THE GRANDFATHER'S SPEAKER AND LINUX

THE GRANDFATHER'S SPEAKER AND LINUX: THE ANTIDOTE TO THE RELIGION OF THE ALGORITHM

Ramblings of an Old Vagabond in Homage to Linux

My grandfather had an old speaker. A simple device, one of those they don't make anymore. When someone came with alarming news, he would listen patiently and then say: "Son, don't believe so much nonsense." He wasn't a book-wise man, but he knew how to tell the wheat from the chaff.

Today, as I write this, I do it from a computer that the empire of proprietary software declared obsolete. A machine that, according to that logic, no longer deserves updates, security, or respect. But a free system rescued it. And here it is, working. Silent. Free. Alive. Like my grandfather's speaker.

THE GOD MONEY AND PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

There is a date that should be burned into everyone's conscience. That day, the empire of proprietary software stopped providing free support for its most-used operating system. And with that decision, up to 250 million computers were condemned to become electronic waste.

Not because they were broken. Not because they stopped working. Only because that empire no longer found it convenient to maintain them.

While the world faces a crisis of electronic waste, while hardware manufacturing generates more than 75% of a device's CO2 emissions over its lifetime, that empire pushes millions of users to buy new equipment. Equipment that, on top of everything, demands technical requirements that leave out most of the computers that still work perfectly.

That is not innovation. It is ambition disguised as progress. It is the God Money demanding its tribute. It is the same logic as the reducer who buys cheap from the peasant and sells dear to the one who eats. Only here, the peasant is you, and the harvest is your computer.

THE FREE SYSTEM: THE PROOF THAT ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

But facing that darkness, there is a light that has been burning for 35 years. And it wasn't lit by a corporation. It was lit by a student who, on an internet forum, shared a project and said: "This is a hobby. It won't be anything big or professional."

That "hobby" is called free software. And today it is everywhere:

• In more than 90% of the servers that sustain the internet.

• In almost all the supercomputers in the world.

• In the phones used by billions of people.

• In ATMs, in rockets, in watches, in cars.

And all of that, without an owner, without a boss, without an algorithm deciding for you. Free software is developed by a non-profit foundation, which receives contributions from companies and maintains a team of developers. No one is a multimillionaire. No one fills their pockets. But their work is in billions of devices, and it doesn't belong to anyone. It belongs to everyone.

THE GOODNESS OF WORKING IN COMMUNITY

Free software wasn't made by one person. It was made by thousands of hands. Each version receives contributions from more than 2,000 developers from all over the world. People who work without expecting a salary, without seeking fame, without competing. People who push the cart toward the same ideal.

That's what my son sent me: the news that free software turns 35. And I replied with that phrase that is now a banner: "When the world joins hands and pushes the cart toward the same ideal, without selfishness, without profit, without competition, it has the capacity to build wonderful things."

And it's true. Free software is the proof. The global campaign to resurrect old computers demonstrates it: communities all over the world organized to give a second life to the equipment that the empire abandoned. Universities, activist groups, anonymous volunteers. All pushing the same cart. All rescuing what the God Money wanted to throw in the trash.

DISUNITY IS WHAT SCREWS US

And here is the deepest lesson. What loses us is not the lack of resources. It is disunity. Selfishness. The brother who wants to absorb his fellow man. The one who prefers to win alone rather than build with others. The empire doesn't have power because it is invincible; it has power because we are divided. Each one buying their computer, each one paying their license, each one accepting that "that's how things are."

Free software demonstrates the opposite. When good people unite, they are stronger. There is no algorithm that can stand against a community that shares code, that teaches the one who doesn't know, that rescues the old computer so another can use it. That is not charity; it is justice. It is the Stomach Theory applied to technology: don't swallow the tale of obsolescence, chew the alternative, and spit out the waste of consumerism.

TRIBUTE TO THE CREATORS

To the student who shared his hobby without asking anything in return.
To the visionary who planted the seed of free software with a license that protected freedom.
To the thousands of anonymous programmers who, in the early morning, fix a bug, translate a manual, improve a line of code.
To the communities all over the world that install free software in schools, in libraries, in grandparents' homes.
To my son, who sent me the link.
To my grandfather, who taught me not to believe so much nonsense.

They are the proof that the world united is not lost. That the Religion of the Algorithm can win, but it doesn't have the last word. Because as long as there is an old man rescuing a computer, a young man sharing code, a community pushing the cart, there will be hope.

EPILOGUE: DIGNITY DOESN'T NEED LICENSES

This computer I use doesn't have proprietary software. It has free software. And it works. It doesn't ask me for a license, it doesn't force me to update, it doesn't bombard me with notifications. It lets me think. It lets me write these ramblings. It lets me be free.

Because dignity, my friend, is not cooked with licenses. It is defended with open code. And free software, at 35 years old, is still the bone that remains when there is nothing left to make a broth. The bone of freedom. The bone of community. The bone that no empire will ever be able to buy.

There is no ravine that can stop us. And there is no algorithm that can detain us.

Old Vagabond