is precisely the problem that today Linux as an OS is no longer able to answer the questions of the industry. Huawei has decided to start building an OS (which the Americans have tried to defame with a fake news according to which it would be Android – and many have fallen for it) that works both on computers and on mobile phones and on embedded devices for this too.
If we then examine the whole "modern" Linux stack, we discover one thing: we have the most relevant news because Google, inventing Golang, has given life to a series of middleware such as Kubernetes, Docker, and many others that they are part of the stack of "modern" companies. If we look at the rest, we discover stuff like Apache + PHP, Mysql / MAriaDB, and even Postgres, which are AT LEAST 20 YEARS OLD projects.
On the desktop front, cosmic events are celebrated such as “the new Gnome font”, “Evolution now has a new notification sound”, and other exciting things: if you don't believe it, check out https://www.omgubuntu.co. uk / . And it's not that the kernel is better: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux-511-features&num=1
Seriously? And where did the innovation go? Innovation, yes: the great absent.
Why did this happen?
It happened because of a phenomenon: fundamentalism. People like Stallman or Torvalds who build churches, or Communist parties, complete with a cult of the leader's personality.
Fundamentalism is that phenomenon for which you enter an environment trying to contribute, perhaps by writing other software, and instead of receiving a nice "welcome !!" it happens that:
- first there is a scrutiny to see if you are pure enough with respect to the Great Ideal.
- then the line of hazing starts, which aims to remind you that you are the latest arrival and therefore, anyway, LVI, the Father of All of Us, our Supreme Guide, is always right and right even when he is wrong.
- anyway, remember that you are nobody compared to them. And anyway, no one will join your project by helping you, because only THEIR projects are noteworthy.
At this point, it happens that the vast amount of those who wanted to contribute will devote their time to more pleasant things. And so in the end it is full of "version 0.3.1 pre-alpha". If we took away from a Linux distribution all the software that is in “beta”, “alpha”, or a version lower than one, we would practically have an unusable if not empty distribution. But the fragmentation is driven by an asphyxiated environment, now not very gratifying, and often also unpleasant.
Years ago a very strange thing was born: Ubuntu. The company (Canonical) set out to make a Linux distribution that was simple and welcoming to users. Go to any linuxari forum: whoever uses Ubuntu is treated as a beginner, an amateur, an impure person, one who is, in short, less than the others. Not like the pure hard guys who use real man distributions . Something like Canonical needed to be celebrated. It has become a symbol of contempt for the "pure".
Under these conditions, the open source software that is released by companies with its source, for commercial purposes, is increasing more and more, but it is absolutely functional to the companies themselves and their business.
Linux has become, together with "free software", a department of GAFAM: the one where people work for free.
And this is due to the so-called "Benevolent Dictators" (as if there is only one dictator that his sycophants do not portray as benevolent), whose aim is to remain "Leaders for life". And to do so, they do as every dictator does:
- cult of personality.
- police of orthodoxy.
The fact that Stallman was purged does not impress me much, any more than it does to read that Mussolini had Ciano shot, or that Stalin defeated Hitler: making a bad end is normal when there are dictators in the middle.
The story of Stallman seems to me, honestly, an internal feud in the world of internet fundamentalism: the fundamentalists furries and SJW who kill the fundamentalist of "free software free as in free beer".
Because here is the point: on the internet, the only way to have an identity seems to be to be a fundamentalist of something . With the result that it is becoming a very unpleasant place.
Not a day goes by without dealing with an X extremist or a Y fundamentalist. Whether X is Linux, the idea of Open Source, Popeye or Apple, you spend your time hoping that the people you meet on the internet you never cross paths with an explosive belt and a detonator. Because one way or another they would blow themselves up.
The Internet is reduced to a gigantic deathmatch of bimbiminkia fanatics of something.
I have no intention of taking part in Stallman's fanatic bimbiminkia deathmatch against Metoo's bimbiminkia, or SJW bimbiminkia.
It bores me. I feel sick. I have the balls of a network that seems to have become the Annual Gathering of every Popular Front in Judea.
Stallman, with his fundamentalist attitude, has made free software a niche topic, like the Rojava people and the plugin to use Tinder on Emacs.
The SJW, with their attitude, have already made all their battles niche battles. They have become the vegan cousin that we invite to the Christmas dinner so as not to offend the mother: an obligatory pain in the ass, which we pretend to love but after the dinner we can't wait for him to get off the ground.
Now we find out that SJW took out Stallman. Well. So what?
It's the deathmatch of bimbiminkia, darling.
And many more will fall, because as people of common sense leave the arena, they will remain to slaughter themselves.
No, I'm not signing any petitions. And you shouldn't do it either: that a bimbiminkia deathmatch is already a painful spectacle, with the curves cheering it becomes embarrassing.