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### gnu-will-never-be-free
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*originally posted:* may 2021
to start out, let me mention that i would be happy to be wrong about the following, but i wouldnt say that "gnu will never be free" unless i was reasonably certain that its true. i have spent many years watching this, i continue to look for evidence to the contrary, the longer this goes on and i find little evidence that it is wrong and the more evidence i find that it is true, the more confidently i say these things. but i would gladly be mistaken. that would be wonderful news.
i am not so interested in public relations bullshit, other glib cheerleading, false promises, or efforts to make gnu even less free than it is. none of these impress me-- though i have no problem with people promoting the better aspects of gnu in an honest context. gnu wget for example, is an application that i use basically every day, even when i am not using the gnu operating system-- as i do not have the gnu operating system installed on any desktops, laptops or sbcs.
i may occasionally find in my possession some toy-like gadget that unfortunately runs some awful, hobbled version of gnu and/or linux on it. i avoid these, while typically finding some way to destroy them (the most recent android tablet i purchased on clearance for under $100 was destroyed when i opened it to remove the mic and camera-- the outer screen and digitiser were even more fragile than those in ones ive opened before) though i didnt install gnu or linux on them, and would remove it if it ran anything else.
my general advice to people is to try to stay away from such devices because theyre nearly worthless, and i typically do things based on that advice myself. thus if you go to the same lengths that i do, i think you are probably doing a good thing. i think some experimentation and evaluation is alright, but just as stallman would never rely on a machine running non-free software (he will occasionally use a windows machine or other non-free platform for some trivial task, but not regularly or as a rule) we are making a mistake when we build our workflows around such things.
i have mixed feelings about a fully-free mobile platform. it would be good to talk about how to accomplish such a thing, and most likely good to experiment, but chances are that the actual mobile (as in mobile tower-based) stack will always be non-free. i think a better approach would be a "fully-free mobile" platform that relies exclusively on wifi-based and/or mesh network solutions instead. i think thats more possible and more worthwhile, if being fully-free is the real idea. dont count on gnu radio (unless you are capable of forking and maintaining it without their help) though, because they are traitors who dont care about freedom.
with that aside-- back to my desktops, laptops, servers and sbcs (i own at least one of each of those) and how those can be liberated and free.
the gnu project was announced in 1983, and continued through 2014 or 2015, when it became pseudo-prioprietary or "free in license only". i refer to this as simulating or creating practically identical effects as a non-free license, while still including a free license. gnu is not the first example of this, and obfuscated source code is considered witholding access to source code (free source code being considered a requirement for free software in the fsd) but obfuscated software design (such as systemd) is not considered non-free, even if it achieves the same effect as obfuscated source code.
in other words, you can take free software such as wc and turn it into a distinctly hopeless mess such as systemd or firefox, and the fsf (and gnu) will still consider it free-- even if you are bound to a clown-based npi (an old microsoft tactic for co-opting software and destroying competitors) like what rust has turned into. you do not code in rust per se-- you (essentially must) access it through a website, and it is controlled by microsoft. that is still somehow considered free.
compare rust to stallmans evaluation of reactos-- yes, reactos is freely licensed, but he wont promote it because its primary purpose lends itself to non-free drivers, and being less free than gnu. rust in this regard, is as unworthy of promotion as reactos. but the gnu project does promote software written in it, even though it poses a similar threat (in practical, demonstrable, anti-freedom terms) to the threat posed by mono ten years ago. and i realise that many of us are in some way hostages of software written in it, but that is no reason to become even further entwined.
we should be seeking routes to freedom, not further from it. gnu icecat should really come with a disclaimer, that it will probably never be free software again, but perhaps it was when it was added (in good faith?) to gnu. it is written in a clown-based npi, and the way forward is away from icecat and towards alternatives. the gnu project either has no process for evaluating its options when projects go non-free upstream, or-- those processes are not working.
you can take javascript code and "compile" it to what is technically source code, but is unmaintainable (simulating a binary) by removing useful variable names, indentation, comments-- most of what makes source code useful-- and that is generally not considered free.
i realise that this is a difficult point to prove, having spent years trying to do so (im probably not the first person to compare systemd to "minified" javascript either, but i dont know to whom it can be attributed) and of course the fsf would prefer to deal in absolutes, not grey areas. reactos and minified javascript are clearly grey areas, however, and the refusal of gnu to address the problem of systemd is either a crisis of integrity, or an act of cowardice.
some people will consider this argument an example of sophistry, but i think sophistry is a cynical and superficial application of logic that is unsupported by reality, honesty or truth, while it seems very plainly true that the purpose of something like systemd is to simulate the control and monopoly a corporation enjoys when they create non-free software. why does reactos get the boot while systemd gets the green light? that is precisely (one of the reasons) why i call bullshit. this is not intended to defend reactos, which is stupidly hosted on github and which at this point really is mostly free labour that will most likely benefit microsoft primarily.
systemd is most certainly and plainly as non-free (or even less free) than minified javascript under a free license! the very idea that it (or rust) is free software is a farce, and these are problems that echo the creation of (and the years of reaction to and rejection of) mono, though for once they "got away with it".
thus the free software movement has failed, but part of it will split off and still tend to matters of freedom and (more to the point in at least some regards) empowering the user WITH free software.
another way to say this is that free software is free software-- and it is cynical to say that non-free software "empowers the user" because any power that non-free software can provide simulatanously maintains control over that power and can take it away-- but "free software that does NOT empower the user" is most certainly less free than free software that does empower the user.
what is an example of free software that does nothing to empower the user? how about the 14,000 lines of gpl code microsoft "contributed" a decade ago? it did nothing for freedom except help their monopoly.
i do not consider systemd to be free (unless it is "free in license only") but it only empowers the people who control its development, and it can only be maintained by a corporation of a decent size-- by design. the linux kernel alone has reached a point where linus torvalds (the principal and original author) does not understand how it works, and that is a danger to maintainability-- it puts the kernel into corporate hands and nearly guarantees that a fork will never happen. (i spent years exploring the possibility and talking to people-- linux will not be forked in any way that "saves linux", and linux is doomed. gnu/linux, similarly, is doomed to corporate overthrow which has already happened).
systemd is disruptive enough to the goals of software freedom (rather than just talking about software freedom itself, what are the actual goals of software freedom? systemd does not serve those at all) that you could call it a cyberweapon against freedom. further, as gnu becomes inevitably and (by design) increasingly dependent on systemd, which is (by design) dependent on things are are exclusive to the linux kernel, "gnu/linux" becomes "linux gnu" and loses its PRACTICAL/feasible (but not theoretical-- it becomes "free in license only" in its) ability to be salvaged and forked to work with other (less doomed) kernels.
hurd is useless, AND ALWAYS WAS. i think stallman was not wrong that it was interesting as hell as a choice, and had (theoretical) potential in its microkernel design, but THIRTY EIGHT fucking YEARS later (it took only ten of those for gnu to become a bootable os) hurd is STILL fucking useless, as is its fucking lying, traitorous piece of shit lead developer (fuck you, sam).
fuck hurd, and fuck linux too.
hurd was just a bad choice. a better choice (i know, hindsight is 20/20 and im certainly not saying i could have done better myself-- lets at least not IGNORE hindsight though) would have been to say from day 1: "no single kernel is sufficient in the long term for freedom. gnu should always be modular in the sense that it does NOT depend on a single kernel". and that would be a better, more useful (to freedom, to users) sort of modularity than the (RELATIVE) impossibility that is creating, let alone maintaining gnu hurd.
the fact that gnu from the beginning was modular in this regard does not preserve that modularity as a principle (as the peter boughtons fifth freedom would) and this means that gnu can be (as it is) co-opted.
hurd belongs in a fucking museum. it is a curiosity, a conversation piece-- a fascinating prototype. maybe one day it will inspire a fucking awesome kernel. but it is demonstrably useless to the gnu project as a flagship free operating system.
linux was also a bad choice. rather, linux was a series of bad choices-- some worse than others.
abandoning hurd was (arguably) a step in the right direction, and using the linux kernel was progress in that regard, at least. at the risk of being called sexist by some superficial, hypocritical idiot who deliberately misses the point, hurd was the operating system kernel equivalent of madeline kahns character in "young frankenstein". it was never a good fit, and never meant to be. though bad ideas are not always abandoned, and often make comebacks.
from early on, linux co-opted everything gnu did and everything gnu stood for. it was ultimately used to smear free software, to smear its supporters, and to smear its founder. calling that a great move probably borders on the delusional. but perhaps we could have done (and certainly should have tried to do) more to keep linux at arms length. i am thrilled to have abandoned gnu/penguinshit as a free software solution, and it is past time for gnu itself to do so.
gnus defenders were too soft on their attackers-- they fought back, but (years later) eventually allowed the takeover to be complete. again, this was not without a fight. but today it is more about denial than it is about fighting. the war is over-- the war is lost, and the cynical, horrible victors are gloating and beating their chests about it. the fsf is worse than useless-- compared to its former self, it is a fraud. (gnu.fools is still worse).
the only future of linux is corporate rule, and people see the writing on the wall. the fsf says keep calm and carry on. the gnu project is either oblivious, or lying. either way, the gnu project has not stood for freedom since 2015-- and much less since 2018! did it give up even before that? i dont personally put the date earlier, though some may have some justification to put the date even earlier. i welcome debate about that, but gnu is of little use to freedom as-is.
some people will (understandably) think i am trying to downplay the importance of gnu to freedom, overall. but this is simply not true. gnu is (overall) just as relevant to free software as nuclear energy is to the theory of relativity. and richard stallman is just as relevant to free software as einstein is to the theory of relativity. and people who say stallman didnt invent free software because there was something years ago blah blah blah, might as well say that einstein didnt formulate e=mcc because of newtons laws of motion. this is not about downplaying stallman, or gnus place in free software as its very flagship.
years ago, i hatched an arguably useless plan to save free software called "guarding and rescuing the fsf titanic". it covered various themes (before stallman was ousted) such as the necessity of free speech to free software creation-- which gnu.fools stands firmly against, and thus is fundamentally useless to the movement-- as well as the importance of education to help create and recruit new maintainers, as well as various threats that people underrated in importance, as well as various ways in which free software and computing can be made (on a fundamental level, not just in the sense of the "desktop" which is merely a fucking ui paradigm, too often and cynically conflated with computing itself!) more accessible to all.
some of those ideas are demonstrated by the fig programming language, while many live on as part of gnew (which started out as a rhetorical hail mary effort originally, and now is an actual project). not to make too much of these-- but progress has to start somewhere. everything ive ever been truly proud of started out as an experiment, curiosity, or just a fun idea.
regardless of whether you subscribe to some of these ideas directly or set out to save free software in your own way, it is critically important to recognise the ways in which gnu has failed-- to avoid doing so is to remain a hostage, while calling that "freedom". as oliva says, gnus now usurped-- but hes late to the party, because gnu.fools is just another example. he downplays this example, while downplaying even bigger examples that hes missed.
a snake will tell you, as you try to explain the problem that systemd entails, that systemd is just an example of a larger problem. and this is why a snake will tell you this-- they are distracting you from the most obvious, possibly the most egregious, and certainly the most arrogant and (likely the most) aggressive effort to bring gnu itself under monopoly CONTROL.
they are distracting you from the (very important) point, then simultaneously downplaying the most obvious and egregious example, while insinuating they already know more about the problem then you do. i dont advise you to trust anybody who ignores the example of systemd, only to distract you with the point that there are other, similar problems. theyve just derailed the discussion, and certainly are not about to admit any serious problems as a followup. that is not a suitable response to a problem that has plagued free software for more than half a decade.
muckrights lies, but stallman does NOT recognise the problem of systemd. it is a complete fabrication (whether wishful thinking or deliberate misleading) to insinuate otherwise-- regardless of who tries to do so. thus, stallman himself has allowed, and will continue to allow the takeover of gnu by systemd, by ibm and by the linux foundation and "open source". the fsf and the gnu project are helpless against this. they have abandoned their defences, and blatantly given up the fight. they have done so for years at a time, and there is zero cause to think this will change.
oliva will not change it if (or when) he becomes the second chief gnuisance. stallman will DEFINITELY not change this. gnu.fools (which is a fraud, run by lying arseholes) will not change this. hurd (which is bullshit) will not change this. the fsf will not change this. the broader coup against stallman, which both speaks for him and denies his place in history (and by doing so, rewrites history for self-serving purposes) will not change this.
gnu is dead. maybe it was dead when they ceded control of gcc to ibm (it was not ibm at the time, but it was a for-profit corporation that was demonstrably, factually and eventually vulnerable to being acquired by ibm). some people foolishly conflate license choice or copyright assignment with control, but that is foolish and superficial-- ibm already controls gcc, and it controls gnu, along with microsoft. the war is over, and we have lost.
this will never, ever improve until we recognise what has gone wrong. some people already understand (some of) these things. some people are (already) seeking true freedom-- looking, as stallman once did, for practical solutions that serve the higher goal of empowering all users (WITH free software). in this sense, some people (not all of whom have incorporated under a single project) are the spiritual successors of the gnu project. they seek real freedom, truly free software, and real empowerment-- for all users, not just the ones that gnu.fools approves of based on their own criteria which theyve tried to co-opt free software with.
i have already noted the spiritual successor of richard stallman. i think it is very possibly important (to free software) for there to be one. but this does not take anything away from richard stallman (the true founder of free software, and true father of all that is gnu) that stallman himself has not willfully set aside, or ignored. he is still the chief gnuisance. i think he should sue gnu.fools for trademark infringement, though as the fsf (most likely in fact) claims to control the gnu trademark, stallman is not capable of suing them-- and the free-in-license-only software foundation is far too concerned with optics to sue the traitors, so theyve already won the "right" to infringe the trademark. one step closer to genericising it, like what happened to osi (well done, fsf lads).
every year, free software becomes more like open source, as it is further infiltrated and co-opted by open source-- as open source is (as it was practically designed to be) co-opted by monopolistic corporations that hate and stand against freedom.
the fsf has no right to take money under false pretenses, and as it fails it too becomes a fraud. but it has bought some time by welcoming stallman back. as it cleans house (if i had ten dollars for every time ive heard the fsf has won against the coup, it would pay for a year of membership) the traitors piss off to osi and gnu, still working to silence stallman like they did when they were running the coup at the fsf! what the hell is left of the fsf anyway? nothing at all. even oliva expressed recent doubts about it (i cant imagine why, but i hardly care at this point).
i realise they hold control of some important things, like the gnu trademark and the infrastructure it runs on-- and "control" of the fsd, and the gpl licenses, all of which makes me wonder how anybody can act like they are TRULY separate from gnu ("if by separate...") but technically, oh yes! indeed.
some people may insinuate that i am saying these things to attack free software itself. i write free software, i have loved using it for a long time, i have encouraged (and outlined) various ways of bringing free software CLOSER, not farther-- to its goal of "all software should be free software". not only in terms of marketshare, but (more to the point) in terms of freedom for all users.
it is vital to understand the threats to free software, and vital to recognise the traitors, because the longer we fail to do so, the more of a foothold those threats and traitors gain. already they have taken gnu-- or rather, gnu was ceded to them, foolishly. stallman, the fsf and gnu have already given them a six year head start.
the freedom to be restricted is a freedom gnu has won for (and given) itself, and it is woefully restricted by ibm, by corporate propaganda, by lying traitors and by shills of every variety.
salvaging gnu depends on nothing less than walking away from and abandoning those restrictions. and gnu itself will not do so.
if and when gnu is salvaged-- when we take the best and more irreplacable (and least co-opted) parts of gnu and apply them to new and ongoing work FOR SOFTWARE FREEDOM (i prefer the term "free software", mostly due to despising ratly as a fuck-awful traitor to all that is free software, and whom i associate most prominently with the practically unnecessary term "software freedom"-- but can it be attributed more prominently to moglen? that would be acceptable, i do not know if it is accurate) it will not be called "gnu".
gnus not unix, gnus not linux, gnus not even gnu anymore. and this is not because i dont like the name-- for many years now i would have preferred to call it gnu than gnu/linux, which is another mistake on stallmans part (he should have just said: "if you believe in freedom, call it 'gnu'. if you believe in corporate overthrow, call it 'linux'"-- and left it at that. but again, hindsight is 20/20).
it wont be called gnu, because gnu will continue to be co-opted, overthrown, and those interested in destroying it will also "protect" it from people who wish to mend it. in the future, gnu will be (as it is today) a shadow of its former self.
but make no mistake, there has never been a project more free, more demonstrative of free software, more vital to free software than gnu-- which is precisely why it was dismantled.
in the future, free software should (as i have said before) salvage what it can from the gnu project-- to rebuild it. to upgrade it to something that withstands 21st century attacks on operator freedom (because gnu has, with the PARTIAL exception of gpl3-- it most likely SHOULD have been agpl3-- defended itself mostly against 20th century attacks alone).
gnu will NEVER, EVER get these upgrades until the deficiency is recognised.
stallman will never recognise, let alone acknowledge those deficiencies.
oliva and others DO NOT CARE about those deficiencies, and will not make SERIOUS efforts to fight them. (nor will stallman, as he does not recognise them).
those deficiencies will CONTINUE to hand gnu over piecemeal to giafam, monopoly, and non-freedom in general.
gnu is now become a tool of our digital oppressors. it is no longer free software, but free-in-license only.
it is fixable. but the gnu that can be fixed will no longer be gnu.
the fsf that stands for freedom will not (ever) be called the fsf.
and (so far), no other project has achieved what gnu used to achieve-- gnu no longer does either.
thus, free software itself exists in a sort of limbo where we know what the problems are, but those who claim to fight for us do so no longer. where the solutions we had, which worked-- do so no longer.
this is a prime and outstanding example of a situation where upgrades are desperately needed. we cannot make progress without creating and implementing those upgrades.
and gnu will never do so. that is why gnu is dead, why the fsf is a farce, and why the future depends on those who are willing to look ahead.
of course, one SHOULD look to the past for the blueprints-- and for where things went wrong. and those interested in making true progress must recognise, face, and acknowledge the present state of things, to create the most necessary upgrades. because gnu, quite simply-- never will.
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