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---
title: "A Retrospective on My Free Software Absolutism"
date: 2025-02-01T00:00:00Z
tags: ['computing']
draft: false
---
## Background
There's this problem one gets into when creating content about one's own life. I'll try to illustrate it with a few examples from past entries I've made.
### Veganism
In one of my journal entries, I advised people to [go vegan](/2023/01/23/go-vegan/ "Journal Entry: Go Vegan"), mentioning that I was a vegetarian trying to become vegan myself.
I am no longer a vegetarian.
In fact, I haven't been a vegetarian for quite some time now. I still believe in the cause of veganism and would advocate for others to take steps toward veganism if they can, but I personally still fall short of that goal.
### Smartphones
I also wrote about [why I didn't have a smartphone](/2021/12/26/why-i-dont-have-a-smartphone/ "Journal Entry: Why I Don't Have a Smartphone"), citing the harmful effects they have on people's attention, privacy, and digital freedom.
I now use a smartphone.
I've been using one for a while now. I still believe they're harmful in all the ways I described in that entry. I try to mitigate the harm in my own case by using [GrapheneOS](https://grapheneos.org/) with the proprietary apps isolated to a separate profile, but I still use one and I still have some proprietary applications installed.
### Free Software
This next one will probably shock you the most if you're a long-time reader of mine. After all the hubbub on my journal about the [harms of proprietary software](/2020/10/20/use-free-software/ "Journal Entry: Use Free Software"), [dropping classes over it](/2020/03/30/rejecting-discord-and-google-colab/ "Journal Entry: The Tipping Point — Rejecting Windows, Zoom, Lockdown Browser, and the Lockdown Monitor"), [sacrificing my career for it](/2023/09/05/gaining-clarity-after-walking-off-a-job-on-orientation-day/ "Journal Entry: Gaining Clarity After Walking Off a Job on Orientation Day"), and [building an unsuccessful career plan to avoid it](/2021/06/16/my-career-path/ "Journal Entry: My Career Path")...
I now have a Windows machine and use proprietary software.
I've even subjected myself to remote proctoring software, which I [dropped out of university over](/2020/03/30/the-tipping-point-rejecting-windows-zoom-lockdown-browser-and-the-lockdown-monitor/ "Journal Entry: The Tipping Point — Rejecting Windows, Zoom, Lockdown Browser, and the Lockdown Monitor") back in 2020.
## On Giving Updates
The point is, having my current lifestyle contradict a lot of what I've written in the past makes me feel like a hypocrite. Once I write about something in my life in order to further a point, I almost feel an obligation to give an update or explanation when it changes.
To be fair, I never promised anyone that I'd never change my mind or behavior after writing an entry or that I'd make an update each time I do, and it's expected for someone in their twenties to change quite a bit. Ideally, readers would interpret my journal entries as a snapshot of my beliefs and actions at the time of publication, but I know that in reality people will naturally assume that what I wrote at one point in time still applies, and I don't want anyone to have a false impression.
That's partly why I feel so strongly about writing this entry. Free software has been such a persistent theme in this journal that I feel like I owe some explanation.
## Retrospective
For this entry, I want to address my past free software absolutism, whether I made a positive difference, whether I avoided doing harm, and what it costed me.
### Did I Make a Positive Difference?
I think it's difficult to quantify how much of a positive difference I made. I mean, I don't know how many people read this journal. I don't know how many people I left an impression on with my free software advocacy or what they might've done as a result, so it's pretty hard to measure.
If I had to guess though, on the whole, I'd say that the difference I made was tiny.
Because of me:
* A few more people use free software instead of proprietary
* A few more people are semi-aware of free software and mass surveillance
I wanted to believe that I had more of an impact than that, but at least it's something. I think there's an important insight lurking here though: With a few compromises and a change of tactic, I could've had the same impact, probably an even greater impact, with far fewer personal sacrifices. What I was doing was akin to self-immolation with no audience.
Okay. The positive difference I made wasn't much in comparison to the sacrifices I had to make, but did I at least avoid doing harm?
### Did I Avoid Doing Harm?
Let's analyze harm I avoided doing during my free software absolutism:
* Didn't write proprietary software, avoiding *potential* harm to users
* *Mostly* avoided being a victim of proprietary software and mass surveillance myself
The first point can itself be argued to be a harm actually. Since I'm someone who cares more about respecting user freedom than the average dev, I could have potentially reduced the harm meanwhile the proprietary software industry exists. The second point is positive. However, the knock-on effects of my free software absolutism overshadow it:
* Zero career progression
* No financial security or independence
* A lack of personal life experiences and personal growth due to the above
* Chronic medical problems that went untreated due to the above
* Immeasurable stress on me, the people financially supporting me, and our relationships
* Social isolation (I'm autistic, so it's hard enough already)
* A lot of time and effort I will never get back that amounted to very little
And the above isn't even a comprehensive list. I can't make a comprehensive list because it gets too personal.
In the end, those who suggested that avoiding doing harm by being a free software absolutist would cause harm in other ways, were spot on. I made some counterarguments to that specific point in "[My Career Path](/2021/06/16/my-career-path/ "Journal Entry: My Career Path")", but I now see why those counterarguments were wrong. I didn't end up starting a successful business in free software (I tried) or finding a more ethical career. All I accomplished was generating profits for corporations that retard the social movements I support, and relying financially on others who did the same so I didn't have to.
I think my heart was in the right place, but ultimately I was doing more harm than good and I may have subconsciously been using writing (along with other unhealthy coping strategies) as a way to escape that fact. Emotionally this has all been quite difficult to process, and it's hard to put into words the loss that I feel. I sacrificed so much of my time, energy, and happiness just to have the same impact that I could've had without jeopardizing my health, career, and future.
### Moderation Versus Dogmatism
I'm still going to promote and advocate for free software where I can, but I think the right approach is a more moderate one. The approach of people like [Richard Stallman](https://stallman.org/) is, in my opinion, dogmatic to the point of possibly hurting the free software movement. It would do good to refine the free software philosophy a bit.
I feel obliged to mention Louigi Verona, who has put some serious thought into the core principles of free software. [His work](https://louigiverona.com "Louigi Verona's Workshop") brings much-needed skeptical analysis to free software philosophy as put forth by [GNU](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html "The GNU Project") and the [FSF](https://www.fsf.org/ "The Free Software Foundation"). While I probably don't agree with all of Louigi's points, I think his effort in carefully deconstructing and [critiquing the core tenants of free software](https://louigiverona.com/?page=projects&s=writings&t=philosophy&a=philosophy_freedoms "On the justification of the four freedoms") is valuable and important for the future of the movement.
Louigi himself is a proponent of both free software and skepticism and his writing on the subject is thought-provoking. At some point in the future, I'd like to get around to making a response to his arguments and talk about my thoughts on them.
### What Would *Actually* Make a Difference?
I have one final point to make because I feel like stopping here leaves one in limbo. This entry makes it seems like whether you work inside "the system", trying to promote free software from within, you only get as far as the economic incentives let you, which is not far enough. And for most of us, trying to work outside "the system" and go full Stallman leaves you with no economic resources left to further the cause. Either way, you lose. So what is one to do?
To put it bluntly, I think meaningful progress on most important social issues is made practically impossible by a single upstream systemic cause: capitalism. I'm not going to lay out the full argument for why capitalism is a problem here. I'm no expert on it and others have already made the case better than I can, but I'll talk briefly about how capitalism hinders the free software movement specifically.
Capitalism creates a system of economic incentives such that the majority of programmer labor power is spent competing, working on closed proprietary software, rather than collaborating on free software for the benefit of larger society. The feedback loop of capital accumulation by corporations creates vested interests for proprietary software. These corporations are economically incentivized to use their power to bribe elected representatives into passing laws that harm cooperation, such as strengthening copyright law and protecting software patents. To sum it up, I don't think the fight for free software (or most other social causes) is winnable as long as the overriding economic incentives of capitalism are present.
So with that in mind, I'll finally answer the question of what actions I believe would actually make a difference for the free software movement. This advice also generalizes to other social causes out there:
* Join pro-labor organizations and socialist groups. If you're a leader or organizer of a movement, build solidarity with reasonable groups that oppose capitalism or its excesses
* Only make personal sacrifices commensurate with the results you expect to achieve. Big personal sacrifices are okay if you're also achieving big results (E.g: [Edward Snowden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden "Edward Snowden")), but don't do what I did and throw yourself under the bus just to make a tiny difference for a single cause, especially when there are better ways to go about it
Related to the last bullet point, there's a book titled "[The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World Without Losing Your Way](https://hillaryrettigproductivity.com/the-lifelong-activist/)". It seems like a decent guide based on what I've read so far, so I recommend it to those of you who call yourselves activists. I'm not sure if it would've made any difference had I read it six years ago, but I certainly wish I would've discovered it sooner.
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