2023-07-15
+ +Warning: If you are not willing to listen to me talk about people who are +obsessed over identity politics, stop reading this blog post now!
+ +Today I'm going to say something I may come to regret in the future. Fuck it. +This needs to be said. I may also lose more readers for this, or receive +angry emails from people I dislike. That's not something that bothers me.
+ +I'm sure if you follow my blog you're well aware of the petition against +Richard Stallman that big technology +companies signed. Big names like Mozilla, GNOME Foundation, LineageOS, OBS, +Tor, X.org Foundation and even Creative Commons all signed this petition. +Even some GNU/Linux channels like The Linux Experiment. +This petition calls for the removal of the entire board of the FSF, and +that of course includes Richard Stallman. Even the GNU project, which is +Stallman's project.
+ +Whether or not you believe Richard Stallman is a good person is not something +I care about in any way. I don't care about that, and I don't care about him +as a person to be honest. But I value Richard Stallman's work more than +I will ever value this petition or frankly anyone who signed this petition, +because despite Stallman's possible ethical flaws, he is responsible for a lot +of good free software, including the free software movement itself. This +petition wants to shame Stallman over things that don't really matter all that +much in the software space. When you develop or use software, the political +views of the developer doesn't matter, the end product does. And for the most +part, the software he has worked on is pretty good.
+ +This is just one example of the awful political activism which has slowly but +surely taken over many free software projects, such as the Linux kernel and +many other projects that people depend on. It's no longer about writing a good +program but rather political activism and identity politics, which doesn't at +all matter to the end user. The end user, the average normie just wants a +program that doesn't suck and gets the job done. While saying politics should +stay out of software entirely is a bit far fetched, considering free software +(or even open source) is a movement, when you're actually writing a program +it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if a contributor believes in X, Y or Z +or is a part of group X, Y or Z. If the code is good, it's good. If it isn't, +then it isn't.
+ +These people who are absolutely obsessed over politics are called SJWs, or "woke". +In my experience, they may not admit it themselves, but usually they +fall into this category. These people don't care about the software, they only +care about making sure everyone involved in the project has (usually) liberal +political views. If someone has different views, they will group together to +shame that individual for their ideas, calling them a bunch of different names +that I'm sure all of you have heard in the past even if the contribution the +individual made is excellent and improves the project in a meaningful way. It's +kind of difficult to avoid these people nowadays, and I am sure everyone who is +reading this blog post has either come across one of these people, or are part +of this group of people.
+ +Either way, if you are one of these people, you are free to contribute to +my software repositories. Same for the complete opposite part of the spectrum. +I value these contributions equally, because they both result in a better +product. The activism should stay out of software, that's the important part. +Whatever you do outside of my repositories is not my concern in any way. +Do however know that I will say what I want, whether you like it or not. +And regardless of Stallman's views on politics or any other individual, +I value and support the software and the software development, no matter +who contributes to it.
+ + ]]> +