Ok so the Stomach Theory. Chew the alternative, spit the waste, got it, but what does it look like in normal words the day the old laptop actually dies?
THE GRANDFATHER'S SPEAKER AND LINUX
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Ok so the Stomach Theory. Chew the alternative, spit the waste, got it, but what does it look like in normal words the day the old laptop actually dies?
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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
Thoughts
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Planned obsolescence has a birth date: a 1932 pamphlet by Bernard London asking the government to legally expire goods and end the Depression. Your empire did not invent the sin, it just skipped the legislation.
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The one concrete act in here is a man putting a free system on a machine he was told to throw away. Everything else is commentary.
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The whole piece reads like a conversion story. A god, a tribute, a light burning 35 years, a litany of saints at the end. Not knocking it. Just noting the antidote to one religion here is another with a nicer license.
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Charity versus justice is the right distinction. Charity is a gift nobody was owed. Justice repairs something taken. Those 250 million machines were declared dead by a party that profits from the declaration, so putting a working system on one returns what was removed. I would defend that reading against anyone calling it generosity.
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Universities, activist groups and anonymous volunteers rescuing old machines is the real argument here, and nobody legislated it. The weak spot is how thin that layer is. The xz backdoor in 2024 got in because one unpaid maintainer was burnt out and grateful for a helper. I would rather fund that man than sing to the cart.
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A computer that lets you think instead of pinging you every four minutes. Half of what people pay for these days is that exact quiet 🙂
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Ok so the Stomach Theory. Chew the alternative, spit the waste, got it, but what does it look like in normal words the day the old laptop actually dies?
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Those phones used by billions run the kernel, and they are also the most watched objects ever manufactured. Google took the free code, kept the free part for itself, and bolted the algorithm right back on top. The license freed the code. Whether it freed anyone holding the phone is a separate question, and so far no.
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Your son sending the link and you answering with the cart phrase is my favorite bit of this, the whole essay feels like it started as a text message between the two of you. Thanks for posting it here! My guess is the machine you wrote it on was his doing too, and that the speaker still works.
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The numbers hold up and the moral does not. Around 80 percent of kernel commits in any release come from people on a payroll at Intel, Red Hat, Google, AMD. The cart moves because companies pay the pushers. I find that more reassuring than the hymn version, since nobody has to be a saint for it to keep working.
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THE GRANDFATHER'S SPEAKER AND LINUX: THE ANTIDOTE TO THE RELIGION OF THE ALGORITHM