User:Valerio Bozzolan/No Freedom No Party

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

We designed Wikipedia to protect us, as human beings and users.

Some people occasionally belittle an open source project or the Free software movement, saying that one solution is not adequate or that this movement is not the priority for the Wikimedia movement.

While this may be true sometimes, find out how to avoid everyday discrimination against the Free Software and Open Source movements during our everyday decisions. Read more.

Who cares?

We are not a minority of paranoids.

This is Wikipedia.

Think about how many companies are investing in this moment to track what do you like, what do you want, your habits, and convert you to a good product for advertisers. Think about Google, Amazon, TicTok, Instagram, Facebook, Baidu and many more (and feel free to add your favorite in this list) and how much millions they invest to ensure that you always depend on them, receiving every day more and more personal data from you, or executing more and more computation time on their software.

Now, imagine something completely different, designed to respect you and to pursue a common goal. Lot of human beings are working to fix this bug, writing open source code, improving sophisticated servers, computer systems and networks. They work hard, everyday, collaborating and exchanging ideas, writing technical documentation, often working in large multinational companies by day and volunteering by night, to keep Wikipedia always up and running without ever turning it into a monster.

Ten facts about

When you think an open source software doesn't work for your use case, think of these people. Ask yourself how to contribute and fix it, rather than complaining. Often, we are working for you and you are not giving us anything. Do not treat Free Software as a stupid thing. Something that protects you should not be considered your enemy.

What?

Wikipedia is designed to make you independent from it.

Wikipedia is designed in a totally different way from the most visited sites in the world. There is no user profiling. No advertising. There is no sale of your personal data or habits. Email is optional. We are not interested in your sexual habits, but just figuring out how to greet you better. There isn't a single line of proprietary software in the JavaScript code your browser runs, or any third party cookie or third party dependency. In short, we designed Wikipedia so you don't depend on it. You can study it and make an exact copy of it, extend it, print it and sell it, as long as you give to your users the same freedoms.

Think about that.

We give you the right to study, edit, improve and spread our contents and our software, even if most of the users behind our 23 billions hits/month are not interested in these freedoms at all.

Everyone should be committed to keep Wikipedia and sister projects as respectful as possible, without diminishing the importance of Free Software, Open Source and collaboration.

Most dev Wikimedians do this because they know how much power they have over users, but they try not to complain because they are then discriminated against almost always, saying things like "you're too stiff" or "you're gnulebian" or other disrespectful things. → If Wikimania 2021 online is not designed to provide a friendly environment for free software contributors, that's a big bug. At the moment these contributors don't even seem invited. They will not use Eventbrite, or they will use it by holding their nose to be discriminated as little as possible by the majority.