How did the ideology of libre/free software get so politicized?

I’ve noticed advocates for exclusively for libre software and actively discourage simple open source software for not going far enough, also want censorship of not allowing any proprietary software to be mentioned, and don’t allow any critiques of the software they use because it’s libre software so there are no faults or bad designs.

I thoroughly enjoy the code purity of what is labelled as libre software, for license I only like the ISC license for freedom. My attitude is if someone changes my code and doesn’t give back, it does not harm me or injury me in any way.

I also believe libre software can be used for the surveillance of other people, libre software does not be default mean privacy. How network software is configured in systems that other people don’t control, it doesn’t matter if it’s open source when people have no knowledge of other networks configuration.

On the principal of freedom, I do support the right to develop proprietary software. The fact that it exists does not harm anyone who chooses not to use proprietary software.

It seems the die hard libre software crowd, not open source people but the ones who want to live in an only GPLv3+ world can start to live in ther own world, their own bubble, and become disconnected losing perspective that which software other people use is not something that should affect your day in any way. Unless someone is both a network engineer and does infosec or something similiar, they’re not in a position to understand fully appreciate how network protocols matter more than a license and code availability.

  • flatbield@beehaw.org
    3·
    1 year ago

    In the end it is all about user freedom. So you can do what you want. But if you develop closed software I do not want to have to use it. This consideration is less importent when the FOSS options are considerable. On the otherhand I have lived in times where it was not like that. This is always the fear.

    What people do as a group matters… and people are always doing stupid things in terms of user freedom. Great example is Firefox and Chrome. People are idiots for using Chrome based browsers from an ad company. This affects me becase now websites prioritize Chrome compatibility. Essentially this makes the web an arm of Google.