{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://hypersubject.net/entries/2026/02/libres-ensemble",
  "path": "/entries/2026/02/libres-ensemble",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-04T12:01:17.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:32534e3a5wza2m3omyuflhm3/site.standard.publication/3mnmnwcnftk2i",
  "tags": [
    "weekly-update"
  ],
  "textContent": "Richard Stallman had a Marxian effect on technology in the 1980s. He started\nthe Free Software movement. His ideas mobilized a vast number of programmers\nand the ideology he initiated still has a great gravity in the software\necosystem. Since the year 2000, thousands of developers travel to Brussels\nevery February like pilgrims for Free and Open Source Software Developers'\nEuropean Meeting (FOSDEM). I am proud to be among the pilgrims for the second\nyear in a row.\n\nStallman's ideas had a tremendous effect on me. I was a law student when I\nfirst read about him, free software and open source. Free software, as an\nideology, was the primary reason for my interest in programming. It was\nrebellious, collective and a threat to the status quo. It was the right kind of\nreligion—as Kurt Vonnegut says: \"A really good religion is a form of\ntreason.\"\n\n{{< figure width=400 src=\"/images/libres-ensemble/cover.png\" >}}\n\nIn the halls of Free University of Brussels, thousands of developers gather\naround to hoard swag from open source companies, write \"Fuck Off Google\" on the\nwalls and talk about technology. If you ask them about their interest in free\nand open source software, they'll mention things like \"innovation\",\n\"community\", \"privacy\" and \"freedom\". But if you dig enough you'll see that\ntheir—our—reason distills into simply \"being on the right side of history\".\n\nThis is why the free and open source community resembles Marxists to me.\nIt's a community formed around an ideology that is rational, progressive and\ncollective and it is unapologetically resistant even in the hardest moments\nbecause \"what they stand for is just right.\" I am a proud member of this\ncommunity and I truly believe my employer is a bastion of open source software.\nI hope to be in Brussels many more years and I hope FOSDEM continues for many\nmore years after I pass away.",
  "title": "libres, ensemble."
}