Member-only story
The Libre Lag: Open-Source Software Needs a Change
How open-source and libre software can benefit from compassion and a good UI
The first thing you’ll notice if you hang around the open-source software community for a moment is the prevalence of people to whom the description “conceited” doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of their ego. These people frequently out of the woodwork when the word “privacy” appears, and their motto seems to be: “It’s the user’s responsibility to do all the work.”
I disagree with this thesis completely. I believe it’s the responsibility of the community (and therefore the developers) to make it as easy as possible for the user to choose privacy and safety. Unfortunately, this perspective is one that rarely seems to be adopted, much to the detriment of possible competition to the big-tech scene.
Note: this topic is multifaceted in the extreme, and no 3-minute article can possibly begin to cover it all, even if it were just a list of bullet-pointed links to further reading.
Compassion in technology
The biggest issue isn’t that the design of so much of the software out there is less-than-sleek. That sort of polishing can take time. No, the biggest problem in the world of technology — and privacy specifically — is a…
