The Update

Oh no, it has almost been more than 2 years ago since I have last written anything on this blog.

But I am back now!

First things first. I recently got awarded “Most impact contribution” at the FSF40 Hackathon and won a Librem 5 phone as a prize. I am very thankful for everyone that helped me during the Hackathon and that my contribution got noticed by the jury. You can read all about this on the Free Software Foundation Blog.

I have also added two new portfolio items about projects I’ve been busy with for you to read:

• Space Station 14
• Libre Polygon Love 2

They are more like fun hobby projects than professional developer ones now, but they should interesting to read nontheless.

The Announcement

I have chosen to stop actively pursuing a career in freelance web development.

What I want to do instead is transition the “Jiyu Software” brand away from web development.

From this point forward I will use this website and brand for activism and promoting the free software movement.

Why?

I think the cause of free software is one of the most important things in my life. As a matter of principle I have always strived for making sure that I am not dependent on unethical proprietary software in every aspect of my life, including my income.

At the time I started this company I did it because I felt hopeless finding a job that did not require me to work using terrible proprietary software in my field, so I thought “Why not start my own company instead and do things my way?”

This was in the end a mostly succesful experiment and I have had many satisfied clients over the years, but I have never managed to reach the point of making this business profitable enough to live off of it as my only job.

Working as a freelancer is extremely stressful and a stable income is never a gaurantee. But I have since thankfully gotten a stable job at a place where I can thankfully work without having to use proprietary software at all.

So with my income situation sorted, I now want to use the Jiyu Software brand to focus on the things that really matter to me and to make an actual difference in the world of free software.

What now?

As someone who has been into free software for a long time I notice a lot of things happening around me.

There are a lot of media outlets and so-called “influencers” nowadays talking about “Open Source” and “Alternatives”. Way more than there used to be, at least from my perspective.

Often the right idea and mindset is there, but they are so close and yet so far from actually saying the actual words “free software”. Especially today when both individuals and companies alike are getting increasingly upset at the big tech monopolies increasing their “enshittification” and selling your data and using it to train their “AI”, free software is the solution.

Some people like to avoid talkinga about it because you can endlessy criticize the free software movement for its naming controversies, pedanticness, fanaticism, unpragmatism, or whatever your flavor of the month issue with the movement currently to be.

But deep down inside you know that total software freedom would fix all that is wrong with technology today. The free software movement was right and the movement deserves more positive attention than it gets right now.

So what are you gonna do?

To be honest I want to start producing media instead. I’ll become the “influencer” that I want to see represent this movement.

I’m not exactly sure what form this take, I wanna use whatever medium is the most effective. I’ll most likely try my shot at producing those so-called video essays. Yes, you that’s right. And blogposts to go along with them (so stay tuned!).

And on top of that I might even try to “play their game” so to speak. To try and spread whatever I end up making on proprietary social media as well, to get as much reach as possible. Because I truely feel this movement has a unique perspective, that could potentially convince a lot of people, but which is currently not represented anywhere in any mainstream technology-enthusiast-adjecent-sort-of sphere right now.

Yes, I am aware this might mean that I end becoming one of those dreadful people they call “public figures”. But I think that would be worth it, for the movement.

So what is this going to look like?

I already have a list of ideas and topics and some rough draft scripts lying around for things I wanna publish.

I am planning to start seriously working on this after February. So expect a fully revamped website to appear around that time as well. And don’t worry I’ll definitely keep the old blogposts accessible.

This will also be the end of the blogposts in the Dutch language. Translating everything is too much work and as a general rule of thumb: If it speaks Dutch and knows how to use a computer, it also speaks English as well.

See you soon.