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A Map for the Regulation and Destruction of Free Software.
A buddy of mine shared an article about The White House warning people against programming in C or C++ and it teed me off about a conspiracy theory I've been harboring for going on 10 years now.
My baseline assumption is that whatever you choose to call this weird woke, centralized, authoritarian, elite/bureaucratic corporatist conglomerate, they want control. All of it. Over things that you would think have nothing to do with them. They want your wood ovens, your gas stoves, your gamer PCs, they really don't view anything as beyond their purview to "regulate" and make your life infinitely worse by slow degrees.
If you assume these are pathologically controlling busy bodies, which I think you are right to assume, the fact that anybody can program anything probably terrifies them. They barely understand technology to begin with. Just look at any time they haul a tech CEO before congress and attempt to get sound bites for their constituents. It's horrible. But the cat is more or less already out of the bag when it comes to open and free software. How would you put it back in?
By degrees the process is already underway, in the name of security. Most PC's sold today will only boot authorized operation systems, with an option in the BIOS (for now) to turn off that safety feature. Windows warns you every time you try to run an "unrecognized" executable, with the option (for now) of ignoring it's warning. People are far more habituated than ever to closed software ecosystems thanks to Apple and Google and the fact that most people spend more time on phones these days than computers. All it would take is to slowly shave away by degrees until the process of running free and open software is so frustrating that most people don't do it, and the powers that be can "deprecate the feature" under the rationale that it's not used anymore.
Maybe it starts with the big sellers of PCs like Dell, where they just don't have a BIOS that lets you boot unauthorized OSes. And for a while, that's fine, because what self respecting enthusiast buys a Dell? That's probably a perfectly fine security compromise for institutions that don't want to run the risk at all of some unauthorized code hijacking the boot process. Then maybe the feature gets cut from lower end motherboards. But that's fine, if it's still a feature that matters to you, you can always get a high end motherboard. Lots of features are only available on higher end motherboards. And then one day, with little fanfare at all, the feature vanishes.
So now you are stuck running increasingly enshittified versions of Windows and a few select Linux distros. So what?
Well, at the same time, imagine how Windows slowly chips away at the ability to run "unrecognized" code. Right now it's an annoying popup, same as it has been since Vista. Maybe one day the default behavior is switched to not letting you run it at all. But it's ok, there is a toggle to turn on the old behavior burried deep in the system settings somewhere. Maybe a security submenu. Then a while later they get rid of that, but if you know what you are doing, there is still a registry setting you can change. Then a while later they only support the feature on Windows Pro instead of Home. Then one day, it just vanishes.
So now you are stuck running enshittified versions of Windows that refuses to run "unrecognized" code. But it's cool, you can probably still do something to get your code "recognized" right?
Anyone who has had to do any web development probably knows about using self signed certs. Often good enough for local use, generally insufficient if you plan on letting anyone outside of your org attempt to use your system. You have to get a signed cert. And often pieces of software just expect a signed cert, and may not have any option at all to override it's refusal to work with a self signed one. I expect much the same will occur with "unrecognized" code.
All code will need to be signed. Maybe you can self sign code you've written on your local system, but nobody else will be able to run it. Unless they go through the added hoops of adding your key to some sort of key store for "recognized" code. But eventually the self signed qualities of the code will catch up to you, and Windows may just refuse to accept self signed code certs anymore. But no fear! Maybe Github or other organization will offer to sign your code for you. Assuming it meets their TOS, nobody on social media has cancelled you, and their AI hasn't rejected your project for hallucinated reasons. But eventually, however well relying on a 3rd party like Github to allow your code to run on your locked down operating system and your locked down hardware starts off, it will become a barely viable solution. And then free and open software is over.
I hope I'm just being overly pessimistic. But I honestly see this happening in my lifetime.
It's a double-edged sword. Is a system more free if users can chose to do whatever they want or is a system more free if my non-technical aunt need not fear that every link or app or whatever is going to pwn her system or be some unremovable crap. She has no idea how to read or evaluate their privacy policy written in pages of legalize but would like something like "this company uses my data within the bounds of normal reason". And even if she could, half the time the whole thing is a complete and wholesale fraud by some random overseas firm in Kerbleckistan where all their policies and promises amount to nothing at all. And when you explain to her "hey, there's counterparty risk -- you need to actually attribute content you read online to a real legal entity and then decide if you trust that entity to make the representations therein, especially when executing their software on your device", she says great where to they print their true legal identity on the page and I have to again explain they don't do that either.
So yeah, unfortunately, it's both. Walled gardens are a cage to the tinkerers, openness is a cage of fear for the non-technical where slight missteps can occasionally have (seemingly randomly to the non-educated) huge consequences. That's not very free for them either.
What's worse, technical measures like code signing aren't really "what auntie needs" in any real sense. A code signature is only as useful as the CA that decides what code to sign and the CA is only as useful as the actual policy and governance that it employs in deciding what to sign. That in turn is subject to the usual caveat that governance is hard. And saying "well, we'll have a choice of CAs" is just recursing the problem a level without actually solving much at all.
Ultimately, I don't really have a good answer, but I have a good sense that it can't be "fuck the non-technical, let them be eaten by leopards". Not only because I think it's unworkable (they will find a new Steve Jobs) but because it's an abdication of the duty of those that understand technology.
I mean the trouble with walled gardens is similar to the problem of moderation. In both cases, my right to decide is outsourced to a keeper. There are sometimes good reasons to do this — letting just anyone mess with critical software in the OS is a very bad idea. Other times, it’s less about protecting the end user than enforcing ideas about what is good for that user, as when a mod to remove gay pride flags was banned. A policy that won’t let me or any program I use do things to my OS or access things like contact lists, social media accounts, or other critical data without at least making sure that I intend to do that is generally good. Likewise I think a moderation policy of keep on topic and be respectful is perfectly fine where a policy dictating the topics and allowed opinions isn’t.
What about my right to decide to outsource my right to decide to a keeper?
I tend to think that it's more important that people have a right to decide which platforms to take than they have a right to modify the internal rules of each platform to their liking.
Similarly, I think it's better for freedom of religion if people can decide where/how to pray but don't have a "right to decide" on the internal rules and content of each house of worship.
This is baffling. A golf forum cannot exist without a policy dictating the topics (related to golf) and the allowed opinions (you can't just flame bait with 'golf sux').
But given the near monopoly on cellular phones (only 3-4 major players) it’s not hard to create a situation in which unless you’re willing to void the warranty and risk an update bricking your jailbreak phone, you have no effective choice in whether you end up in a walled garden. The only question if all player in the game build a walled garden is “whose walled garden do I like the best. I suppose you technically have the choice to forgo cellphones entirely, though it would make communication difficult as land lines are down to about 30% of all homes.
Yeah, similarly you have to choose "which basketball league do I want to play in" rather than having a choice to join them and demand they change their rules to suit your preferences.
I sympathize in the sense that it is unfortunate that not everyone can get their way. But I don't think that justifies the right to demand you get yours.
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