The Liberalism of Free Software

Okay, this might not be super well thought-out but nothing on this blog really is tbh. I was chatting with a homie on a communism channel on matrix and we got into the topic of Free Software and ThinkPads and Libreboot. They had a ThinkPad, more than one, but none of them were Librebooted - because while they would have loved to have them be so, they could not give up the performance benefits of using more modern hardware. And that’s of course reasonable! They said

i prefer the better option but i’ll take what i’m dealt and still advocate for the better and fight for it too

This wasn’t in the context of Free Software or Libreboot, but part of a conversation I opened up about my gripes with the Free Software movement as a whole. This justification for complacency, which I’m not trying to judge (at all!, I had it too), is essentially what I criticised of it that led us here; and why I stopped caring overzealously about it, despite remaining sympathetic to it.

What is the Free Software movement, anyway?

The Free Software movement was founded by Richard M. Stallman as a response to the growing legal restrictions on the software his university had started using. Its code was buggy and proprietary, meaning despite the issues he faced using it, fixing it himself was out of the picture - he would need to rely on the company in charge of it.

Against the antisocial nature of proprietary software, he decided to work on software that would respect its users, giving them the ability to fix, add to, and most importantly share their code to other users. Finally, proprietary software had met its end.

Software, not politics

Stallman found his antidote to intellectual property in, ironically, another type of intellectual property. One in which the rules and stipulations worked to the benefit of everyone involved and not just a small minority, to be sure, but intellectual property nonetheless. And this is still at the root of the Free Software movement’s failures to gain mass appeal to this day.

Intellectual property is a political issue, and it must be solved through political means. By using intellectual property toward its own ends indefinitely it subjects itself to its interests at large. We can see this in Stallman himself saying he doesn’t see intellectual property as an inherently bad thing[^1]. If the Free Software movement is to gain any appeal, especially with those who would most benefit from it, it needs to unite itself with the greater interests of the masses.

Free Software is communism

Proponents of proprietary software and of intellectual property will kick and scream “Free Software is communism!” in the hopes of turning the “average freedom-loving American” (governments at large) against it, as they absolutely should. And to this the Free Software movement shouts “No! We’re just software!” as loud as their lungs allow them.

The Free Software Foundation is a liberal foundation. It does little else than distribute funding across Free Software projects and litigating against any group that breaks the GPL. For this reason most of their money goes into the pockets of its lawyers; and tell me, when the money involved is so lucrative, how willing would someone in their shoes be to abolish such a source of income?

So enough of this bickering of whether copyleft licenses are communist or not - they aren’t! But Free Software is communist in spirit, even as it wanders, directionless and without leadership, its destiny in the hands of an up-to-this point alien movement it disowns.