90 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
90 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
---
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date: 2015-01-05T00:00:00-05:00
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title: "The GNU Radical"
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tags: [en_us, free-software, philosophy, thoughts]
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---
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A friend of mine, [Blaise](http://blaise.ca), once told me not to
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introduce myself as “... what you would call a radical...”. He had
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listened to me talking to a person who were questioning what a Free
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Software activist does. My friend's rationale, to which I totally agree,
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is that you must let the other person decide whether she thinks you are
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a “radical” or not. In other words, if you say you are a “radical” from
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the beginning, it will probably induce the other person to a
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pre-judgement about you, which is not good for you and for her.
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As I said, I agree with him. But I am going through a lot of situations
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in my life that are constantly reminding me that, maybe, I am that
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“radical” after all. I do not know whether this is good or bad, and I
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can say I have been questioning myself for a while now. This post, by
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the way, is going to be a lot about self-questioning.
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Maybe the problem is that I am expecting too much from those that have
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the same beliefs that I do. Or maybe the cause is that I do not know
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**what** to expect from them in certain situations, and I am
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disappointed when I see that they do not follow what I think is best
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sometimes. On the other hand, when I look myself in the mirror, I do not
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know whether I am totally following what I think is best; and if I am
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not, then how can I even consider telling others to do that? And even if
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I am following my own advices, how can I be sure that they are good
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enough for others?
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One good example of this is my opinion about FSF's use of Twitter. The
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opinion is [public]({filename}/2013-10-16-fsf-twitter-coherence.md),
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and has been criticized by many people already, including Free
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Software supporters. Shortly after I wrote the post, I mentioned it to
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Richard Stallman, and he told me he was not going to read it because
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he considered it “too emotional”. I felt deeply sad because of his
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reaction, especially because it came from someone who often appeals to
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emotions in order to teach what he has to say. But I also started
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questioning myself about the topic.
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Is it really bad to use Twitter? This is what I ask myself sometimes. I
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see so many people using it, including those who defend Free Software as
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I do (like Matt Lee), or those who stand against privacy abuses (like
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[Jacob Appelbaum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum)), or
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who are worried about social causes, or... Yeah, you got the point. I
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refuse to believe that they did not think about Twitter's issues, or
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about how they would be endorsing its use by using it themselves. Yet,
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they are there, and a lot of people is following their posts and
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discussing their opinions and ideas for a better world. As much as I try
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to understand their motivation for using Twitter (or even Facebook), I
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cannot convince myself that what they are doing is good for their goals.
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Am I being too narrow minded? Am I missing something?
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Another example are my thoughts about Free Software programs that
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support (and sometimes even **promote**) unethical services. They (the
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thoughts)
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[are also public]({filename}/2014-10-15-respectful-software.md). And
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it seems that this opinion, which is about something I called
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“Respectful Software”, is too strong (or “radical”?) for the majority
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of the developers, even considering Free Software developers. I saw
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very good arguments on why Free Software *should* support unethical
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services, and it is hard to disagree with them. I guess the best of
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those arguments is that when you support unethical services like
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Facebook, you are offering a Free Software option for those who want
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or need to use the service. In other words, you are helping them to
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slowly get rid of the digital handcuffs.
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It seems like all those arguments (about Twitter, about implementing
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support for proprietary systems on Free Software, and others) are
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ultimately about **reaching users** that would otherwise remain ignorant
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of the Free Software philosophy. And how can someone have
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counter-arguments for this? It is impossible to argue that we do not
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need to take the Free Software message to everybody, because when
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someone does not use Free Software, she is doing harm to her community
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(thus, we **want** more people using Free Software, of course). When the
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Free Software Foundation makes use of Twitter to bring more people to
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the movement, and when I see that despite talking to people all around
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me I can hardly convince them to try GNU/Linux, who am I to criticize
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the FSF?
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So, I have been thinking to myself whether it is time to change. What I
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am realizing more and more is that my fight for coherence perhaps is
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flawed. We are incoherent by nature. And the truth is that, no matter
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what we do, people change according to their own time, their own will,
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and their own beliefs (or to the lack of them). I remembered something
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that I once heard: changing is not binary, changing is a process. So,
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after all, maybe it is time to stop being a “GNU radical” (in the sense
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that I am radical even for the GNU project), and become a new type of
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activist.
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