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1. Embed this notice
   Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@octodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 25-Jan-2023 07:04:17 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

   • Luis Villa

   Not that it matters terribly (since the important thing is disseminating the ideas), but... I had thought maybe I had come up with the term "user freedom" (I certainly was pushing for it) but, @luis_in_brief demonstrated that's not true! The Franklin Street Statement, which had a big influence on me, already had that term in it in 2008, which certainly precedes when I would have started pushing it by a few years: https://web.archive.org/web/20090129140803/http://autonomo.us/2008/07/franklin-street-statement/

   Anyway, happy to be corrected. I think new-fediverse-participants are probably fairly unaware of autonomo.us, but in large part the fediverse as we know it today exists largely because of the thinking done there.

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:17 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to

     • aeva
     only if you can't tell hiring support from a monopoly, and not having an alternative if the monopoly abuses its power, vs being able to choose among anyone you trust to provide you with support (or any other services, really)
   • Embed this notice
     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:19 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • Jonathan Frederickson
     • tech? no! man, see...
     • mollyhawk

     @mdb @technomancy @jfred @cwebber source code is only empowering to programmers and aspiring programmers, and I think that's where a lot of freedom programmers get stuck, because if you fixate too hard on that the only way to broaden your movement's reach is to insist that everyone to become programmers so they can become just as empowered as you are.

   • Embed this notice
     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:20 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • Jonathan Frederickson
     • tech? no! man, see...
     • mollyhawk

     @mdb @technomancy @jfred @cwebber empowerment on the other hand is a concept that is broad and wonderful, and something that freedom programmers neither have the monopoly on nor does their software intrinsically embody it.

     software is empowering when it enables people to pursue their dreams and live their lives as they like and support their communities and so on.

   • Embed this notice
     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:22 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • Jonathan Frederickson
     • tech? no! man, see...
     • mollyhawk

     @mdb @technomancy @jfred @cwebber I think "freedom" here has the libertarian meaning, kinda a "muh guns" vibe but for source code. They say that you're being freed from the control of corporations, but 99% of the time you're still at the mercy of other people's decisions anyway (eg gnome 3's controversial makeover, systemd, and so on).

   • Embed this notice
     mollyhawk (mdb@kith.kitchen)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:23 JST mollyhawk

     in reply to

     • aeva
     • Jonathan Frederickson
     • tech? no! man, see...

     @technomancy @jfred @aeva @cwebber

     How do you differentiate empowerment and freedom? I view freedom as a bit of a walled garden with a door ("you can come in if you want") and empowerment as in making it easy ("breaking down the wall")

   • Embed this notice
     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:24 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     • aeva
     • Jonathan Frederickson

     @jfred @aeva @cwebber right; I guess I should have been clearer; I'm not using the term "user empowerment" as a synonym for "software freedom", I'm using it to move beyond the goals of the FSF to things that really matter

     part of why I like the term is that it points to how the FSF's focus on license above all else is small-minded and myopic, exactly as you point out

   • Embed this notice
     Jonathan Frederickson (jfred@jawns.club)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:26 JST Jonathan Frederickson

     in reply to

     • aeva
     • tech? no! man, see...

     @aeva @technomancy @cwebber In my mind, user freedom (or user empowerment) has to involve also making that freedom more accessible to people who wouldn't consider themselves programmers. Think HyperCard, Dynamicland, Siri Shortcuts, etc

     In other words, it's not just free software. Source code access alone isn't enough

   • Embed this notice
     aeva (aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:27 JST aeva

     in reply to

     • tech? no! man, see...

     @technomancy @cwebber well, freeing and empowering for programmers at least. everyone else is at the mercy of our whims

   • Embed this notice
     tech? no! man, see... (technomancy@icosahedron.website)'s status on Sunday, 29-Jan-2023 14:29:29 JST tech? no! man, see...

     in reply to

     @cwebber I'm not sure where I picked it up but I've started using "user empowerment" more recently as I feel it focuses more directly on addressing the power imbalance in the status quo

     users of proprietary software don't necessarily *feel* "unfree" but they can more readily identify the fact that they have been disempowered

     (and because "freedom" is teetering on the edge of semantic satiation in a lot of contexts)