Technical Literacy is Empowering

Essay

Technical Literacy is Empowering

By Graham L. Wilson

Copyright (c) 2010-2012 Graham Wilson.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included at this link: “http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html#TOC1”.

Introduction

I was watching a promotional on a television station the other day about a four part documentary on the history of literacy. One of the things that was most striking was a quote by an educator: "the word I would pick when it comes to teaching literacy is empowerment" or something like that. Of course it is obvious what this is meant to entail. Being able to read and write allows one to take in and communicate new ideas easily. Without the written word I would not be able to communicate this to you now. However, I then came to a more disturbing realization. In the technical field we are being forced to put up barriers and walls in the name of so called "empowerment". What do I mean by this? Read on.

Literacy restriction

I have been noted as being a person of decent if above average technical literacy. I can administer my own computer, reconfigure my settings, the presence of command-line does not scare me to death. I program applications for amusement and for practical purposes. As used in the written word analogy, I find my skills empowering. I do not need to be enslaved to tools or distributors. I can write my own tool if needed and break down any lock-ins or lock-outs. This is why I and people of a similar background value free software and open standards. Proprietary companies like Microsoft try and break down our freedom in the name of control. Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), known by public relations people more benignly as "Rights Management", is of course the more obvious example of this. They are allowed to spy on us and manipulate us in the name of forcing us to follow their draconian licensing texts.

This is why the Free Software Foundation has so viciously fought Windows Vista and now Windows 7. It is not that they want to promote GNU/Linux, the FSF in the long run does not care if you use BSD or OpenSolaris/Illumous or the like as long as it is free, it is that they do not want you to use anti-free software like Windows. During the late 2008 close of the the "Bad Vista" campaign they described it a success. A commentator on a technical site complained saying that since most users switched back to Windows XP' rather than to free software like GNU/Linux why did they think about it a success? The commentator rightly noted that people like Apple should not crow about the failure of Vista because most people just down-graded. However, he did not seem to realize something important - it is about fighting for freedom and not GNU/Linux adoption. That and there was still a statistically noticeable amount of migration, but moving on... The campaign was a success in that it largely fought off a threat to our freedom to be empowered by technical literacy. A move back to XP is still a victory because XP may be proprietary, but it is not going to spy on you and it is not going to so actively fight against you with measures like DRM. The campaign was a success in that its goals were achieved, to fight Vista and DRM.

Now to move on from the age old tradition of picking on Microsoft, comes the even worse threat: Apple. These two monoliths are corporate empires of different sizes and, as it turns out, different imperialist systems. Microsoft is a tributary empire similar to that of the Aztecs or the Romans. They conquer territory and ground but leave local affairs alone as long as they get their cut and the conquered respect their system. They do not care what hardware you use or what software you use, as long as you buy Windows. They probably would not even care if you did not actually use Windows as long as they somehow got their payment. Apple is an authoritarian empire, they demand that you use Apple hardware, Apple software and Apple everything. You have even less choice than with Windows. Microsoft wants your dollar, Apple wants your soul. What does all this have to do with technical literacy? Well, consider literary censorship. Literacy is a fundamental human right and everyone should be allowed to read write whatever they want. People have a right to choose which technology they learn and use. Literacy is only empowering when we have the freedom to explore it in all its variety. Apple wants us to use only the "iTech", and thus we are forced to be only limitedly literate. Apple literate. However, there is a trend even more disturbing if less deliberately nasty. The trend that made me write this. Again, read on, and use that gift of reading and writing.