Against the Free Software movement By Edward Willis (http://encw.xyz) Published Nov/12/2022 The 1980s were a time of rapid commercialization in the computer space. Names like Microsoft and Apple were going from small operations to billion dollar behemoths. Programmers were going into business for themselves, and hitting it rich. I'm sure many of us have thought to ourselves how amazing it must have been to be a programmer back in the 80s, with so much opportunity stretching out before you. Today we don't see that as much. Instead of programmers going into business, so many of us give our software away for free. Often software is given away for free to create a portfolio, in order to sway another to employ us. Not only do you miss out on the opportunity to commercialize your work when you give it away for free, but you harm other programmers as well; it is MUCH harder to sell a photoshop competitor because of the existence of GIMP. GIMP is a bad product, but it being free means that it is good enough for many to choose it anyway. GIMP not only keeps competitors out, but also keeps Adobe on top, because without getting their foot in the door and selling their product, a company can't afford to increase their quality and feature set to become competitive for power and professional users. How many different types of software are essentially off limits to commercialization, competition, and the potential for innovation that commercial interest brings? How many different types of software will never again make money for programmers? Is this good for us? Is this what we want? Think about how many more companies, how much more competition would exist in the market, without the existence of FOSS. That's gone now. Now if you want to make money your options are to create some service, or get a job with a company that already has. Except for the games industry. There you can still seek to control your own destiny, and so many independent programmers and teams are taking their shot. I put the vibrancy of the games market down to the simple fact that it is resistant by its very nature to FOSS domination. There are companies worth many billions of dollars that generate their income on the back of work done by others for free. How is that a just arrangement? Instead of paying their programmers to produce software, or paying another company, these mega-corps are making a killing off the back of free labor. Isn't the fact that they get so much of their work done for free a big part of the reason that these companies are so big, profitable, dominant to begin with? We programmers are working so hard at devaluing our own labor. Why is this happening? How were we, programmers, tricked into giving away our labor? We're smart people, so how could we be so foolish? Well, we all know the reason; programmers have been infected by a mind virus called the Free Software movement. Stallman and his like have somehow convinced many of us that if we don't give away our labor, if we protect our interests, we're bad people. Making proprietary software, a important way of making money from our own labor, in his view turns us into tyrannical villains. How could we be so naive and stupid, so demoralized and self-defeating, to believe him? The software freedom Stallman talks about has nothing to do with actual, genuine freedom. Our political and personal freedom (read: real freedom) is completely unaffected by the licensing of the software we run. His four essential software freedoms are simply a list of privileges Stallman wants over the work of others before he will consent to use it. Don't let Richard Stallman's bullshit control your behavior.