{"id":2465,"date":"2026-09-26T15:25:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T13:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/?p=2465"},"modified":"2026-09-26T15:25:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T13:25:46","slug":"vrijheid-is-soms-best-lastig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/vrijheid-is-soms-best-lastig\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom is sometimes difficult"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Suddenly you have something to choose from.<\/h2>\n

Linux gives you freedom.<\/strong> That sounds wonderful, until you discover that freedom means that no one tells you what to choose. The day before yesterday my brother asked about my experiences with Linux and my opinion about it. He, like me, wants to get away from the dependence of the big tech companies as much as possible. Not because he hates technology, but because he doesn't like to depend on decisions made elsewhere in the world. He doesn't want to discover one morning that a geopolitical incident means that his digital tools are suddenly less usable. He uses Linux Mint with Cinnamon and my first reaction was predictable. I wanted to tell him almost immediately that NixOS with Hyprland is of course much more flexible and that you can really put everything to your hand. Fortunately, I thought for a moment. Because Linux Mint with Cinnamon is probably just the right choice for him. It is mature, clear and immediately familiar to someone who is not a technician. That is perhaps more important than all the freedom that is technically available.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom does not start with being able to choose everything yourself, but with being able to choose what suits you.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The luxury of one button<\/h2>\n

And that brings us to something that makes Linux\/Open-source much clearer than I initially thought. The biggest change for many people is not in the operating system, but in the world of choices that come from it. Most people work with Microsoft and then Outlook is simply the logical choice for mail and calendar. The same story applies to word processing and spreadsheets. Sending a document quickly means creating a document with the .docx extension. You log in to your account and then everything seems to fall into place on its own. Your mail is ready, your calendar is linked, video calling works with another user of the same ecosystem and files appear neatly on your other computer. Settings are also cheerfully synchronized. That's extraordinarily useful. In fact, it's so useful that you can easily forget how many separate choices are hidden behind it. Mail and calendar, for example, are two different things, but within a closed ecosystem you hardly have to think about it. Open-source pulls that curtain away and kindly says: Good luck with it. Suddenly you have to think about which mail client you want, which calendar app fits with it and where you actually want to synchronize files. We sometimes find freedom in the field of technology even a bit suspicious.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the greatest convenience is that you don\u2019t have to know how many choices have been made for you.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A plethora of good ideas<\/h2>\n

For someone who is used to one integrated ecosystem, that can be quite confusing. Linux works much more often from standards and individual applications that each perform one task well. There are standard protocols for mail, calendar and file synchronisation and you can decide which programs you use for this. And with whom.\u00a0 Technically, that's beautiful. Practically speaking, it can feel like you have to re-apply for a key for every room in your own home. I did research for Anzers on the best choices for customers who want to switch to open source software. For e-mail alone, I came across seventeen candidates, while I had already considerably limited my selection in advance with all kinds of conditions. After that, the calendar, files, synchronization and all other applications are still happily around the corner. For someone like me, that's interesting. For someone who just wants to read his mail, it can be a crime. You will be asked questions such as: Why do I need to reset my calendar if I'm already logged in? Why do I still need to sign in to a Nextcloud sync program? My computer knows it's all at Anzers, right? And there is an important lesson for organizations that want to guide people to open source. You do not free a user by giving him seventeen possibilities and then saying that he has to find out for himself which ones are the best. Unaccompanied freedom can be suspiciously similar to customer service. Perhaps that is why we should ask technology not only how much choice we give people, but also how much choice they can actually handle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you give someone seventeen good choices, you have not necessarily helped them.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NUL A in practice<\/h2>\n

But somewhere along the way, something interesting happens. It's not just about software anymore. Open-source has made me think again about what Ae Van Voght is NUL A Thinking<\/strong> mentions: Don't think Aristotelian. In Aristotelian thought, contradictions are clear. Something is true or not true. Red or black. This or that. It is a way of thinking that can be extremely useful when you want to organize a problem. Only the reality is rather bad in sticking to that classification. Especially when it comes to people and their choices. We may have forgotten over time that different people can come to different but perfectly defensible choices from different circumstances. In technology, this is almost painfully obvious. I went from Betterbird to Thunderbird because I like the interface of Thunderbird more. Another finds the same interface terrible and therefore opts for Betterbird. Some swear by Evolution and have excellent reasons for it. Somebody else thinks Apple Mail is a logical mail client. My brother chooses Linux Mint Cinnamon, while I run NixOS with Hyprland and added a heavily modified environment. So there's no one right Linux solution, just as there doesn't have to be one right truth for everyone. This is not a relativism in which everything is true. It means that a choice gets meaning within the context of the one who makes it. And maybe that's exactly what NUL A thinking can teach us: Before you reject another choice, you must first understand from which reality that choice makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother choice is not automatically a wrong choice.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First understand, then judge.<\/h2>\n

That may sound like a pretty innocent thought about computers, but I think there's something much bigger under here. In our society, we are increasingly inclined to judge other people's choices without first understanding why someone made that choice. We see the outcome, compare it with our own preferences and then draw the conclusion that the other person has done it wrong. That's kind of weird, actually. If I don't understand your choice for a mail client, I don't know at all if your choice is bad. All I know is I don't understand her. That difference seems small, but it's huge. To be able to convict someone, you should at least know what information, experiences, interests and preferences led to that choice. Only once you've found that common ground can you have a serious conversation about whether another choice might work better. This applies to software, but also to the way people work, live and set up their world. It also requires something we seem to have lost: Accept that your truth is not necessarily my truth. Not because truth doesn't matter, but because people have different starting points. Perhaps that's why it's healthier to first ask for a different choice: Tell me, how did you get out of here? That's probably more than just explaining why you know better.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can only say that you are wrong if I first understand why you are right.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For now<\/h2>\n

And maybe that's the most interesting side of technology in the end. Not that we can finally decide for ourselves which software we use, but that technology confronts us with something we have forgotten socially: Choosing is something people do.<\/strong>. We have become accustomed to systems that largely make the choices for us. A company determines which programs belong together, where our data is located and how we are supposed to work. It is comfortable, predictable and efficient. So comfortable even that we sometimes find it strange when a system suddenly asks what we actually want. Open-source partially removes that convenience and gives us back the choice. This also reveals how dependent we have become on preselected answers. The same is true outside the computer. We increasingly seem to expect that there is one right way to do something, and when someone deviates from it, we immediately seek judgment. Perhaps we should learn to live again with the inconvenience of multiple valid choices. That does not mean that every choice is wise or that criticism should be prohibited. It means that understanding precedes condemnation. For me it is obvious that I am happy with choices, but I also understand better that someone else is especially happy when someone says: Just use it and it will just work. This is also a legitimate preference. The real freedom is therefore perhaps not in the number of options, but in the ability to consciously choose and understand the choice of another. Research, both from me and from others, shows that we find it important to have an influence on how we work and live, but meanwhile we do surprisingly little to actually shape that influence. We have forgotten that choosing is not only a right, but also a responsibility. And that feeling that something needs to be done deserves action. Not tomorrow, not as soon as the technique is perfect, but at the next choice you make.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom does not mean that everyone makes the same choice, but that we give each other the space to consciously make a different one.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suddenly you have something to choose Linux gives you freedom. That sounds wonderful, until you discover that freedom means that no one tells you what to choose. The day before yesterday my brother asked about my experiences with Linux and my opinion about it. He, like me, wants to get away from the dependence of the \u2026 as much as possible.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_front_end_style_editor":"no","ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[78,25,73,32,31,61,187,23,60],"tags":[48,67,57,135,221,41,46,56,35,62,136,55,47,82,65,42,43,380,49,225,33,72,382,381,44,38,92,142,54,64,37,45,40,146,36,27],"class_list":["post-2465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-founder","category-freelance","category-nextcloud","category-persoonlijk","category-professioneel","category-spreker","category-spreker-pers","category-tech","category-trainer","tag-agenda","tag-ai","tag-bigbadbully","tag-cloud-act","tag-digitale-wereld","tag-domein","tag-email","tag-europa","tag-focus","tag-fun","tag-gdpr","tag-gdpr-compliant","tag-gemak","tag-goedkoop","tag-henro","tag-hosting","tag-kantoor-software","tag-keuzes-maken","tag-koerswijziging","tag-linux","tag-markdown","tag-nextcloud","tag-niet-aristotelisch","tag-nul-a","tag-office","tag-onlogisch","tag-open-server","tag-open-source","tag-privacy","tag-rollen","tag-simplicity","tag-tools","tag-verhuizen","tag-vrijheid","tag-wat-is-echt-belangrijk","tag-weg-van-big-tech","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.data-pro.nu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"ht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