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<p>While I have no comment on the recent events surrounding Richard
Stallman, I do feel this is the right time to reflect on the pernicious
insistence on technicalities that is hampering our efforts to educate
people about the virtues of software freedom. I also believe this is an
opportune moment to address the topic of leadership within the broader
community.</p>
<h2>Free software vs open source</h2>
<p>Consider the distinction between free software and open source. The
<a href="https://www.fsf.org/news/richard-m-stallman-resigns">Free Software Foundation’s former
president</a> would
argue that the latter is part of a devious plan to undermine the former.
The idea is that “open source” does not emphasise the ethical side of
things that the FSF wants to promote. This, in turn, allows
corporations to peddle open source solutions without educating their
users about software freedom.</p>
<p>I find this argument tenuous. Reading through the <a href="https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines">Debian Free Software
Guidelines</a> and/or
the <a href="https://opensource.org/osd">Open Source Definition</a> gives me
assurances of a technical as well as an ethical sort. It is a
misrepresentation of facts to consider “open source” as <em>purely</em>
technical, for it does expressly grant liberties to users.</p>
<p>If a corporation is making something that is truly open source, then we
have the right to access the source code, modify it, redistribute it,
etc. In other words, it is <em>free</em> software.</p>
<p>What would be a valid concern in this debate is companies engaging in
fraudulent practices, where they would use confusing language to market
their products. For example, “open core” accompanied by extremely
complex license structures tangled with patents and other restrictions.
Here we can indeed raise the alarm. Such products deny us of our
freedom.</p>
<p>But we must never conflate legitimate open source with fraud. Doing so
in a manner that is consistent and systematic is a disservice to our
cause. It also is dishonest.</p>
<p>As for arguments about emphasising freedom, these too miss the point.
It is not the job of each individual developer or piece of software to
preach about the four freedoms. Let entities like the FSF handle the
task of educating people on that front. They are better equipped for
the task.</p>
<h2>Free, libre, gratis</h2>
<p>We all know that the word “free” is polysemous. This compounds the
problem of insisting that free software is not open source, because now
we must spend an inordinate amount of time explaining the difference
between free as in beer and free as in freedom. Then we must borrow
words that the average English speaker is not familiar with to help us
in our pedantry. The one is gratis, the other is libre.</p>
<p>Language is an intersubjective phenomenon, meaning that it is not enough
for us to find increasingly obscure ways of describing the various
analytical constructs we have deduced. Everyone listening to us must
also be on the same wavelength. Else the message is lost in
translation.</p>
<p>As such, when we try to attract new users to our community, we face the
impossible task of first indoctrinating them about abstract concepts and
only then delving into the specifics of our applications and operating
systems.</p>
<p>Yes, there is a value to insisting on precision of statement. The right
words can be very important to achieve clarity of concept. However, we
must have a sense of the prevailing circumstances and the context:
people have their beliefs and use whatever is given to them to get the
job done. I thus find it more effective to show them in practice the
tangible benefits of free software. Only once I have their undivided
attention I can, <em>where appropriate</em>, address technicalities of this
sort.</p>
<h2>Free software is not a dogma</h2>
<p>It is common for activists to misinterpret their cause as justification
for absolutism. The result is a binary world-view whereby the cause is
perceived as purely good and must be pursued at all costs, while
everything else is evil and should be eliminated with extreme prejudice.</p>
<p>Free software is no different. The underlying reason we have all this
pedantry is because some people do not keep things in perspective. They
are too idealistic to recognise any possible deviation from their
reified concepts. They are blinded by their vaunted beliefs to the fact
that the world is complex and does not conform with some simplistic
categorisation along the lines of good versus bad.</p>
<p>We should not have to atone for some spurious sin of using non-free
software, especially when it is done out of practical necessity. There
are forces outside our control which compel us into action. We do not
unilaterally decide on the prevailing conditions in our workplace, our
immediate locality, our politics at-large. We may not have access to
the means that enable a life of 100% software freedom. Or, more likely,
we may not have the luxury of offloading all non-free-software
interactions to a trusted intermediary. There are permutations and
combinations in between the morally black-and-white world that certain
groups think they live in.</p>
<p>Absolutism engenders elitism, which can in turn produce cults of
personality or beget trolling. This comes in various forms. Think of
the tacit—at times explicit—praise that Linus Torvalds receives (used
to?) each time he goes on one of his usual abusive rants. Consider how
the “btw I use Arch” meme provides grist to the mill of the buffoons
that attack users for choosing “Noobuntu”. Then there is this
misunderstanding about the Unix philosophy that fuels the talk about
“bloat” in free software (see my relevant video blog: <a href="https://protesilaos.com/codelog/2019-08-09-vlog-emacs-unix/">Emacs mindset and
Unix philosophy</a>).</p>
<p>The overarching theme is that pedantry, else elitism, leads to patterns
of behaviour that are against the very people that are attracted to free
software. Users choose open source for a variety of reasons, usually
practical and then, after some further research, moral or political.
Even then practicality remains of paramount importance.</p>
<p>While data is not available, I will dare speculate on this: it would be
rather odd to find that new users are attracted to free software
primarily because they were impressed by Stallman’s or Torvalds’
toxicity, or were persuaded by some troll’s musings about bloat in
Linux distros…</p>
<h2>Leadership in free software</h2>
<p>One of the reasons I was attracted to Debian is their system of
governance. The “Debian Project Leader” is not what the title may
imply: their role is mostly that of a public face for the project as
well as a liaison between the various specialised task forces that
comprise Debian. The DPL wields no real power, in the sense of being
able to pass orders backed by threats. They essentially are just
another developer who has to deal with even more email traffic while “in
charge”.</p>
<p>In my time as a Debian user, the DPLs have been Chris Lamb and now Sam
Hartman. I know more about the former, though the latter has given me a
positive first impression. People such as those two are prime examples
of what the free software community needs more of. Individuals who are
approachable and who are not cult favourites for all the wrong reasons.</p>
<p>Debian’s structure facilitates the election of such personalities. The
project is organised in a distributed manner. Every field has its own
dedicated team, its own domain experts. The different teams coordinate
their work with the help of the DPL where necessary. What we end-users
understand as Debian is the concerted action of a world-wide community
that effectively operates without a figurehead.</p>
<p>The lesson to be learnt is that free software communities must adopt
decisions and resolve tensions in ways that are consistent with the
spirit of freedom that unites them. The notion of a powerful leader who
can single-handedly forward the cause and stand up against the forces of
“evil” (recall the binary world-view) is better suited to rigid
hierarchies.</p>
<h2>Focus on software</h2>
<p>Judging from my experience and that of people I have directly helped
start their free software endeavours, there is little appetite for
joining some quasi-religious group. Users want to solve practical
problems. They do not wish to partake in some meaningless collective
flattery on Reddit centred on Stallman’s or Torvalds’ latest obnoxious
antics.</p>
<p>This impression I have is further reinforced by the feedback I receive
via email or in my screen casts that currently focus on Emacs. Users
appreciate practical tips that make a tangible difference in their
workflow. Someone watching these might want to try out Emacs in an
attempt to boost their productivity. There are no exhortations. No
pretences of holding the moral high ground. Just the software and the
real benefits it offers.</p>
<p>Perhaps then, it would be more interesting and fecund if we stopped
caring about emblematic leaders and focused our efforts on improving the
tools we have or, as in my case, making their value more apparent to end
users.</p>
<p>Then all the controversies surrounding the likes of Stallman or Torvalds
become background noise that we can easily ignore. Free software—open
source, if you will—must always be about the code and the concomitant
freedoms attached to it. All the rest ends up supporting the agendas
and inflating the egos of individuals, much to the detriment of the
community at-large.</p>