Freedom Means the User is in Charge, Not Just Some Software Licence
THE word "Freedom" is a 7-letter word that means different things to different people. To some people "Freedom" means ownership of firearms, whereas the other political wing (or strand) tends to say that it wants freedom from gun owners, asserting that such ownership begets more violence. To a lot of people "Freedom" means working for oneself, not subjected to any form of "modern slavery" or abusive bossing. "Freedom" is a somewhat subjective concept. The word is the same, but to some people it is merely a "dogwhistle".
In the context of software, however, "Software Freedom" as defined in the 1980s by the hacker culture (or the "last true hacker") meant programmers and users being in full control of the programs they use.
We've just celebrated the 40th anniversary of GNU and the mainstream media - what's left of it anyway - is still failing to explain to people the notion of "Freedom" in the context of computing at large. Sometimes the media conflates "Choice" (e.g. Apple or Microsoft) with "Freedom".
Here in Techrights by "Freedom" we mean something else. It's not just about Freedom of Speech/Association/Press but about users exercising full control over the stack. This should extend to one's ability to reject things like Wayland and systemd, irrespective of their licence.
Freedom Means the User is in Charge. The hardware, the software... and also what kind of software can be used. █