Content warning: Musings on empowering technology/FOSS
FOSS folks tend to view empowerment as a question of whether or not I can access that code/server and modify how it functions. That is empowerment/freedom.
But for non technical folk, if such things are required, they then become a BARRIER to empowerment and freedom.
When it comes to software, I am far more concerned with empowering people to make meaningful change in their communities than I am with providing them with FOSS software.
Content warning: Musings on empowering technology/FOSS
It's a bit more nuanced.
For technical folks, the ability to view and modify the code is empowering as you describe.
For non-technical folks, the empowerment and freedom are in the form of ability to *ask a friendly tech folk* to read/review/modify the code for them. That may be someone in the family, a neighbor, or a local programmer. They may or may not want something in exchange.
The point is to enable local communities and markets to form around software.
Or even just the ability to get the software from a source that can be trusted not to be actively hostile to the users.
the fact that the software itself is FOSS isn't by any mean enough for this to happen, but it's necessary to enable an environment where this can be done to any reasonable extent.
TeMPOraL
•Content warning: Musings on empowering technology/FOSS
For technical folks, the ability to view and modify the code is empowering as you describe.
For non-technical folks, the empowerment and freedom are in the form of ability to *ask a friendly tech folk* to read/review/modify the code for them. That may be someone in the family, a neighbor, or a local programmer. They may or may not want something in exchange.
The point is to enable local communities and markets to form around software.
Elena ``of Valhalla''
the fact that the software itself is FOSS isn't by any mean enough for this to happen, but it's necessary to enable an environment where this can be done to any reasonable extent.
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Alexandre Oliva
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