:date: 2021-03-18

======================================
The issue is serious but not desperate
======================================

Thursday, March 18, 2021.

Why do I believe in Lino?

Writing free software makes sense only because I believe that proprietary
software is a problem.

Many of us somehow agree that proprietary software *is* a problem, but we also
feel that getting rid of it seems impossible.

When you see a problem and no solution, then you have not much choice.
Some fall into despair, others turn their minds away,
become indifferent and say "Anyway I cannot help" or "There is no problem".

But here is yet another signal of
somebody who chose to no longer ignore the issue. The data protection officer of
`Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern>`__ in Germany now
declared officially that German administrations must urgently stop using
Microsoft products:
https://www.heise.de/news/Datenschutzbeauftragter-Behoerden-sollten-unverzueglich-auf-Microsoft-verzichten-5990886.html

My source of hope is a vision, a vague idea of where the solution will be: the
root of the evil is the fact that we created a legal infrastructure that allows
:term:`greedy giants <greedy giant>` to consider software as private property.
See :ref:`copyright_bug`. If this is true, then we "only" need to toggle a few
levers. Of course this change is not going to come quickly and easily. But let's
start to look at it.