Free As In Freedom

This is a hot take kind of article, but here it goes the rant.

This applies to me and you.

I’m writing this to remind myself somethings that I too often take for granted. I am going to
preface this whole article by saying that everything I’m going to lay out / mention is something
that I am personally guilty of. This is an open reminder and call out of things that I feel should
change.

Our perspective is flawed

Nobody can dispute that the advances in technology have greatly improved our lives. Like anything,
though, there is a trade off.

What is FOSS

FOSS is an acronym for “Free and Open Source Software”. It is generally about how software is
licensed, meaning that the source code is available in the public for review, allowing a broader
spectrum of people than the originators of the code to have input, look for bugs, redistribute the
software, contribute, etc. It does not however mean that the software should be no cost to the end
user.

This is where the word “freedom” comes into it. Overtime, as a society, we generally now think of
FOSS as “free” software. This takes what was originally a noble / courageous idea and devalues it to
the point that we now expect things to be free. It encourages corporate greed to take advantage of
people who created something to solve a particular need, or as a hobby, expecting the creator to
handle the burden of maintaining / patching bugs while they profit from it. Don’t get me wrong,
these corporations will also contribute back, sometimes even donate money to the creators. I am not
at all opposed to capitalism, nor saying that these corporations are in the wrong. At the end of the
day, we created this problem.

Current state and how we got here

Software services / giants create applications that we come to rely on. They tempt / bait us with
them being “free” or cheap, but that is because we are their target. They bloat the software
with tracking and telemetry to capture data about us and sell us more products and services. Once
again, if you’re pro-capitalism, it’s somewhat hard to blame them for this. We’re the gullible sheep
who will blindly eat out their grain bins.

I can remember back in the day when there were music pirating services on the internet (napster is
the one that comes to mind). As a giant music buff, I quickly jumped on board with services like
these. Back in those days, I was young, didn’t make very much money, so it was hard to afford the
latest and greatest tunes. I also remember back in this time frame a lawsuit from the metal giants
Metallica (other’s words not mine ;)). At the time I remember thinking, like many others, that
Metallica didn’t need the money, but then a comment from Lars Ulrich the band’s drummer struck a
cord with me (pun intended). I’ll will paraphrase here, but it was something along the lines of
“We’re not pursuing this for us, but for all of those (musicians) that come after us”. After this
and reflection, I decided that I would not pirate music anymore.

Fast forward, now the majority do not purchases music / albums, we typically utilize streaming
services (myself included), sure it may be more fair to the artists than pirating was, it can be
argued that it’s easier today for independent artists to become known / discovered, I’m also in no
way saying the old school music industry wasn’t a giant pile of dog poo, but I am saying that who is
really winning(?), it’s the Spotify’s and Apple Music’s of the world, that’s who.

I’m also reminded of the great “MeasureQuick is now charging for services” that happened in the HVAC
industry. I have personally never complained and have always supported this decision, because it is
not sustainable to run a software company and not charge for services, generally. Sure, you may not
like their pricing model, etc. Where I think they went wrong was not charging from the beginning, as
it sets the wrong expectation that is presumably hard to recover from. There are those who took some
of Jim’s words / opinions in a way different from how I do / did, which is fine, we’re all entitled
to our opinions. What is often forgotten is that we’re all also entitled to change those opinions.
Heck, I will probably be shouting a different story tomorrow, so be it!

Conclusion

What I would like to encourage people to do is to support software development. If an application is
free, but has a donate button consider giving a donation. If an application is free and they don’t
want to charge that’s fine too, however I would say to be suspicous, meaning is it free because
you are the product?!?

I would also encourage you to be active in communities and organizations that foster community (HVAC
School is a great example). Show appreciation and encouragement, but at the same time don’t be
afraid to be critical or speak up.

At the end of the day, I hope to lift up my brothers and sisters, help to fight against the
corporations who abuse the little guy’s and hopefully feel good about my decisions.

Over the last few weeks, I have been going through my software and services and looking for those
donation buttons and giving back a little bit for the software that makes my life better. Help
change the narrative and remember that it’s about Freedom not Free.

Links

• Open-source Software
• Free Software Fondation
• Electronic Frontier Foundation

Software used in this blog.

• Neovim
• Hugo
• Hugo Theme

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