Richard M. Stallman alias RMS, gave an interview to ZDNET Free Software as a Social Movement Justin Podur interviews Richard Stallman.
He says two remarkable things :
If you are against the globalization of business power, you should be for free software.
Fascism is a system of government that sucks up to business and has no respect for human rights. So the Bush regime is an example, but there are lots of others. In fact, it seems we are moving towards more fascism globally.
We’re all confuse, is it demagogy, or is really that the free software movement became an antifascist movement. It is not a new thing to learn that RMS is a liberal and antifascist person but that stating it so clearly is a bit new. I post a small comment on a mailing on which I mainly lurk and someone ask me back :
David, Are you suggesting that technology is — or should be — free of ideological and political implications?
My answer is about this :
Technology is not ideological or political per se, modern society have techno-science ideology, technocracy is the form of governement that techno-science create. It works this way since some people discovered that humans, earth and sun were not the center of universe.
Technocracy is - let’s abuse of the term - the fusion of politics and science, it is against democracy because it pretend that the dictatorship of the truth - read science here - opposed to the dictatorship of the majority - read democracy here. Technocracy is a kind of fascism, a kind of dictatorship of science.
Democracy is not there for truth but for will, the will of majority.
I’m always afraid of seeing scientist or technologist interested in politic because there assumptions are about doing the truthful thing, likewise, artist can’t take the power because they would evaluate the world by its beauty instead of the will of people. What is right in democracy is the will of the majority wherever wrong is the will of the minority (it is a bit simple because minority is also protected by the right to voice their discontent and normally have a political power equal to their share of the global will)
When RMS talks about fascism and abuse of the term pointing Bush as beeing one, I say “yes Bush is a fascist, or at least a crypto-fascist - a fascist that does not recognize himself as one”. When he shouts “Alter-mondialism and free software same battle” I’m afraid of this - even if it is relevant to compare the fight against globalization of business power and the fight of FOSS against proprietary software and patents. That kind of arguments sounds too much “if you’re not with us your against us!”
What do we do with global business such as IBM or GOOGLE that are heavily involved in FOSS? Or any one who wants to make money with FOSS ?
I reserve my right to be 100% alongside with RMS in principle and not 100% as how it is said, it scares me too much to see technology solving social issues …
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