muckrights-sans-merde
bonum fabula frat
### why-would-muckrights-stop-advocating-real-freedom-after-so-many-years
*originally posted:* may 2021
*updated:* aug 2021
one of the central themes of muckrights-sans-merde is that muckrights has become cynical-- in its positions, in what it writes, in how it treats people.
recently, someone who knows me personally asked, what are his (the primary author of muckrights) motivations? i started with generic answers based on a general personality type and worked up to the overlap between that generalisation and my personal experience with muckrights, casting out what the two did not have in common in the venn diagram. that type is a good fit, however-- even one i wrote about (at least twice) in muckrights itself.
today i will refine that recent explanation with some new information i have, straight from the author himself. i should say this information is "new to me" as its quite a few years old, but it helps explain what has happened to muckrights, and why.
one of the reasons i left open source for free software (at least 10 years ago, because earlier i found a place muckrights quoted me in 2010, and i was already comparing non-free software to having crap on your face and not caring-- and comparing "open source" to people knowing you have crap on your face and not telling you. that metaphor could be inspired by season 1 of the i.t. crowd) was that i caught it rewriting history. i have no desire to do that with muckrights, these revelations will be cited in the timeline im working on.
a note about me: i fell in love with computing only a few years after i learned to walk. by this time, the fsf existed but gnu hurd would not be bootable for years. indeed the first time i heard about "linux" they were already painting gnu as a sort of former project, and i didnt know they were lying. and open source sounded pretty good until i realised how full of shit it was.
the more i learned about free software, the more i wanted it to succeed. i already loved sharing computing knowledge and literacy with people, but free software was a new route to doing so. i spent years looking for ways to better spread free software. im not saying any of the ideas were entirely new-- only that i wanted to find ways to get more people into free software.
one of the things that drove me towards free software was watching microsoft do things that were increasingly unethical and intolerable to all users, including myself. and this was before i was familiar enough with stallmans position that denying source code was unethical-- it was their other business practices that bothered me.
for a long time, roy seemed sincerely like he was into spreading freedom as well. i figured he was doing this for the users, so everyone could be free. when i look at the past 6-8 months of muckrights, i no longer believe this to be so. given this, what happened?
going back to how roy got into gnu/linux advocacy in the first place may explain some things. first, he has said that pragmatism and idealism is a false dichotomy. perhaps thats true, at least in the context of the fact that the fsf and stallman have made decisions that are pragmatic and even compromises. they are not pure idealists in that sense, though people try to paint them as such (to imply that they are entirely impractical). so i agree thats a dichotomy.
on the other hand, i think its a given that some entities are purely pragmatic and cynical. microsoft may have an ideological bent of a sort, but that ideology is "do what benefits microsoft" and "do what benefits microsoft alone" and that could be argued as a purely "pragmatic" (if not machiavellian) "ideology".
nonetheless, roy got into free sotware for pragmatic reasons-- he needed it for work he was doing. and why did he advocate free software? because it was fun.
theres nothing wrong with it being fun to do advocacy. the chief gnewsance also stresses the importance of fun. im sure ive made some point in some article where i talk about the advantages of learning computer skills for the sake of freedom, and having fun for the sake of learning skills. a lof of these practices are dismissed as not resulting in "products" and i think thats a cynical way to frame teaching yourself about computing. but the part where its fun is not a bad thing.
all the same, i find it highly relevant that roy started using free software for mostly pragamatic reasons (hes said so himself) and that he started doing advocacy "for fun" (indeed, literally to pass the time).
its one thing to try to "prove" that this is just a game to him. however, if this is just a game, it does explain a lot. so im going to explore his motivations in this context, and how it relates to what has happened to muckrights over the past year.
this argument will be built on a small handful of points-- the argument does not hinge on all of these points, and not all of these points are of equal worth. at least one or two will just be generalisations. the reader can decide if these generalisations have any merit, or if they are false and useless. but they are throw in as side points anyway.
ultimately, none of this will prove that roy is cynical. if thats the goal, there is probably stronger evidence of cynicism ive documented elsewhere. instead, this is about trying to explain WHY or HOW a cynical person might spend years advocating a good thing-- and then abandon the (perceived) motivations for something less about freedom, or less about the user and their ability to have control of their computing-- how can a "game" of advocacy turn from something that looks sincere to something based on-- frankly, bullshit? explaining one way thats possible is the goal of this article.
already noted is the fact that roys use of free software is based ORIGINALLY on pragmatism (this does not preclude developing broader philosophical goals later, of course) and that his work in advocacy was originally done for fun, to kill time. we know this because roy himself said so in an interview years ago.
add to this the fact that roy is extremely competitive. i believe (based on photos and comments) that roy grew up in a family that stresses a competitive attitude. its possible he picked that up somewhere else, but just one look at his father suggests roy didnt pick up his fitness obsession as a fluke. im certainly not saying that either you find such a hobby on your own or its literally beaten into you by your parents, but i suspect it was encouraged in at least a few ways. this is speculation-- maybe im imagining it. either way, its an established fact that roy is very competitive "by nature". he plays-- to win.
add to this that roy doesnt balk at a long path to achievement. tom cargills humourous rule about development time applies also to roys phd-- studying for a phd accounts for the first 90 percent of getting your doctorate; while writing your thesis accounts for the other 90 percent. the second 90 percent is probably even larger than the first, but the point applies either way.
finally, roy didnt even start muckrights, someone else did. they lost (relative) interest in writing for it, but roy took right over within a year or two.
take someone who gets into free software for pragmatic (not ideological) reasons, and ill talk more about the relevance of that in a moment-- who does advocacy for fun and to pass time, who is fiercely competitive, spent years researching and writing a single paper, and who isnt bothered if an achievement takes a long time-- and you might end up with something like muckrights.
and muckrights wasnt bad-- despite the easy assumption (for someone to make) that ive grown cynical, i have thoroughly examined the earlier days (like i said, i even spotted myself getting quoted in 2010) and i dont think i was wrong about muckrights at the time. but is it possible to put such a thing together without TRULY caring about the cause?
thats exactly what im starting to think, yes. and i can actually go further than this article to explain it, but its probably already overkill as-is. so lets stick to what ive already planned for this.
what im getting at here, is this is really just a game to roy. its a game that has had a noble outcome, but as the playing field has changed the personal goals have not-- it is not at all "pragmatic" for roy to leave debian, for example. and while he used to be able to point to debian (as i did-- when i was giving away free computers to promote free software, those were debian machines-- with the source code included right on the hard drive) as his credentials for supporting freedom (hes not a former fsf member, or an fsf member-- i however, was; which i mention only because hes had the nerve to not only question but tell fabrications and lies about my loyalty to some people) debian doesnt work for that purpose anymore-- roys own community doesnt think debian is free (it isnt).
roy doesnt think debian is free either. but when people try to leave gnu/linux, now we have this problem. ill explain this problem in the context of a (video) game-- in the context of a competition.
roy has spent literally more than a decade tallying his "scores" (of course he denies the importance, but hes done it all the same) for this "game" of gnu/linux (originally, comp.os.linux.advocacy) advocacy. it began with pragmatism, it followed up as a pastime, a hobby, though roy had already done competitive bodybuilding as hobby-- and won awards doing it. you dont accomplish that without a lot of dedication and effort-- to winning. im not saying he cheated (he says it was all protein and fish, i dont know the sport really, i figure it was all protein and fish, like he says) im simply saying that winning was an actual goal he worked hard at.
nothing wrong with that-- but competition and winning played a significant role in his motivation. it would HAVE to, for someone to win. its not like he was born with a torso that size.
roy is nearly 40, and said himself that he reached his peak with that hobby years ago. now he has a new one-- at least, he has a different one (muckrights is nearly 15 years old now-- roy was in his 20s when it started; but again, roy didnt start it originally; he was a constant contributor).
muckrights has (imo) taken the place of his bodybuilding routine. that desire to compete, on the level that roy has it, doesnt go away unless you similarly DEDICATE yourself to being rid of it. and who would want to? the desire to BETTER yourself is ideally a lifelong goal. and sometimes there is a fine line between bettering yourself, and winning competitions against other people. its easy to get the two things confused. and to some degree, we probably all do this. almost by definition, its only pathological in people who overdo it and let it compromise their integrity. but thats getting ahead of the story.
muckrights has taken the place of his bodybuilding routine, but roy has already reached the peak of yet another competition. and by that i dont mean that someone has outclassed him-- i mean that the limitations of his ability to compete in general have waned just like when he reached the peak of his bodybuilding career.
you cant (as far as i know-- note again, im not very familiar with the sport) be the sort of COMPETITIVE bodybuilder roy was before, at his age. i dont doubt there are plenty of buff fitness people in their 40s or even 50s-- its not like roy has let himself turn into peter griffin, even when he was stuck at home for more than a year. but thats just fitness, its not a bodybuilding competition. and its certainly not the level of competition roy was involved in before.
similarly, roy can still be competitive in the advocacy that he really does for a hobby (and theres nothing wrong with doing it as a hobby, just like theres nothing wrong with a bit of competition, as long as it isnt pathological and doesnt affect your integrity) but hes not going to be able to compete in this new landscape-- not in the same way, at least.
do i think it would be IMPOSSIBLE for roy to compete in this changing landscape? thats not my argument, actually. i think he COULD. when i suggested he experiment with leaving debian, that was SINCERE advice. i knew i was chiding him a little, but i also believed it would actually help if he took it. in other words, im not trying to say his situation is hopeless in that regard.
but, you should not be too quick to assume that everybody competes for exactly the same reasons. some do it to win-- some do it to better themselves. and probably most are somewhere between those, im not trying to make a dichotomy of that, either.
some people do it because the REWARD is a certain level of attention-- the sort of attention you get for being the BEST, or for being one of the best. for being notable.
and stepping away from gnu/linux and dipping into scary new territory is definitely NOT a route to being the best at anything. in terms of roys hobby, it would be like sacrificing his hobby. he would still be doing "fitness" but he would no longer be competing. or winning.
and if youre in it to win, youre not going to go (like michael jordan did, some people still wonder why) from basketball, to baseball. jordan sucked at baseball. roy would suck at bsd. how awful.
of course, there are certainly other arguments to make here. bsd for example, has a non-free firmware problem. gnu/linux has a systemd problem. the difference is that non-free firmware is a lot easier to remove, and systemd is (everybody knows this, some even admit it) impossible to remove. thats bordering on making it non-free. but the fsf is a coward about this, stallman is (at best) mistaken, and roy full on LIES about stallmans position-- to make it look like the fsf or stallman is going to fix this (so roy can do nothing, and still look like its a path to freedom).
theyre not going to fix this though. gnu/linux is a dead end for freedom, and roy might even know this.
but hes convinced someone (who? i dont know. himself?) that if we stay the course (another 6 years? its been that long now. we tried a LOT of other things, its not like we just woke up one day and migrated to openbsd) somehow this is going to right itself.
but lets point out that systemd isnt the only problem roy knows about and doesnt bother mentioning.
go back to february, of this year-- and people were ripping off muckrights left and right about the raspberry spy. muckrights is the one that broke that story. you know who beat muckrights to covering the gnu.fools coup? that was me. it was a small victory, but i enjoyed it. it made me feel like maybe i was doing the right thing with ewwfs.
but roy pooh-poohed the story, and hes even pretended its from different people (rather than the same ones who were behind all the other coups from the past two years)-- this is highly relevant, but roy pretends its not.
could that be because hes jelly that i put it up first? i dont know-- he makes a video about it, he actually mentions a comment i made about it, but he pretends to forget the address when its already published on TWO places on his own website-- you think the gnu.fools coup doesnt matter because it puts muckrights a day or two behind on the story?
i dont know, but that seems plausible enough to me. note that he does this as a hobby, hes fiercely competitive, and hes reached his peak on not ONE but now TWO competitive hobbies-- only because the circumstances (the age of his body, the relative non-freedom of gnu/linux) have changed.
roy is willing to compete if it takes a long time to win, but he sort of gives up when hes no longer in the same class of competition anymore. as with bodybuilding, as with advocacy.
roy has spent literally years documenting, cataloguing and rehashing the tactics of microsoft when theyre no longer #1 in terms of-- whatever criteria they truly lack regarding. he knows every trick in the book.
its interesting, now that hes no longer in the same class, to watch him switch from "winning" by being the most vocal blogger on the subject (and i think he was) to "winning" by trying to bend the rules back to favour the software he got into-- not for ideological reasons PRIMARILY, but because he NEEDED IT FOR WORK.
i on the other hand, got into free software slowly and painfully. i wanted, very badly, not to be the best gnu/linux guru (thats a laugh-- i too, am a hobbyist of a sort, just not a fiercely competitive one-- and believe me, it shows) but TO BE FREE. i wanted to get away from microsoft in particular, and towards freedom in general. sure i started off on the wrong road, but ive spent more than a decade taking a piss all over that road. i want people to know how ridiculous that road is, to avoid the same mistake. and ive done FREE SOFTWARE for a lot longer. i went completely windows-free just one year after muckrights started.
but it took years of migrating-- it took years of trying to find replacements for the tools i used. it took years of hating what microsoft was doing to me, and to other people-- to keep at the goal of getting rid of them.
i dont know if roy had that sort of experience. hes not a convert, hes just someone who needed to use a tool and picked it up, and told everybody how great it is. and that became a sort of game-- eventually, a competition to replace the one he participated in before.
im not saying that free software means nothing to roy at all-- that probably WOULD be cynical. but the struggle for freedom? dont make me laugh. roy takes a piss on the people trying to do that now, and just expects people to use what HE uses, more or less.
that way he can keep playing the (collaborative) competitive game (just like the people who still form guilds and go on quests on online game platforms that are many years old) and at almost 40, he doesnt want to start on a new platform.
maybe roy will switch eventually, someday, but only for pragmatic reasons. you can hear the pragmatism loud and clear where he actually sides with torvalds on openbsd being "a bunch of masturbating monkeys".
```
schestowitz__ openbsd is likely good for some scenarios Mar 19 20:30
schestowitz__ not for me Mar 19 20:30
schestowitz__ neither for server nor desktop Mar 19 20:30
schestowitz__ linus was right about them.. Mar 19 20:30
schestowitz__ but he said it crudely Mar 19 20:30
```
you tell em, hans and franz! theyre just a bunch of GIRLY men who sit at home and cry because their girlfriends look at them and then look at you, and wish they had a REAL operating system like gnu/linux. BOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(i sure hope roy knows who hans and franz are. its hard to imagine how he wouldnt).
linus doesnt even understand how linux works anymore, so roy is in good company.
well, i hate to tell you both this, but the openbsd guys? at least they know HOW THEIR OWN FUCKING OS WORKS.
something to think about before you (or linus) bring monkeys into the conversation again.
none of this is intended in an elitist way. migrating is a bitch. i was shocked how easy it was, because i was expecting worse. but thats not being cocky-- im grateful. i felt lucky that i was able to migrate when i was simply trying to experiment.
i nearly lost a keyboard or monitor in the process (they make wonderful sounds when youve reached a new level of wtf is going on with some install or configuration). parts of it were frustrating as hell. the partitioning-- complete bullshit! and still bullshit! (i dont mean in the context of installing-- it will take care of partitions for you. i mean the way some partitions are handled in other contexts, like on removable media).
i was still expecting worse. and i wont say its easy, nor do i expect people to do more than i set out to do-- which was experiment.
gnu/bsd will never become a thing unless people start being brave and trying things. but freedom is like that.
as with gnu/linux-- the way i still recommend people switch to a new platform is to get a cheap/used computer and start experimenting with THAT. that way, theres no fear of fucking up. just SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO.
thats a far cry from chestbeating and trying to be the best when the goal is just to install and use the fucking os.
i still havent gotten bsd onto an sbc yet. im NOT a badass. i tried several times, and it became an excuse to destroy a perfectly (evil) good raspberry spy. i recently obtained another sbc (not a pi though). all ive done with it so far is remove armbian (im never running THAT shit again). but its being looked after with care. my guess is it will run netbsd-- with protest. but thats better than armbian.
the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. if there are zero setbacks, if you never have to fix anything fundamental at all-- thats probably not freedom, its compromise. it could be pragmatism. it might even be pride.
and so we come full circle, to where roy cares more about winning, and using what he uses for work, and all appearances of idealism really being more about IMAGE and a hobby, and recognition-- but LESS about freedom or users having control of their computing.
thats why muckrights has turned into techlies. thats why he lies for stallman (and certainly not at stallmans request, which i could actually prove, but ask yourself if this would really benefit stallman at this time... its actually better to let people think im making it up, so go right ahead) and thats why he lies about people who stand up to him, and turns against people who have helped him for years.
its not about freedom, its just a competitive hobby. that would certainly explain a lot.
and hes reached his peak again. time for a new hobby. but at 40? a lot of competitive people prefer to stick to what theyre good at. it even took me a very long time to take the first real step, because i was afraid to.
i wonder if roy could ever admit that.
anyway, if you ever find yourself asking: "if muckrights is bullshit now, why did it say so many good things for such a long time?" i think this really does explain the motivation. it might not be 100% accurate, some of the speculation could be off, but i find it plausible enough to consider at least until a better explanation comes along. plato didnt wait for quantum physics to try to explain the world, he used the information he had available.
we dont all have the same path to freedom. but some of us are really trying, and others are happy where they are.
if muckrights taught us anything, its the lengths to which companies like ibm and microsoft will go to limit and reduce the freedom we have. if youre happy where you are, and not trying to be more free, they will eventually win-- by default. and roy has a story either way!
but if you want to be the change that roy sits on his arse waiting around for-- we cant all afford to sit and do nothing (and just bullshit people) the way roy is doing. not only can we not afford such luxury, but an increasing number of us find it intolerable to do so. at least for ourselves, roy-- you just sit there and "have fun". later on we can talk about how youre doing it at our expense, and at the expense of truth. but hey, thats another article.
=> https://muckrights-sans-merde.neocities.org