“friendly”? 🤣

💪 🤝

I have only partially until now. But sadly it looks like we’re entering times where choices regarding activism will become more important and inevitable. The pool with get larger. Any kind of support: money, time, developing, participating, promoting, legal…

Yes I don’t support FOSS projects that aren’t willing to engage in activism. But I don’t shame them. That’s exactly the point of my post. Rather than shaming people or projects who’ve made a different choice, I think it’s best to find and focus on those who share one’s choice, for mutual support, discussion, and planning. It’s important to understand that FOSS and activism are two different things.

Regarding “pro human rights”, what I mean is that software development can be (for some) a form of activism for human rights, just like it happens in the arts and in science.

Agreed, there’s a whole spectrum. On my part I’d more properly say against giving too much power to corporations.

I wasn’t aware of these distinctions and the history behind them (mea culpa). But I think the current events can be a good occasion to make more people aware of this.

Well said. In fact there’s more than an ecosystem problem. We must understand that saying or using “FOSS” or “Linux” does not automatically mean to stand up for human rights, for the community, and against corporations. I’ve personally been under this gross misunderstanding, and I think other users might be too.

If we read the comments in current debates about FOSS, Linux, and age verification, we can see that many developers and possibly also users make statements like “the developer has no obligation towards the community”, “the law is the law, no matter what the community wants”, “we must comply”, and similar. It’s important to realize that many developers work on FOSS not out of consideration for the community or for human rights. For them it’s just one kind of software development. We may have projects that are FOSS and pro-corporations or pro-surveillance. The “F” in FOSS stands for freedom to modify and distribute the software by/to anyone in the community. But it doesn’t stand for “software that promotes / stands up for general human freedom” or human rights.

So for anyone who, like me, wants to use and promote software as an assertion of and a stand for human rights and against corporations, beyond the simple “software” aspects, it’s necessary not to stop at “FOSS” or “Linux” but apply more scrutiny and a more careful choice.

Yes, I agree with you.

I was very confused about this too. But now I realize that’s not what “FOSS” means to everyone. There are developers that work with FOSS in the same way they could (or do) work for a corporation – note the many comments like “users don’t have any rights to make demands of developers”, “developers don’t owe anything to the users or to the ‘community’”, and similar comments. Luckily there are also developers for which “FOSS” does mean what it means to you and me.

Maybe there are other FOSS users that are under the same misunderstanding as I was. It should be made clear that “FOSS”, per se, really means nothing else than “not requiring payments” and “with source open to the public”. Any extra meanings depend on whom you’re speaking to.

Maybe this is going on already. Unfortunately I have no idea.

I don’t think enough developers realize that the majority of users does not want this. They’re acting exactly like the legislators: “we don’t give a shit about what the people think”.

The legislators won’t take the Linux community seriously, because the developers aren’t taking the community seriously either.

I’m curious to see how it’ll develop.

Indeed! As I wrote in the post, these are just examples that explicitly mention age-verification.

The law is bonkers. As a user commented, with internet of things you might need to verify your age to open your fridge 😂 https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers

💪 That’s what I count on!

You’re absolutely right. And it’s the same group of people pushing for this in all these places.

Absolutely touché! My Android is dying and I look forward to switching to GrapheneOS.

🤝 Maybe “government parent brainwash them”.