FSF's Alex Oliva on Software Freedom and Lack of Privacy

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 02, 2026

• Alexandre Oliva ☛ freedom is not the end

  I often get the misguided retort that free software is technological solutionism. On the surface, the retort seems reasonable, because technology alone can hardly ever solve social problems. But it carries a fundamental misunderstanding about what free software is about.

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  With freedom, with control over our own lives, we can then work on solving social problems. Without it, we're under control of others, and limited by the roadblocks they place in our paths to stop us from even trying.

• Alexandre Oliva ☛ signal of awareness

  I had mixed feelings upon reading this news article, wherein Signal Foundation CEO draws attention to the extremely leaky problem of LLM agents' pervasive access to user data.

  On the one hand, it's good to know that Signal leaders are aware of the leaky nature of the devices they force users to use to start using Signal.