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A generation earlier, Microsoft founder Bill Gates offered his theory on how to create good, useful software, in writing. strict letter to the “fans” who were sharing their company’s BASIC software: “Who can pay for professional work for nothing? What fans can spend three years in the programming, find all the flaws, document their product and distribute it for free? The fact is that no one has invested a lot of money in hobby software. ”
Today, there is a kind of hybrid system where free collaborators like Google, Facebook and other tech giants are big contributors to the Linux project, which is still crucial for their businesses. In fact, 75 percent of the contributions to Linux come from programmers working for companies. The system has made these companies very rich, and their position is quite dominant. They are not afraid that a small startup will remove them using Linux, just as Microsoft once did. Microsoft has also revised its approach. Brad Smith, president of the company, said last year, “Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the turn of the century, and I can say that about me. The good news is, if life is long enough, you can learn … that you need to change.”
This kind of success, however, has brought about a fundamental change: a project once aimed at helping small players is now promoting the biggest of them. It is a change of identity that the community has not yet fully recognized. That is, when it comes to the software itself, everything works fine. But beyond coding considerations, free software has been inert. How to make social media safer for women or minorities or how to make it more productive for discussion or more detailed information, such as about key questions, free software has not improved things at all; Social Truth.
In this sense, free software joins a “free” litany of things that seek to solve problems by opening up floods — including markets and language. With pretty eyes all insects are superficial, the thought says, the answer to bad language is more speech, and a society that puts freedom before equality will achieve a high level of both. In fact, these free ideals only work in their own terms, which means they create more wealth or speech or software.
When Rochko discovered that he was using Gab Mastodon in 2019, it caused a lot of soul searching. He did his best to isolate Gab from other networks that use software. Mastodon.social, a user of the social network run by the Mastodon project, pressing further, saying, “I wonder how feasible it is to have a LICENSE that explicitly prohibits the use of hate.” Rochko’s answer was missing. On a practical level, he said he had not reached an agreement with 600 contributors at the time, so he would need the approval of each to change licenses, but also wanted the support of a free software system – ” and a personalized license does not benefit you. ”
What good is it to implement a license if it doesn’t get what you want, which is to stop Donald Trump from promoting hatred and using it against democracy? We really don’t have the luxury of treating software as a kind of academic exercise, away from the real-life consequences. Code in one corner, hatred in the other. If they have taught us anything in recent years, the two cannot be separated.
This previous question driven by Gab’s use of Mastodon needs to be reconsidered: Why not a license that prohibits hatred? Or does it say that software should not be used for bad purposes, for example to make money with hate? In interviews with proponents of free software, I have proposed a license limited to non-commercial uses. This provision would immediately solve the problem of Social Truth. And for the free software community, it would be an important step to notice how its code appears in the world.
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