mastodon.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
The original server operated by the Mastodon gGmbH non-profit

Administered by:

Server stats:

352K
active users

The lack of outrage that the @osi rigging election is quite pathetic .. for the win, misses the point.

@amszmidt @osi fsf is no better given their abdication of any accountability for stallman who continues to rule with an iron fist let's not rewrite history just because there are newer atrocities

@amszmidt @osi i agree with you on the importance of free software but have also found it an insufficient basis for the protection of labor as of late and have been casting about for something new

@hipsterelectron Existing legal frameworks work well enough for labour protection, I think? Or do you have something specific on your mind?

@amszmidt

Absolutely not, current labour laws allow the use of literal slavery in the us (it's legal if they're prisoners), it allows not recognizing the subordination relationship between uber and its drivers (thus not giving them all the protections that the "employee" label has). It allows women to be systemically paid less than men because "individual merit" (found to be wrong by actual studies from the entire field of sociology)

In general the law only says what is ok and what is not ok but doesn't do *anything* to go from not ok to ok. It's the actual activism that create change, and a guy pushing for using the law framework against the idea of digital appropriation is exactly that: activism. The conferences, the os and tools, the advocacy, the funding, this is what creates change
@hipsterelectron
Alfred M. Szmidt

@rakoo Sorry, you're just rambling nonsense. Not the whole world is the US.

@hipsterelectron

@amszmidt @rakoo terrible way to respond to someone actively engaging with your premise. the us was very clearly marked as the context, which is better than presuming universality of "existing legal frameworks". one of the strongest arguments against free software as it stands now is the us-centrism of its copyright and general legal stance, necessitating the EUPL over the GPL—the us FSF now denounces the FSFE for daring to question its accountability processes for stallman. incredibly contemptuous remark and this is why people have left free software behind. blocking now

@amszmidt

Exactly, I'm talking about situations not just in the US but in every single democracy out there (no, the law doesn't require women to be paid the same as men for the same job, and I'm not even talking about other discriminations)

I'm not saying the law is bad in itself and that change shouldn't happen on this front, I'm saying that change doesn't happen there, it codifies it (in fact law always follows what society wants, possibly with years-long delay) but the "tip of the spear" is in what the activists do.

Let's recognize the Free Software Movement for what it has done, and the limits of what it wants to do: a meritocratic system that wishes for the freedom of everyone to do whatever they want as long as they share how they do it. The analysis of why freedom is missing is geared towards a very specific subset of the population and doesn't apply to all of it. It's lacking a societal angle and thus furthers a direction that doesn't completely solve the problem. If the german government uses free software to surveil its population, it doesn't mean freedom is pushed forward. By positioning itself against a clear view on societal aspects the Free Software movement perpetuates the dominations it tries to fight against, thus rendering itself not operant enough.
@hipsterelectron