About Ruby Bridges

Ruby Bridges was the first Black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the US South when she was 6 years old.
⁠
For her to attend school her first day, federal marshals with guns had to make way through a crowd of grown men and women screaming “nigger”, spitting on her, threatening her life, and waving confederate flags. They even carried a small coffin with a Black baby doll inside, which caused Ruby nightmares at the time. ⁠
⁠
In her classroom, all her classmates were either withdrawn by angry parents or abandoned the class refusing to sit with the 6-year-old.⁠
⁠
Nearly all the teachers abandoned the school except for one. For the entire school year, Ruby went to school to a classroom that was just her and the one teacher that didn’t refuse her.⁠
⁠
She refused to eat any food that wasn’t pre-packaged and sealed because they threatened to poison her.⁠
⁠
Ruby is only 65 years old today. It wasn’t a long time ago that a lot of racist people were living among us; now many people consider racism a crime. However, we are facing a systematic racism and discrimination everyday and we should fight against it.

We should know that there’s a lot of people like Ruby who we should support to make changes. Our fight continues.

  • Marshals protecting Ruby Bridges at age six
  • Racist white people protesting against Ruby Bridges going to all-white school
  • Ruby Bridges
GNU and Linux banner

How to move to GNU+Linux

You may have notice that one of my emphasis is the use of free software and GNU operating system. Almost all of GNU distros come with a Linux kernel so we’ll call it GNU+Linux, and not only GNU.

Free software is one of the most important parts of my digital life. There’s no proprietary software running on my computers but what makes that happen is the GNU operating system and the Linux kernel (GNU+Linux).

For some people, migrating to GNU+Linux is easy and some even know the benefits. However, some people still don’t know why they should migrate to GNU+Linux. If you feel your computer works fine but you are

  • tired of major unwanted forced updates
  • tired of your slow operating system
  • tired of not being able to use a new technology
  • tired of viruses and spywares
  • tired of your privacy being violated
  • tired of being limited
  • tired of not owning your software
  • tired of not being free (as in freedom) about your software

then GNU+Linux is a wise choice for you. If you don’t know how you should start using free software and a free (as in freedom and most of the times as in price) operating system, then this small guide would be helpful.

Continue reading →

Discriminatory laws must be broken

As a person who lives in a country under heavy U.S. sanctions, I know how discrimination feels and looks. What the United States has done to us is a good example of how discrimination affects people. My country is under heavy sanctions from U.S. and even basic stuff are facing troubles for import or export.

Whenever I talk about computers or software services, people suggest me different stuff to use or buy and every time I explain how I, like another people here, are deprived from having those stuff because of U.S sanctions.

U.S has the power over a lot of countries to force them do what it likes but this is unacceptable. I agree that Unites States wants to make sure they and their allies are safe but setting unfair laws and rules is not only unacceptable but also a terrible way and reason.

After Microsoft owned GitHub, a lot of Iranian users were banned from using it because of U.S. trade laws. A lot of people from different countries are still unable to use private repositories or buying GitHub plans.

What might they do? Storing nuclear codes or programs in private repos? This is what I’m talking about. A lot of rules and limitations are only ridiculous. I wrote about the GNU+Linux distro Fedora and the notice on its download page before. What? Iranians may use Fedora to build a nuclear bomb and they won’t download it because if this notice?

Some rules are only stupid and ridicules. They are discriminatory and offensive to human beings. Currently, the software community of Iran is experiencing a lot of difficulties and suffers from these discriminatory laws.

I believe discriminatory laws should not be respected. We should not obey them. We should fight for better.

About IndieWeb

If you follow this blog using your web browser, you probably realize blog’s theme and some other stuff are changed. My blog is now compatible with IndieWeb via these changes. You probably saw the “IndieWeb” links in the footer before, those links will forward you to another member of IndieWeb randomly.

The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web”. IndieWeb is a community of individual personal websites, connected by simple standards, based on the principles of owning your domain, using it as your primary identity, to publish on your own site (optionally syndicate elsewhere), and own your data.

IndieWeb tries to help people make their domain their primary online identity. This can help us to have our own identity no matter what services we use and no matter the services we use last or not. Our domains are our passports to IndieWeb.

IndieWeb has its principles to build a community of individuals who don’t want to be owned by corporate web. This community tries to have its own freedom and independence.

Continue reading →

Do as you say to make people believe you

One of the problems in the libre community is that some (or many) people still use proprietary and nonfree software while they’re encouraging others to use free software.

It was few years ago that It’s FOSS reported that Jim Zemlin, the executive director of The Linux Foundation, is not using a [GNU+]Linux desktop and uses Apple’s macOS. This is what I’m talking about.

How can we expect people to use free software on their computers when some of the key people of libre community are using proprietary software? There’s a lot more than that.

I know many people who are using GNU+Linux desktop and only run free software programs on their personal computer but also use some proprietary stuff such as Microsoft’s Xbox.

We can’t be free software advocates and use proprietary software too. If we believe in software lire, we should use free software always. Free software is not just about operating sytstems such as GNU or libre kernels such as Linux.

If we believe in a libre community we should avoid proprietary stuff all the time. Liberating our community and devices is not something easy nor cheap. It’s something hard and necessary. We should fight for it and sometime sacrifice some stuff, such as some of our hubbies, to make people believe it can be achieved.

We can achieve complete freedom for our world and software if we all support free software and libre community and if we avoid proprietary stuff.

Some people say that achieving this goal is far or dreamy. Even if it’s true, it’s not a good reason for us to use proprietary stuff. Being far from our goals only means we should put more effort to it and continue fighting for it.

If a sculptor finds a hard rock, it won’t stop making sculptures. It’ll put more effort and tries more to prepare the hard stone to make a brilliant sculpture.

Always using free software is not being an extremist

I only use free software. There’s not a single proprietary software on my computers, well except for some nonfree blobs on the Linux kernel on my phone which runs LineageOS. The thing is that some people consider me a free software or [GNU+]Linux extremist.

Always and only using free software is not being an extremist. First of all, free software users and advocates don’t use free software to oppose other software, we use free software because it respects us and gives us freedoms.

Using free software puts your computing in your hand so it’s you that controls the computer. Using proprietary software puts your computer in control of you and your computing.

Secondly, there’s always a free software to use instead of a nonfree software. There’s a lot of freedom respecting programs to use instead of proprietary software to satisfy your computing needs.

I always use free software because it’s respecting me. Imagine a person who only has friends who respect that person. Is it being an extremist? Of course not. People won’t call that person an extremist because it has respect for itself.

Using free software and privacy-respecting services is the same. We’re not extremists because we respect ourselves. Instead of nonfree (free as in freedom) and privacy-violating services, we respect ourselves and use free (as in freedom) and privacy-respecting services.

I agree that only using free software has its own problems. For example, completely libre operating systems (such as PureOS GNU+Linux distro) may not be compatible with your hardware or not many people may use Mastodon instead of Twitter and Facebook but for us, at least, it doesn’t matter because we respect ourselves more than we feel need for these services.

I may leave the whole digital life one day but as long as I’m living this digital life, I’m living it with respect and freedom for myself and I believe you should too.

Don’t be neutral

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Desmond Tutu

Most people are neutral in situations of injustice. They say that they’re not political or don’t have anything to do with politics. That’s very wrong.

Politics and politicians affect our lives everyday. Everything we do is affected by politics. Information we receive everyday, news we see, our communications, our movies, our belief, etc. are all affected by politicians and politics.

Everything we do has been reviewed by governments once before to examine its consequences. We created governments to be protected, now we have become slaves of governments.

We created governments to be protected and we ended up protecting governments. Don’t be neutral. Being neutral made this situation. We should act.

Accuracy and truth are more important than speed

A wise man once said that “if you don’t read the newspapers you’re uninformed, if you read them, you’re misinformed.” That’s very true. Newspapers and in general news agencies are focusing on speed, not the truth.

They’re in a competition with other news agencies to deliver news, often no matter true or fake, as fast as possible. What we need, however, is truth. People will prefer truth over speed.

You may be the last one who delivers news to us but as long as you tell the truth and we know we can trust you, we’ll want news only from you.

Journalists and news companies have responsibility over this. They’re responsible for misinformation in the society and they’re responsible for every consequence of spreading news because words effect people and people effect each other.

What we need is truth, not speed.