I don’t understand what fantasies you are talking about. We just want people to have freedom when using computers. Freedom that they deserve and that nobody should be able to take away from them. As a side effect we also get privacy and security and a society that works together to achieve common goals in a way that benefits us all. Those problems affect everyone who uses a computer.

The Free Software movement is 40 years old and it has already changed the world. It benefits everyone, not just technical people. Are you gonna tell me that all users of Firefox, Libre Office, Gimp, Matrix or Signal are only technical people? You are talking to me right now using Free Software and I’m responding to you on my fully Free Software operating system.

Free Software is not a licensing method. Software has to use licenses, because that’s how copyright works. It doesn’t give users any rights by default. Software should be free (as in freedom - we are not talking about price) by default, but it isn’t, so we have to use licenses. The Free Software that we use today was created under capitalism, so I don’t see how capitalism prevents us from making useful software and working together on improving it. There are also many developers and companies that sell Free Software (they make commercial programs).

The problem is that people don’t care about freedom, security or privacy. If they cared, they would only choose software that gives them those things. They would use Free Software. Even when it’s not always convenient.

So the issue here is not capitalism, but non-free proprietary software, because it makes it easy to abuse users. Unfortunately most people haven’t even heard of Free Software. They don’t realise that they deserve certain rights when using computers. I think if more people were familiar with the Free Software movement, they would think differently and they would demand freedom. Not all Lemmy users have heard of Free Software, but many of us understand that freedom is important. So we use it, even though it’s not convenient and the UI sucks.

We are capable of competing with corporations and often making better software that them, but that’s not enough. If people don’t understand the issues we are trying to solve, they will just use whatever new shiny app that comes out next. That’s why some Twitter users migrated to Bluesky and Threads. They don’t understand that after a while they will be abused the same way as before.

Even if we make Matrix way better, Discord users will still use Discord, because to them everything is fine and there is no reason to switch. Learning to use something new is always inconvenient. I doubt that all Windows users are unable to switch to GNU/Linux. They just don’t think it’s worth the effort, because to them there is nothing wrong. Being spied on and restricted is ok as long as all their proprietary games work.

Everyone is overwhelmed when learning to program or even learning a new framework. This is normal. We just do our best to ignore that feeling and keep going. You will often fail and sometimes spend hours wondering why something doesn’t work. But eventually it will become easier and you will be able to make cool things. Python and JavaScript are good languages for beginners (but choose one).

If you would like to contribute to Libre Software, there are other ways you can do it too. You can join some chat rooms for a specific project and help people when they have issues. You can help to document things or help translate stuff.

gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw

Yeah I don’t understand what email has to do with crypto wallets at all.

He will just do the same thing as last time. He is too lazy to look something up online so he will just give up and say it’s not ready yet.

Also couldn’t he have just downloaded steam from its website?

Remember that time when he uninstalled his desktop environment? :D

But we need to convince people to care about freedom too. There will always be some excuse to not use the freedom respecting alternative. Look at Reddit users. They could all join us here and change something, but they don’t care. Same with Twitter, Windows, etc. It’s always difficult, it’s always annoying. But if we spread the message and help people with their issues, we can convince at least some of them.

Software takes time to improve. Matrix is a complicated project and unlike Discord it’s also federated. It’s possible that some things will always be harder with Matrix. But even if it improves a lot (which will probably take years), people might find other excuses to not use it. For example Discord might still be more popular.

I know Matrix takes effort to use. You have to understand what a homeserver is, how fediverse works, etc. I had to go through even more effort to set up my own server. It was difficult and took a lot of time of reading the documentation and tutorials. Some of the problems I had were ridiculous. Then to get people to use my server, I had to guide them step by step on how to create an account, because you can’t just send them an invite link.

But we can’t just give up on our freedom and privacy. We are aware of Matrix’s issues and they won’t be fixed in a month or even a year. In the future Discord will have even more users and it will be even harder to escape it. So there is no reason to wait, we have to fight this battle now. This is the right thing to do.

Ah, interesting. I didn’t realise that it was slow.

It took me a while to realise this, but 2 of the quotes that this person has posted were not full quotes. I will post them here in case you are curious.

The one from 2003:

The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, “prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia” also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally–but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.

Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people’s interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.

For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent’s will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).

Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2003-mar-jun.html

The one from 2013:

There is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children.

Granted, children may not dare say no to an older relative, or may not realize they could say no; in that case, even if they do not overtly object, the relationship may still feel imposed to them. That’s not willing participation, it’s imposed participation, a different issue.

Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2013-jan-apr.html#04_January_2013_(Pedophilia)

The one from 2006 was a full quote, but that post contains a note now:

[Many years after posting this note, I had conversations with people who had been sexually abused as children and had suffered harmful effects. These conversations eventually convinced me that the practice is harmful and adults should not do it.]

Source: https://stallman.org/archives/2006-mar-jun.html#05 June 2006 (Dutch paedophiles form political party)

I used it last year on Windows 10 (I was forced to use Windows by my employer). I didn’t use it with WSL, just with Git Bash.

Yeah, when I used it, every command had like a second of delay. It was also buggy. But it has tabs and you can even split the window into multiple panes. So big improvement over cmd.

I think they want to compete with GNU/Linux and attract its users. They made WSL for probably the same reason. They even have a terminal now that almost doesn’t suck.

Yeah, that’s what I meant. 22 years after APT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APT_(software)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Package_Manager

No, that would be too soon. It took them over 20 years to make a package manager, 15 years to add tabs to Windows Explorer. Maybe in 10-20 years they will do it.

Don’t talk to me, you are cancelled.

Yes FSF has done good things for open source.

What you said makes me think you don’t fully understand the type of work they do. The Free Software movement has nothing to do with Open Source. Free Software is about user freedom. The goal of the Free Software movement is to give people control over their own devices and make sure nobody can take that away from them.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

Exactly. There have been things that I had believed for most of my life that were false. If we punish people for being wrong, then nobody will ever change their mind. The cost of doing so will be just too big.

Richard also doesn’t care if some subject seems disgusting or if his ideas seem radical to most people. He will talk about the ethics anyway, without any emotions attached. That’s what philosophers do.

They have to make it look like some conspiracy, a “cult”, etc., since they have nothing else that they could use. There are always people attracted by that sort of thinking and for them it will be enough. In 2019 we saw multiple Free Software projects joining a hate campaign against Stallman based on a blog post that misquoted him and another blog post with fake rumours. The second one was linked by the Software Freedom Conservancy (https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/sep/16/rms-does-not-speak-for-us) and it contained stories like these:

I recall being told early in my freshman year “If RMS hits on you, just say ‘I’m a vi user’ even if it’s not true.”

I think all of those people are either blinded by hatred or have some other motive (in this case it’s hard for me to believe they are all this stupid and can’t recognise obvious trolling). Maybe some of them want proprietary software to exist and Richard’s ideas are too radical for them. But the only way they can fight him or the FSF is with lies.

Let’s create a society where people can’t be wrong. Instead they will be always right! Otherwise they will get cancelled! Isn’t that a great idea?

We will only discuss opinions that everyone agrees with. Child abuse? Well, we don’t like that, so let’s pretend it doesn’t exist and never talk about it. Somebody mentions it? Cancel them! Disagrees with us? Cancel! Changed their mind? Too late! Already cancelled!

“Oh well he only publicly said raping children is fine a few times”

He never said rape, so you are wrong! Cancelled!

Brightened my day so much finding out that sick fuck got cancer. Can’t rape kids, or advocate doing so, when you’re dead.

I hate to worsen your day then, because he is not dying. You were wrong again. Double cancelled!