this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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libre
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Welcome to libre
A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.
The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

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- Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
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He should try abusing people on the mailing list again, that should help.
I'm willing to guess that most Linux end users' knowledge of Linus Torvalds begins and ends with "he made a thing I like and rely on every day" plus hashtag inspirational posters on FOSS-related Facebook pages plus short decontextualized video clips that portray him much more favorably than he really deserves. So his lionization is basically built by momentum (is that the word I'm looking for?) more than anything else, right? People uncritically imitating what they see as "Linux culture". That's the explanation I'd come up with.
The momentum is from the "Open Source" de-radicalization sphere. Capitalists fed into the open source counter movement explicitly to defang free software, you'll see Linus torvalds in the California computer history museum but not Richard stallman whose work on GCC and the GPL allowed Linux to actually succeed in the first place.
Its the Chomsky effect where torvalds will speak truth to power when it affects him and isn't intentionally trying to be dishonest for selfish gain. But you have to wonder why all the capitalists are happy spreading his name around specifically.
Capitalists love Open Source just like they love "Free Markets." Take a look at any corporate license policy page and take a look at which licenses they leave out (spoiler, all the licenses that compel them to give a shit).
Yeah, I was gonna say, Torvalds gets to have the finger thing as his "moment", while Stallman has the toe thing, right? But God knows Torvalds has plenty of "toe moments", too, so the way they're presented in media doesn't match with their actual contributions and characters.
Stallman is, uh, not without his flaws
I vaguely recall some sort of Epstein thing, yeah. Point is that there are no heroes, only weirdos.