I woke up to a comment so smug, so perfectly soaked in gatekeeping and faux-righteous posturing, it earned its own blog post.
You want freedom? You want GNU/Linux to mean something?
Then maybe start by not telling disabled users to go fuck themselves with a smile.
This commenter thought they were defending "software freedom." What they were really doing was kicking people out of the room. Dismissing accessibility. Mocking effort. Pretending that cruelty is some kind of rite of passage. They quoted Stallman like it was scripture, ignored real-world experience like it was noise, and wrapped it all in condescension dressed as virtue.
I’ve spent over a decade in this ecosystem. Writing patches. Rebuilding broken stacks. Helping blind users boot systems upstream doesn’t even test. I didn’t "just install Arch and whine about the terminal." I lived in it. I survived it. I held it together when maintainers disappeared and no one else gave a damn.
But apparently, because I didn’t call it GNU/Linux™ and because I dared to talk about how this OS chews people up and spits them out, I’m lazy. I’m weak. I should "get a dog."
So I wrote a response. Line by line. No mercy. No euphemisms.
This isn’t just about one comment. This is about every time someone’s been told they don’t belong because they couldn’t learn fast enough, code well enough, or survive long enough. It’s about everyone who was pushed out while the gatekeepers patted themselves on the back for "preserving the spirit of free software."
You want a free system? Start by making it livable. Because freedom that demands you crawl bleeding through a broken bootloader isn’t freedom. It’s abandonment dressed in ideology.
And if this kind of gatekeeping is your idea of community?
You can keep it.
https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/you-dont-own-the-word-freedom-a-full-burn-response-to-the-gnulinux-comment-that-tried-to-gatekeep-me-off-my-own-machine/
#Linux #GNU #FOSS #Accessibility #BlindTech #FreeSoftware #Gatekeeping #DisabilityInTech #OpenSource #Orca #ScreenReaders #ArchLinux #BurnItDown #blogpost
The only reason I responded to it, the only reason I approved it at all actually, is because it embodies every single one of the Linux stereotypes that people say happens and they are told they are wrong or making it up. There are a few more negative comments in the pending queue that I'm just not going to touch
@fireborn kind of unrelated, but I've never thought Arch was really that much different from any other distro ... except they're bleeding edge and the AUR has just about anything you could ever want in there ...
More on topic, I agree with you. This is why Linux isn't taking off. Elitist gatekeeper fucks.
@doctator @me @fireborn I don't know if it's still the case but I would have to say that an OpenBSD install is a nerdity badge of honor. Truly old school.
I don't actually remember if I succeeded. I think I did once, but you know--it was going to be like that the whole time. It's not like once you had it booting it was usable.
To edit configuration files there was only one editor: ed.
@crazyeddie @me @fireborn i love openbsd, i use it as a jump box... usually put freebsd on most of my stuff tho
@fireborn This is glorious
Okay, first of all, it’s GNU/Linux, not “Linux.”
With a start like that, why even bother reading the rest (well unless you're into that)?
@jernej__s Honestly, I don't know. It was an absolute trainwreck of a comment, but I couldn't look away.
@jernej__s @fireborn I thought it was the famous Stallman "I'd just like to interject for a moment." copy-pasta at first, lol.
@1337 @jernej__s I would have had a great laugh if it was.
@jernej__s @fireborn I take great joy in pointing out to these goons that all my Linux systems use musl and POSIX userspaces, so they’re decidedly *not* “GNU/Linux”.
Ubuntu is developing a coreutils replacement called uutils (https://uutils.github.io/) that uses the MIT license.
@xinit@mastodon.coffee@jernej__s I did not research the developments in distributions when I last changed machines. I enjoy Arch well enough compared to others, but had I known there was a de-GNU distribution, I might have gone that route.
When told that one uses Linux without the GNU user space, RMS just asked "but why would you do that?"
Yep, I actually confronted RMS in that way.
@fireborn The thing that surprises me about the fact that you bothered to respond to this comment (I'd've probably done the same thing in your situation) is that it's made abundantly clear in several ways that the poster didn't understand (or maybe even bother to read?) any of what you wrote. At no point is the actual subject matter of your post addressed directly or indirectly, which is already bad enough, and then there's the mention of font rendering. I'm aware that's just a way to illustrate this user's supposed point and nothing more, but using this particular example in a response to your post is beyond low, especially when commenting from this GNU/Linux-powered high horse which implies a level of intelligence and general understanding of the universe far removed from those of us running Netflix vending machines.
This is one of the very few times in which I would have no problem justifying the removal of a negative comment. It brings nothing not because it's smug and full of destructive criticism, but because it's smug and full of destructive criticism toward... The wrong thing?
@benofbrown@toot.cat@fireborn I'm sorry to say that I've been responsible for similar posts in the past, though I never accused any blind people of being lazy. I definitely used to disparage windows and mac users though.
That was a long time ago, around 20 years ago now and I'm glad to say I've grown up a lot since then. I was hoping that stereotype of the jealous, elitist, nerd gatekeeper would have died out by now. There was a glimmer of light a few years ago with the movement to dethrone Stallman but sadly that doesn't seem to have been successful.
It's such a shame because of the open source nature of it people could really make it a great thing that everyone can use, no matter their needs, but people like this just get in the way.
I'm glad to see that you are making progress with Wayland and hope that continues, and you run in to less assholes like this in future.
@fireborn I hate that this is how you came across my feed, but also thank you for this.
I have been writing a "guide to Linux" for friends that have shown interest and I knew I needed to write something on accessibility and I'm glad to have another resource to pull from.
I also had been debating if I should warn about this kind of gatekeeping. And yeah, sounds like I need to.
@fireborn Smoke is coming out of my hands from clapping so much!
This is one of the reasons why IC_Null exists. Why I stream at all even though I know many of the products and services I call out do not give a single f*ck.
While #accessibility anything-at-all has a huge preaching-to-the-choir problem inside and outside of companies, this is the other extreme. Accessibility issues are just challenges to overcome, and this is a bit of a hot take, is NOT entirely inaccurate; a lot of accessibility issues can be mittigated by user knowledge, and a lot of folks don't know how to best use the assistive tech they have access to. HOWEVER, there comes a point where the user is absolutely within their rights to decide a so-called challenge does not need to be as challenging as it is, see also: pick your battles.
To me, if a product meant to make me more productive instead slows me down because of a poorly coded UI, I don't see the point, freedom, GNU or not. Today, my choice is between an operating system that compromises my privacy and tosses upsells at me in every way it can, or a set of operating systems that, through "freedom fighters" like Gary No-like Users over here, I can never trust to stay accessible enough to get anything done from one day to the next. Welp ... phone home all you like computer, I need to eat.
And quite honestly I feel there's a lot of victims to this kind of mentality that aren't necessarily disabled end users, take @danirabbit and others who do a huge amount of work to make #linux #accessibility be better than the wonky house of cards it's been for decades. They've essentially inherited the user frustration, righteous anger and powerlessness that systematic neglect has created while ALSO having to defend the fact to actually include hoomans that aren't "the norm" when deciding if a button should be a button or a superFancyNewRustUICompositeWidgetLookHowCoolMyInheritanceSKillzAreTemplateFoundationUIClassAlsoFuckYouKeyboardUsersButton. Peeps who want a simple OS for, say, an old computer that's losing Windows access a shot, seriously go give @elementary a look and provide feedback, these folks actually WANT to fix stuff
@zersiax @elementary How accessible is that right now, can it be used by a blind person like us?
@menelion We’ve put a lot of work into fixing any reported accessibility issues and at this point I think the daily experience should be fairly usable, but we could always use help identifying blockers!
We’re tracking known accessibility issues in this GitHub Project: https://github.com/orgs/elementary/projects/111
@elementary @zersiax Sorry for such a basic question, but what do you use as screen reading fotware?
@menelion happy to answer questions! We ship Orca https://orca.gnome.org/
@menelion @elementary good ol' orca, to my knowledge
@zersiax Thanks for the shout out 
I’m so glad that you can feel that we’re really trying to improve things. Between the gatekeepers and concern trolls it can be really frustrating to work in this space sometimes but every success story is hugely motivating. My experiences with folks like you and @fireborn have been extremely valuable and positive and I truly believe that putting effort into Accessibility is a rising tide that raises all boats
@danirabbit @zersiax @fireborn I was really happy to read this. Reading the gatekeeping comments physically hurt, but for every one of these I'm seeing lots of acknowledgement and support around this discussion, it gives me a little hope that we can make the Linux ecosystem more accessible to everyone
@karolherbst@chaos.social@fireborn I'm so tired of those GNU FOSS elitists....
not sure they are the worst part of the FOSS community, but....
but I also think we don't push back hard enough against those and it shows in the general lack of "user friendly" documentation and troubleshooting.
@fireborn Just noting that with a FOSS project, every feature or task or documentation or even dealing with contribution, has to have somebody's remaining time on the planet exchanged to do the work, usually for free and without thanks.
That's not excusing people getting burned / publicly humiliated. But... how is what you are doing here to the annoying commenter, any different to what you are raging against when it was done to you?
@hopeless@mas.to @fireborn@dragonscave.space How is fighting back different from picking a fight?
I think the blog post, and the author in general, is pretty cognizant of the fact free software takes labor to produce. The author has also given credit where credit was due in previous installments; very explicitly not merely criticizing the Linux-centric ecosystem. However, if the culture of free software replaces exploitation by data collection and malicious advertising with exploitation by demands of charity and burned out volunteers, maybe it's not as much of an improvement as it is touted to be after all.
Your reply seems completely unrelated to what I posted... my point is that the OP cannot say how awful it is be treated as he described, while attacking his correspondent in exactly the same way.
They should pick a position, either it is to be denounced to act like that towards others; or, the OP is right to act like that towards his "contributor".
If it's OK to burn people, no point to the post. If not OK to burn people, OP shouldn't burn this guy.
@hopeless@mas.to @fireborn@dragonscave.space
No, I'd say my reply is related, specifically the first sentence.
To put it in more direct terms, my view is that what OP is doing is equal to "self-defense", which in practice often involves performing acts of offense! However, we as society tend towards understanding them as defensive in context; in this case, the context being that the author of the article was attacked by a commenter and thus expects the right to be able to respond in the same manner, using the same rhetorical tools. The tone has been set, after all.
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that this is a terrible way to be treated, because it is. However, whether it's justifiable in one case or another is a matter of personal opinion, and I think OP's response to the comment is at least somewhat justifiable in context.
Also, I question the premise of there being "no point to the post" if it's "OK to burn people", given the author's entire blog is essentially airing out personal grievances with the state of accessibility in the Linux ecosystem. If the author gets something out of it, even a sense of catharsis, that's clearly a point in and out of itself. Personal blogs are not products and they should, ideally, not become products.
@asie @fireborn If OP really believed that burning others for his catharsis is normal and okay, then he is not in a position to write a rage-article blaming others for helping themselves to some catharsis at his expense.
Having been mainly on the getting burned side of this (including on LKML) I think if we can recognize it is bad, we should try to not increase the amount of it in the world. Conversely if we understand kindness is good, we can strive to increase the amount of that.
@hopeless @asie Where are you even coming from with this. I replied to you yesterday, thinking you were coming at this discussion in good faith. In summery, I feel that pointing out systemic issues and process flaws allowing accessibility to be sidelined is very different from going on a post about genuine struggles a user has with Linux, GNU/Linux, GNU+Linux, LiGNUx, whatever you want to call it (even though the same issues exist when running no GNU software) and saying you’re calling it the wrong thing, also you’re just stupid if you can’t make it work. At no point have I called a maintainer stupid. I have called a corporation neglegent, I have critisized design choices and project priorities, especially where the project creators clame the project is inclusive
@hopeless@mas.to @fireborn@dragonscave.space
As someone who grew up in a Catholic country, the idea of non-violent resistance and opposition strikes me as a rather Christian position. However, even Jesus sometimes saw it fit to turn tables - to use violent opposition when the importance of the cause deemed it justified.
So let's backtrack a little. The original commenter called OP, in response to the author's fairly valid criticism of the Linux ecosystem's approach to accessibility that I have been following, and I quote: "lazy", "allergic to learning", "mad", "begging" and "[not] smart enough". Those are just the direct insults. How many other people has the commenter described in this manner, we will never know, however experience tells me that zealots generally don't stop at just one person. As such, I think it's reasonable for me to assume that the commenter, and people like the commenter, have created a lot of burning and rage in their own wake.
I personally know people who gave up on ideas of software liberty and the Linux ecosystem because they were tired of this constant exchange of "you're just using it wrong!" or "freedom is more important than usability!" or the like - it's reminiscent of Apple zealots, and not in a good way. I know a lot of people who gave up on Linux because they were flamed for their choice of distribution, or their choice of graphics card manufacturer. This is not something that happened this one time only. It feels like a fairly universal, shared experience, and I highly encourage you to ask around for people who have faced it as well.
I agree with you that increasing the amount of kindness in the world is a noble goal. However, we must always mind a kind of paradox of intolerance: by allowing people who insult others by calling them "lazy" and "mad" in response to "this tool doesn't work for me because I am disabled", we reduce the number of people who want to use Linux, we increase the number of people who are burned, we decrease the amount of kindness in the world.
To increase the amount of kindness, as you preach, such people must be told that they will either become more kind themselves, or that - for the good of the collective, for the good of that net amount of kindness - they must leave said collective.
Could this have been done in a more noble way? Yes. But I'm not surprised someone who has heard the same insults and the same narrative for over a decade from dozens of people has had enough, and I do not blame the author for snapping and finally lashing out, in a sense, from one example to everyone who acts in such a disrespectful manner.
@hopeless Totally fair to ask, and I want to answer honestly.
That comment wasn’t from a burned-out maintainer or someone struggling to keep up. It felt like a drive-by dressed in faux-righteousness — mocking accessibility concerns, calling me lazy, saying I didn’t belong, and acting like using the word "Linux" instead of "GNU/Linux" invalidated everything I said. That’s not critique. That’s gatekeeping.
What I’m doing — in my first post and the whole series — is calling out systemic failure. Not because people aren’t doing enough, but because the default state of this ecosystem still excludes people like me unless we patch it ourselves. And I have. I’ve given time, written code, fixed bugs no one else would. I know what volunteer labor costs and respect everyone who gives up their time.
I also give thanks where it’s due. I have a whole post dedicated to it. I want to highlight the folks pushing things forward — and I will again in a future post that’s already in the works.
But I felt like that commenter wasn’t coming from burnout or good faith. They were punching down. They weren’t overwhelmed. They were dismissive and condescending to disabled users. That’s the difference.
I’ll always show compassion to people trying their best in a hard ecosystem.
@fireborn @hopeless I'm putting this question as honestly as I can. You are, as always on SM, free to ignore it or to answer it in any way you like. You say: "What I’m doing — in my first post and the whole series — is calling out systemic failure. Not because people aren’t doing enough, but because the default state of this ecosystem still excludes people like me unless we patch it ourselves. And I have. I’ve given time, written code, fixed bugs no one else would.". My question is: why do you bother? Obviously, the point of Linux on the desktop is not to get things done, it is, for a significant number of people, something else, whether the nebulously defined "freedom", to prove how wonderful the user is, or some other goal. Just as obviously, it's been more than thirty years, accessibility on Linux is going nowhere. Why bother with it? I would value your answer, whatever it is, only because I want to know, I am not saying you should stop bothering, I'm just asking why you do. Oh, and another thing. If this is in one of your posts, feel free to direct me to that, I haven't read all of them just because it's too depressing to be told of a disaster which doesn't need to happen.
@techsinger @hopeless I think the answer to the question "why you bother" is, because there are people and projects that do care about this type of feedback. It is not easy to gain insights in accessibility when you are sighted.
Despite there may be notions of frustration, none the less this feedback is useful and something that might help to improve.
Possibly it would be more effective to focus on particular OSs rather than generalizing Linux-based ones.
@fireborn many thanks for your work!!
@jschwart @hopeless @fireborn If you think the evidence of the past thirty years supports the position that "there are people and projects that do care about this type of feedback." or, more accurately, that there are a significant number of such people and projects, you are, of course, entitled to that opinion. Looking at the evidence as a whole, though, at least when it comes to desktop accessibility in Linux, and even spreading that more widely to accessibility in most FOSS where accessibility fixes are even slightly inconvenient, I would respectfully disagree. We are, in fact, going backward. In commercial OS development, accessibility has improved to some extent over the past ten years. There's no question of this, for example, when it comes to installation. There is no question of this when it comes to keeping the audio and braille running. Sadly, over the past ten years, things have either stayed the same or gotten worse in terms of FOSS desktop accessibility. I really wouldn't blame anyone who thought reporting issues, let alone writing patches, was not the best use of his time.
@techsinger @hopeless I think it only highlights the importance of the work of @fireborn. From a freedom perspective there is a likely inclination for proprietary solutions to offer accessibility enhancements using approaches that are not privacy respecting. It is not an easy problem to solve, but we can only champion people bringing it up and encourage as many as possible to look for solutions. Even if only a relatively small group ends up pursuing this.
@fireborn oh this is gonna be such a good one.
I wanna do a similar thing. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting a troll like the one you are replying to in such a long time. Last time was with an admin of a Linux Discord server called Linux For All that insisted that I am wrong about a codebase I work on and that runs some of my code (Mesa). I find them frustrating but also refreshing. It's just the stupid trolls, instead of the regular shit I deal with, like upstream maintainers, now.
I'm a bit sad that the software stack I usually touch on Linux, the graphics stack, isn't really, well, at all useful to blind folks. Best it can be useful for is GPGPU to run an img2txt model on images, and if that is all, I could strip it down so much it'd be much more reliable.
Also, I am working on an OS. I am trying to make accessibility a native feature, not an afterthought - the OS is data driven, and I am trying to make it so that everyone can use it the same, whatever input and output is available to them. All GUI programs able to natively hook up to a Braille display or a TTS engine instead that runs as a core system service. Because the GUI is not built by apps for GUI first, with accessibility tools having to hook into the GUI, but rather the GUI is placed at the same level as TTS engines and other stuff - as a user-interaction shell. That facilities user - computer communication.
Because as it turns out making it more accessible tends to also make it less painful to use for me too even if I am not blind etc. To be fair, I don't know if what I am making is gonna be accessible to blind people. I am trying to build something I would be able to use while having those disabilities, though. I want to actually test daily driving it like that (no screen) for some months. To make sure I am not just being delusional.
Because reading a lot of the accessibility stuff makes me feel like I should only work in accessibility tech if I am disabled in the ways the accessibility tech is meant to help with. And maybe that is true - maybe I should stop caring about whether disabled users would be able to use my OS. But I don't want to. One of my closest folks is blind. She won't use the OS, since it's not Unix, but... Yea...
And not like disabilities is something someone chooses or is determined at birth. I might get the exact same disability in an accident. No clue what life might bring. And I want my computers be ready in case that happens. Maybe I should focus on that instead of "virtue signaling".
@ity This means a lot — really. There’s a particular kind of mental exhaustion that builds up when you’ve been running into systemic issues for years, only to be told by some smug rando that it’s your fault for not liking it enough. So when someone shows up actually trying to make things better, it cuts through all the noise.
What you’re building sounds genuinely exciting — not because it’s perfect (what is?), but because you're thinking about accessibility from the inside-out, as infrastructure, not a bolt-on. That mindset shift is everything. And even the fact that you're considering daily-driving your OS without a screen just to test it? That tells me more about your intentions than a thousand spec sheets.
And no — you absolutely don’t have to be disabled to work in accessibility. The fact that you care enough to ask questions, to test assumptions, to admit you might not know everything — that’s what matters. Not being blind. Not ticking a checkbox. Showing up with curiosity and humility. That’s what makes the work real.
You're not virtue signaling. You're listening. And that's rare as hell.
If you ever want to bounce ideas around or talk through weird edge cases, I’d love to. The ecosystem needs more people like you — not because you’re doing accessibility work, but because you’re treating disabled users as real users, not afterthoughts or charity cases.
Keep going.
@fireborn I'd love to share more and bounce ideas! The core idea of the OS is that apps should transform data, which should be visualized by a shell. The shell, then, can display GUI buttons, or be hooked up to a TTS engine, braille display, etc. It's like, every app describes an API for how to interact with it, which the shell turns into a user interface. It's kinda like a more generic form of UI layout description languages, but instead of specifying layout of GUI things, they specify data. Stuff like, actions the user can take. Data that can be queried. What kind of data it is - some text, a color, a time & date, an image that might have to be ran thru an img2txt... If it can be interacted with. Etc.
So for example a chat app will say that there is a selector list, named "rooms/chats". It will say that there is a settings interface, naming all the categories and types that individual settings are, including descriptions. It will then say that there is also, depending on the selected chat, a list of messages, which consist of a user (custom queriable type) sending them, and their contents, and are ordered in some way. The GUI shell then takes this and builds a button GUI - settings icon, selector for chats, makes the user info viewable, etc. And there can also be a CLI shell, that allows making commands that would normally be button clicks, just a question of querying the app interface and directly interacting with it. And the result could be directly hooked up to a TTS engine. Those are just some ideas - the entire thing is meant to be modular, and the individual components are meant to be replaceable depending on the needs of the user, from a library of hopefully (unsure if I will be alone at it...) tested components.
This means that the OS should work more or less the same on a desktop computer, a phone, a computer without a screen and just a keyboard and TTS, a Braille display, or just about anything that you can write a shell for.
It's called a shell based on the idea of a "desktop shell" being the user interface a user interacts with.
At the core of the OS is a data flow engine, and that is also the case between drivers. Everything uses this unified data-driven format. The computer talks with itself and with the user in the exact same way, which means that its own communication is easier to debug and reason about.
I am highly optimizing this inter process communication - the thing should be able to run on a dual core 1GHz CPU with 256MB of RAM, after all.
