Blonging for Freedom/ FSF Fundraiser

Blonging for Freedom ? ~ ⁂ *

Myself

This is Alexandre Oliva's personal blog, that does not necessarily represent the opinions held by FSFLA, FSF, AdaCore or any other organization the author may be or may have been associated with, or even by myself, as of now or ever.

See also my home page, where I share my speeches, and follow me on the Fediverse, where I post other thoughts.

I'm also lxo in the GNU Jami P2P network and on IRC (libera.chat, oftc.net, techrights.org), and I have a Tox ID.

This blog has different entries in Portuguese, Spanish, and perhaps in other languages. Its commit history is at <git://git.lx.oliva.nom.br/blog>.

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This feels odd. Here I am, one more time thinking of ways to help the FSF's fundraiser, and finding it much harder than last time, even though the FSF is at least as deserving.

That's a problem, but it's not in the FSF, it's in me. Unlike last time, now I'm back in the FSF board, and being on the board makes it feel like I'm asking for something for myself, even though my work for the FSF is entirely voluntary.

I find it very very hard to ask for help for myself, or for who or what can be perceived as closely-connected to myself.

It resembles the use of the -san honorific in Japanese. It is not polite to use this honorific when speaking of oneself: that's self-aggrandizing and thus rude. The speaker should honor the listener and third parties. However, if the listener perceives the third party as closely-connected to the speaker, the use of the honorific would be taken as elevating someone in the speaker's group above the listener, which would also be rude. I'm barely scratching the surface here, but this should be enough to get my point across.

Somehow the way I feel about asking for help for someone resembles (my understanding of) the appropriateness of using that Japanese honorific: it's hard for me to ask for help for myself, and it's hard to ask for help for those that would be perceived as closely-connected to me. It was much easier to ask for help for FSF-san when I was not in the board than it is to ask for help for FSF (sans-san, if you will) now that I'm closely connected. My respect and care for the organization is even greater now, but asking for help for it has now become asking for help for myself in a way, and so expressing it now requires overcoming that politeness barrier.

Tough! When I was just a free software activist who supported the FSF's mission, I already felt like asking for help for the FSF. As a board member, I also feel a sense of duty. So I shall try to overcome this difficulty of mine. Please bear with me.

The FSF remains the lighthouse that shows the path to software freedom for anyone who cares or should care about that: about having control of one's computing; about avoiding hostile programs and devices that will take your freedom away, or place it at severe risk; about how to defend our freedoms individually and collectively; about how to enable and help users to take steps towards autonomy in their digital lives.

You, who worry about enshittification of the software you rely on, should be paying close attention to the FSF, because what enables software enshittification is (dishonorable) third party control over the software, and the strongest defense against software enshittification is for users to control the software they use, that is, for the software to respect the users' essential freedoms.

We live in a hostile world where user control is under intense attack. If you care, you should be part of the resistance. Heck, even if you don't care, you'd also be better off as part of the resistance.

Individuals who have learned about this problem can and do take a personal stance and defend their own freedom, to the extent of their forces. We can also influence others to join in and thus strengthen our collective defenses. The more we accomplish that, the better.

But unfortunately this sort of social problem is pretty much impossible to solve by individual action alone. We the users need to organize to focus and multiply our strength, instead of dividing and dispersing our efforts.

As the earliest Free Software advocacy organization to fight for users' rights to control their own computing, the FSF is in a great position to not only highlight the path to freedom, but also to walk us all together there, and to fight with us to clear the path from the roadblocks placed in it.

Recent sizable donations are a great start in enabling the FSF to increase its impact. Or should I say our impact? Whether you can afford to devote USD 1 or USD 1M to promoting user control over software, the FSF can pool that with other donations for stronger actions and better outcomes, if you entrust us with your contribution.

Of course most supporters are not in a position to make such sizable donations. Fortunately even much smaller recurring amounts help the FSF's long-term sustenance and independence, so if you can express your support for our mission with an associate membership, that too will be very welcome, appreciated, and useful.

Now, if you feel your time and efforts would be even more valuable, you're probably right about that, and we'd be happy to accept your help in those forms as well. Please let us know!

Full disclosure: since your contributions will be used to advance software users' freedom, and I'm a software user, I will actually benefit from them, as I always have, even before getting involved with the FSF. All software users do. You should know that.

Thank you, and have a happy GNU year,

So blong,