muckrights-sans-merde
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### the-wisdom-of-muckrights-irc
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=> muckrights-is-the-de-facto-propaganda-wing-of-the-fsf.html muckrights-is-the-de-facto-propaganda-wing-of-the-fsf
*originally posted:* sep 2021
the title isnt sarcastic, and youre forgiven if you think im trying to suck up to either of the people quoted here. neither of them care what i think, and im honestly ok with that. getting them to care what i think isnt the point of this-- the real hint is in the title.
muckrights routinely attracts people who genuinely want better (more free) free software. this is just an example. im commenting on it not for the sake of the two being quoted, but for the sake of my own audience (even if its just a few more people on this side).
```
Thu 12:41:44 | MinceR | manjaro already had nonfree software installed by
default: systemd
Thu 12:47:06 | MinceR | it will also decide for you that processes spawned from
a session you exited will be killed
Thu 12:48:04 | MinceR | if you bring up any issue with the alleged
"developers", they'll tell you you're wrong
```
arrogant devs who break a perfectly good os and then condescend to users, thats great. ive complained about them for years.
mincer has complained about them for longer. he was protesting systemd (in irc) even before i knew what it was.
why did roy sit on this problem for so many years? why did he pretend (when i asked him) to care?
im pretty sure i know the reason, but ive usually chalked it up to being a debian fanboy and apologist. its probably even worse than that.
> I myself have been more or less neutral or at least apathetic on the matter for many years. To be frank, init systems (systemd was initially introduced as such) aren’t something I’m sufficiently familiar with to comment on.
http://techrights.org/2019/10/23/devuan/
at any rate, mincer has remained consistent about it. people looking to flee have already devoted years of patience and research towards doing this within the gnu/linux ecosystem, and the neutrality and apathy have allowed systemd (and dbus) to take over without much resistance. the systemd developers make a marketshare argument in an effort to prove this is what people want. this is like saying people obviously want to die in wars for oil, because more people drive cars with internal combustion engines.
actually, mincer might agree with that argument, i dont know.
```
Thu 12:48:34 | MinceR | they develop the code in such a way as to make it as
difficult as possible for you to separate the parts you
want from the parts you don't want; and also to keep
your fork up to date with the upstream
Thu 12:48:45 | MinceR | the code is deliberately undocumented
Thu 12:49:04 | MinceR | and they use all the political trickery they can think
of (e.g. taking over debian from the inside) to try
and force you to run it
```
this is the dreaded "npi" or "nebulous programming interface" that includes systemd, rust and python 3. they blur the line between software you can run without a "clown" and software that if you dont have the "clown", will break without it. theres no drm, no fee for staying "subscribed" (not directly) but the control imposed by the clown and corporate clowns is there-- and the fsf says:
> ...
nothing, you idiots-- "GIVE US MORE BREAD!" hiding stallman in their basement... (apologies to eminem. also the fsf doesnt have a basement, maybe hes hiding on the fourth floor?).
but mincer understands free software. i wish more people did:
```
Thu 12:49:30 | MinceR | the FSD ( https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html
) says "“Free software” means software that respects
users' freedom and community."
Thu 12:49:38 | MinceR | systemd does the opposite of that, therefore it is not
free
```
hes not wrong.
> Thu 12:49:42 | activelow | free and opensource software doesn't prevent bad software architecture and design
```
Thu 12:49:47 | MinceR | indeed
Thu 12:50:04 | MinceR | free software does, however, by definition, require
respecting users' freedom and community
```
> Thu 12:51:05 | activelow | systemd/polkit/logind etc. can be removed, dbus (which is a crucial systemd component) integration with GTK and QT is horror
i agree with this as well.
> Thu 12:51:28 | activelow | dbus isn't easily removed, and even those distros which removed systemd, they mostly fully integrate dbus
which is another reason things dont bode well for gnu/linux, but really dbus is tied more to gtk and qt than x, so this is still an application (not os) problem. for now.
not that i support penguinshit, i dont. moving away from the linux kernel is a good idea. and yes, theyve tried to integrate dbus into it-- moving away from the linux kernel is a good idea.
```
Thu 12:51:33 | MinceR | do not confuse open source with free software
Thu 12:52:02 | MinceR | yeah, systemd/polkit/logind can be removed, and then
gnome won't work and apt will remove the rest of the
packages you have on your system
Thu 12:52:17 | MinceR | dbus itself is horribly crap
```
theres a few things i dont like about it, but the main thing is how it insinuates itself where it isnt really needed, wanted or welcome. thats exactly what free software shouldnt do, and it makes dbus a cousin of systemd in more ways than one.
> Thu 12:52:32 | activelow | yes, and without dbus gtk doesn't work either, it requires a patch and alot of effort to track dependenices
gtk should probably be forked or something. that way minimalist gtk applications can still be created and maintained. i dont think dumping gtk (or gnome in general) is unreasonable though.
> Thu 12:52:35 | activelow | same with qt
i used to like it. i think they went bad, really.
```
Thu 13:01:04 | MinceR | the FSD is not about licenses
Thu 13:01:15 | MinceR | it is about the freedom and community of the users
```
i think the fsd is about both, but i like where mincer is going with this.
> Thu 13:01:19 | MinceR | the OSD is about licensing
and co-opting free software. but yes, primarily licensing.
```
Thu 13:01:44 | MinceR | depends on what "FSF license" means
Thu 13:02:03 | MinceR | iirc mono was under [L]GPL2, which had patent
provisions that microsoft circumvented
Thu 13:02:12 | MinceR | and mono was (probably still is) a nonfree patent trap
Thu 13:05:59 | MinceR | the GNU project was not intended to infringe on users'
freedom or community
Thu 13:06:02 | MinceR | systemd is
```
exactly.
```
Thu 13:06:26 | MinceR | GNU Shepherd doesn't restrict what logger you may use,
or any of the other things i mentioned, as far as i know
Thu 13:11:54 | MinceR | iirc GNU Shepherd used to have a different name
```
doesnt matter-- gnu shepherds only claim to fame is an alleged alternative to systemd, mincer doesnt like elogind (neither do i) and guix forks it on github, so if you switch to guix youre basically changing from:
* a bunch of arrogant douchebag developers who hate your freedom and make a github-dependent init
to:
* another bunch of arrogant douchebag developers who hate your freedom and make a github-dependent init
one notable difference is that guix is supported by john gilmore, who signed the PRO-stallman letter and is probably the greatest living co-founder of the eff.
thats not enough to make me like guix (i call it duix, and i DONT pronounce it "deeks") but i dont blame mincer for exploring his options. we all have.
> Thu 13:12:36 | MinceR | i thought nix was preferred to guix merely because it's a lot easier to set up nix than guix
nix is more mature, probably has more users-- guix is based on it(?) and i think it uses systemd. im pretty sure its github based anyway. i cant say its something im interested in.
```
Thu 13:12:51 | MinceR | guix requires several user accounts to be created, iirc
Thu 13:12:55 | MinceR | nix can work with just one
```
awful.
```
Thu 13:14:04 | activelow | maybe the free software definition can be extended:
freedom to *remove* undesireable components
Thu 13:20:43 | activelow | GPL insists any software publication must contain
the sources
Thu 13:22:50 | activelow | and concerning the freedom of removal, this is
exactly what most software seeks to prevent by
dependency hell, vendor lock-in, including
GNU/FSF, they do this too
```
yes, i personally sought an answer to this-- and peter boughton was the one who came up with freedom 4 (the fifth freedom):
> "The freedom to NOT run the software, to be free to avoid vendor lock-in through appropriate modularization/encapsulation and minimized dependencies; meaning any free software can be replaced with a user's preferred alternatives (freedom 4)."-- Peter Boughton
> Thu 13:24:04 | activelow | maybe not intentional, nonetheless good luck with removing dbus and maintaining a GUI desktop (it is possible but no other distro except mine did to my knowledge)
you can do it with just x11, xterm and dwm for a window manager. will roy insist you need to type "startx" to run it?
```
Thu 13:27:04 | MinceR | e.g. i'm not sure if you can find a "modern" web browser
without a dbugs dependency
Thu 13:27:30 | MinceR | i guess you could run one via wine or something but i'm
not sure if you really wanted to
```
only if you compile wine --without-dbus and if youre going to do that, you might as well work on removing the dependency from the browser. check on the status of iceweasel-uxp before you try to do it yourself.
at any rate, these two have a higher understanding of freedom than most people you read about online. im not saying i agree with them on everything, it isnt necessary. the research (that includes mincers partial migration to openbsd) and rhetoric theyre offering should make people pause and think about the future of free software.
gnu had a number of years to do this before it was... heck, gnu is nearly 40 and it still doesnt have a kernel worth using.
as for hurd, its no better than guix. the lead dev is a traitor, the architecture support (as was mentioned recently in irc) is basically x86, and its been like this for decades. you can blame linus partly for lack of developer engagement, but imo hurd was just a bad strategic choice for a primary kernel. it deserved to be a side project from day 1, and gnu should wash its hands of it entirely and tell sam to go fuck himself. there are other kernels.
this isnt a new regular feature, just a glimpse of the stuff that goes on that never makes it to articles. its a pity, because this is the story muckrights COULD BE telling-- instead of the usual bullshit. why the discrepancy? its a great question, since muckrights is supposedly about freedom and the future of free software. or at least the present of free software... sort of.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org