A reader's comment reminded me of the song by singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina in which he complains that the media talk about certain issues while ignoring others. I think it's a good excuse to explain why I'm talking about Microsoft in a Linux blog.
Let it be clear that I only speak for myself. I have no idea what criteria my peers use to choose what they write about.
The comment in question says
I'm leaving Linux Adictos, you have become completely unsubtle in your political agenda, it's no longer about free software, you're just agenda and pro-Microsoft anymore
The comment in question was posted on an article where I talk about the possible projects of Elon Musk that Twitter is part of a mega application that allows you to make payments, make purchases, share content and communicate.
Why am I talking about Microsoft in a Linux blog?
Despite my best efforts to avoid it, college managed to teach me something. The concept of sociotechnical system and what is the General Theory of Systems.
The sociotechnical system is spoken of from the reality that a technology cannot be understood without understanding the expectations, beliefs, values and attitudes of those who create it and those who use it. Stallman did not start the GNU movement because of the technical challenges involved, he did so because the culture of cooperation and free availability of resources in which he had been raised was disappearing as computer science schools tightened their ties with corporations.
The other concept is that of the General Theory of Systems (TGS) Scientists from different disciplines came to the conclusion that a single specialty was not enough to understand reality and that the combination of two or more together would obtain better results. than the sum of those they would obtain working separately.
The TGS is applied to the real economy with what is known as Coo-petition. This neologism coined by Ray Norda, the founder of Novell, and alludes to the fact that every industry advances not only thanks to competition but also to cooperation between market players. Classic examples are Microsoft and Intel (Microsoft sells operating systems that need more and more power which leads to the need to buy new microprocessors) or Apple and Adobe (Adobe's software put Apple as a leader in the design market) But, Microsoft can't stay out of other platforms like single-board devices so it needs to make Windows compatible with other phones and Apple wants its products to feature the most comprehensive collection of software, including Adobe's competitors.
A few years ago I told them about Steven Sinofsky, a former Microsoft executive explaining why the company went from fighting open source to supporting it. According to him, this is due to the fact that the distribution of software stopped being profitable and the business began to be in providing services.
Today Microsoft is a major player in the world of open source. And, the open source world is part of the software world. Things are happening in the world of software. We cannot deny that the collaboration of Microsoft helped to extend the possibilities of Linux.
We don't live in a yogurt pot
While the Linux community was engrossed in the debate about Systemd, social networks appeared constituting a serious nightmare of privacy and control of freedom of expression. While the free software community wanted to crucify Stallman and worked to remove offensive words, the Artificial Intelligence boom was getting underway. Today we are seeing how we control it to protect the little that remains of individual freedom and privacy.
Both things could have been handled from the open source project communities. We just had to be more attentive to the needs of users and less to our own navel.
Very important things are happening that will affect us for a long time, and in order to defend free and open source software, but also our freedom and independence, we must know them. For this reason, just as I started with Sabina, I end up with Sandra Mihanovich.