redterminal.org Gopher Hole

-------------------------------------------------------------------
+title:  No free Software
+date:   Tue, 24 Sep 2024 16:20:13 +0200
+author: -fab- <fab@redterminal.org>
-------------------------------------------------------------------

        _______             _____                              
        \      \   ____   _/ ____\______   ____   ____         
        /   |   \ /  _ \  \   __\\_  __ \_/ __ \_/ __ \        
       /    |    (  <_> )  |  |   |  | \/\  ___/\  ___/        
       \____|__  /\____/   |__|   |__|    \___  >\___  >       
               \/                             \/     \/        
                  _____  __                                 
      ___________/ ____\/  |___  _  _______ _______   ____  
     /  ___/  _ \   __\\   __\ \/ \/ /\__  \\_  __ \_/ __ \ 
     \___ (  <_> )  |   |  |  \     /  / __ \|  | \/\  ___/ 
    /____  >____/|__|   |__|   \/\_/  (____  /__|    \___  >
         \/                                \/            \/ 


<== What if there was no free software? ==>

I've been  thinking lately, what  would be if  there was no  free /
Open Source software. I mean for  me privately not for the software
ecosystem as a whole.  I know, Big Tech uses Open  Source as a tool
for  free (in  the meaning  'without charge')  development, but  if
there was no FOSS what would have happened to *me*?

If  you read  my WWW/Gemlog/Gopher  site,  you know  I'm a  zealous
computer nerd  although I'm  no professional. But  if there  was no
FOSS, I believe there was no system  that I could really hack on as
I like  so much on  Linux or FreeBSD.  There would only  be systems
which are designed to be used  as intended by the manufacturer, and
the users would be, to say it with Stallmans words '(ab)useds'.

Every system, computer, laptop, smartphone and all the other things
would only  be opaque  and obscure appliances,  and the  user would
have no way to know what is  really going on. It would be a privacy
hell and all the users would be squeezed for information as much as
possible, which they  are already, but that would take  it to a new
level. And  I think there  would even be illegal  data acquisition
from the few  big players and the government, because  no one would
know! With FOSS you have a way to escape these practices.

But the  main thing I love  about my Artix Linux  installs is their
customizability and hackability. I  have a highly adapted AwesomeWM
setup  in which  I put  in days/weeks  of work.  There would  be no
Vim/NeoVim as a  hackable editor, no NeoMutt, no  Emacs (although I
don't use it) and probably no  TUI applications at all. No free CLI
tools  like  sed, grep  or  awk.  No free  programming  languanges.
Everything would be  a proprietary app with lots  of JavaScript and
it's dependencies which all suck  up your online habits each. There
would be no  Gopher or Gemini which  I could hack on.  All the good
free software  which does what *I*  want and not some  obscure evil
corp, wouldn't be there!

There would be a lot more other implications for me if there was no
FLOSS. The  world would  be vastly  different. Everything  would be
charged.  And  there  would  be  no  escape  to  the  new  software
subscription  model  which  now  extends  to  everything  not  only
software. But proprietary software makes this possible in the first
place.

But I was  always very interested in digital  things beginning with
my C64 when I was 9 or 10 years old. Would I go with this alternate
reality and  take every spying  appliance I  need just for  fun? Or
would I  opt-out and did  "digital extraction" as  Richard Stallman
put it?

I truly don't know.


<== The FOSS community ==>

So what I really want to say is  a big, *big* THANK YOU to the Free
and Open  Source community and  that there are people  like Richard
Stallman (although he's weird), Linus Torvalds and all the people I
don't know,  who did all this  amazing work which I  profit so much
from privately, too.

And thanks to solderpunk with  his invention of the Gemini protocol
and all the  other community members who pointed me  to the smolnet
with all of it's homebrew  software for Gemini/Gopher/Finger. I got
only  aware of  the smolnet  because the  Gemini protocol  got some
coverage on the internet news.

In  fact, I  knew  about Gopher  since the  early  internet, but  I
thought it's some obscure old  protocol like FTP which nobody uses.
Never  would I've  thought that  I'll  take part  in this  glorious
community and  all the small  and easy tech, like  I do now.  And I
love to  hack on my  scripts to easily  publish to my  services and
build up my site.

It was and is a very refreshing experience to go back to the roots!
And even if the  year of the Linux Desktop will  never come, we all
know it: FOSS won!


<== Final words ==>

So this is a "Thank you!" to all the people who allowed me to learn
and tinker around with Free and  Open Source software and extend my
knowledge every day.


 All in all - Have fun!
 -fab-