muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### hoovering-seems-nice---but-it-sucks.html
other articles:
=> the-delusion-of-a-gnu-linux-community.html the-delusion-of-a-gnu-linux-community
*originally posted:* jun 2021
i have spent the past month or so working on a project that is decidedly anti-muckrights. i also keep reasonably current on the logs.
the logs were nice today. lots of great stuff. ordinarily i cite them, though today im leaving a number of things alone. that will make a few people extra-curious (it cant be helped) and most people will be too lazy to figure out what im referring to (thats how it works). i have a good reason to do this, but its better to let people speculate and assume the worst than defeat the purpose by explaining.
all the same, yes i did write about sponsors meaning more to the fsf than everybody else. and im surprised (but not very much, nor for the first time) to find what someone (not ron) has in common with me on stallman being back at the fsf. most surprisingly of all, is the fsf RIGHT NOW is almost EXACTLY what i lobbied for in late 2018. i ought to be happy, though a lot has changed (and come to my attention) since 2018. sorry to move the goalposts then.
what i lobbied for in 2018 (and i dont believe a single person gave a damn-- it served more as an unintended prediction than a notable push, i believe. though feel free to bestow credit anyway, its almost certainly no doing of mine) was for stallman to voluntarily step down (as president) and assist in creating a means of succession. i never once pushed for him to resign from the board.
furthermore, ever since he was "ousted" under false pretenses, i have complained and protested those false pretenses and called for him to be reinstated. as it happens, he has no (known) plans to become president again, and has stated he doesnt want to be.
succession, by nature, is extremely risky business and shouldnt be taken lightly. thats why i wanted stallman himself in charge of it-- not some useless committee brought in to solve a crisis in emergency fashion. i wanted someone to get training in leading the fsf, from the founder himself. thats what i lobbied for.
instead, a group of complete dicks at libreplanet managed to cancel him. or, alternatively, they got him to spend more than a year playing dead (i still think that is alternative history, posing as fact-- but im confident enough stallman believes thats what happened). i was not aware of that part of the coup until long after the fact, but i have never supported them. if i were in charge of the fsf, everything related to libreplanet would be shitcanned before you could even say "nuremberg". i really cant tell what the fucking difference between libreplanet and osi is, except one says "free software" more.
that group of complete dicks is still at large, as muckrights likes to tell people half the time. the other half of the time, it conflates criticising lynch mobs with "infighting" and throws itself over grenades thrown in defence of free software, against those plotting to convert it to a system of corporate serfdom.
there is so. much. gaslighting. but in "open source", gaslighting is referred to as "marketing" and "communications", when THEY do it.
the way i see it, open source has taken over muckrights-- and anybody doing that at muckrights has to be able to talk the talk, like a fucking boss.
the lies still need to be undone, the fake peace offerings are of no interest. but they LOOK really great, and everything sounds wonderful and i do not fucking care.
we are running headlong into a theatre-prop set utopia, where backstabbers and lynch mobs and activists live in perfect harmony and everyone cares about your freedom.
its bullshit, though. there is absolutely nothing new about any of this. open source is hitting reset and pretending to be our friends again. the last time they did this, it set back free software for decades. this is simply what they do.
they attack, they say "lets just forget the whole thing happened", when they are demanding we surrender but they call this "friendship", when it is really occupation.
this is the opposite of what we stand for-- action, progress, freedom. they want agreement, stagnation, serfdom.
the nicest-looking thing they offer is the ugliest trick of all. it will fool some people, you shouldnt try too hard to stop them from being fooled (it wont help, it will only make it worse) but theres no need to become a dentist for a hungry lion just because youre happy he isnt roaring and mauling you at the moment.
narcissistic hoovering is one of the favourite weapons of open source. just tell them to go to hell, its the only way. "freedom" by their rules will always be slavery. if its freedom you want, it wont ever happen their way. theyve made all the same promises before, and it was only to take control of more of what we do.
i do think the union seat was probably unavoidable though. the chief gnewsance would have my head (not really, but it would be bad enough) if i said anything bad about unions.
actually, its a real (and i think valid) concern that the union seat could be used to co-opt the fsf further, but even if it is, its probably the only right thing to do. like i said, succession is extremely risky. but its also unavoidable. similiarly, the union seat is the right thing even if it is risky. that doesnt mean people shouldnt have concerns, only that their concerns shouldnt outweigh its existence.
i remain unconvinced the fsf can be salvaged. the new arrangement of deck chairs is very promising, as deck chair arrangements go, and some of it looks so fantastic that it almost seems unfair to refer to it in such terms (the deck chair analogy is in reference to the titanic, of course).
open source is the iceberg, and it may want to "be friends" with us. but its still a fucking iceberg, and we need to steer the fuck away from it-- if we want to move "forward" into anything except the ocean floor.
i believe it was actually ron that compared "microsoft loves linux" to "oj loves nicole", but that wont stop him from getting on a unity kick if it means pageviews. if ron gave a shit about any of this, he could have fought systemd instead of making it (solely) about ibm being nazis. hey, i talk about ibm being nazis too, because their hypocrisy is astounding. but at this rate, so is rons.
and thats the thing-- its not really unity, if its actually bullshit.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org