The issue is serious but not desperate

Thursday, March 18, 2021.

Why do I believe in Lino?

Writing free software makes sense only because I believe that proprietary software is a problem.

Many of us somehow agree that proprietary software is a problem, but we also feel that getting rid of it seems impossible.

When you see a problem and no solution, then you have not much choice. Some fall into despair, others turn their minds away, become indifferent and say “Anyway I cannot help” or “There is no problem”.

But here is yet another signal of somebody who chose to no longer ignore the issue. The data protection officer of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany now declared officially that German administrations must urgently stop using Microsoft products: https://www.heise.de/news/Datenschutzbeauftragter-Behoerden-sollten-unverzueglich-auf-Microsoft-verzichten-5990886.html

My source of hope is a vision, a vague idea of where the solution will be: the root of the evil is the fact that we created a legal infrastructure that allows greedy giants to consider software as private property. See There are two aspects of copyright. If this is true, then we “only” need to toggle a few levers. Of course this change is not going to come quickly and easily. But let’s start to look at it.