Linux.com

Linus and Linux: The big lie versus the small truth

Today we find that those who wish to attack software freedom now wish to do so by attacking truth.  "The big lie" is a classic form of propoganda.  Pioneered by Goebbels, the idea is simple enough: by telling a lie, no matter how outrageous, and repeating it loudly and persistently, people will begin to believe it is the truth.  Today, adding to the big lie that the very basic human freedom to share and exchange knowledge, expressed, by among other means, through software freedom, somehow devalues the marketplace when in fact it expands it, we now have a new lie, that Linux was not started by Linus.

In the end I have always believed in the force and strength of the marketplace and capitalism.  Unencumbered markets actually do prefer freedom, because freedom enables the most efficient means to produce products and enables the most fair and efficient price between a seller and buyer, in part by enabling the greatest number of potential suppliers into a market with the fewest barriers to entry.

Similarly, it happens that our software, free software, not only offers greater freedom to our users, but also often offers superior products and services as well.  This is in part because we can continue to incrementally improve and share in each other's work.  While free software improves incrementally just as science does, in the proprietary software world, each product offered by a different entity must often be recreated from scratch.  Given a free and unrestrained marketplace, free software will ultimately win.

While a free marketplace favors software freedom, there are some who would choose to compete not in a free marketplace, but rather by making the market less free, whether by lobbying for laws that add artificial restraints or by other means.  Some, like those who fund the Alexis de Toqueville Institute, are so afraid of software freedom that they are willing to resort to the lowest forms propoganda and methods that one normally associates with thugs and war criminals.

In a way, I am glad they have chosen this method to fight software freedom. First, it shows them for exactly the kind of people that they really are. Second, I believe the "big lie" can work only when it is used in a vacuum. For this reason, in this case, it will fail.  The best way to fight the big lie is not to directly address its originators but rather to fill the vacuum around it.  As a community we must use our resources, not to outright challenge the messenger alone, but rather to fill the void around the message with truth.  A big lie cannot overcome the truth, distributed, told by millions.

I do remember the mantra, of "at first they laugh at us," but before responding to this latest bit of low FUD with the contempt and condemnation that it wishes to attract, instead consider what happens if at first we allow ourselves to laugh at them?

David Sugar is the maintainer of GNU Bayonne.