If you try to look ANYTHING linux related on youtube, you probably will stumble on some right-winger. Some of them do have some helpful guides and they can expose unaware people to linux, but when you watch their takes on anything including linux, they are usually the most libertarian guys imaginable?? I have few thoughts why it might be the case, but I’m curious about what are you thinking. My thoughts are:

  • it’s free, so they personally don’t have to pay for it, meaning more money for them?
  • linux has better privacy and better access to dark web and they like privacy because they hate government because taxes and dark web because unlicensed guns i guess
  • it’s appealing to them because it’s some sort of niche that makes them fill smarter and better than anyone else, like some sort of subculture?
  • it’s not just linux it’s everywhere, and i’m just too focused on this

In any case it’s weird for me, linux and it’s open source nature feels like it would be much more appealing to left rather than to right, right?

It might be better to post this in c/technology but I wasn’t sure so i think it’s alright if I ask it here… Also it’s my first post here! I was just reading here for a while and finally got courage to ask this question that was sitting in my head for a while!

  • Conselheiro
    13·
    4 days ago

    The Free Software movement in the US has very deep libertarian origins. Stallman himself for the longest time rejected the notion that software development was an industry, treating it as a hobby, and the “four liberties” are notable in being personal negative liberties following the liberal framework of freedom. I think this philosophy is the main thing that holds the FOSS movement back, with a general aversion to involvement with state institutions and a pervasive feeling of “self-reliance” with being the master of one’s own box. I believe this is why we have hundreds of half-decent Linux distributions rather than one very good one.

    I recommend reading Snow Crash as one really terrible sci-fi book that makes the weirdness of hacker culture very explicit.