Less retarded software (LRS) is a specific kind of software aiming to be a truly good technology maximally benefiting and respecting its users, following the philosophy of extreme minimalism (Unix philosophy, suckless, KISS, ...), anarcho pacifism, communism and freedom. The term was invented by drummyfish.
By extension LRS can also stand for less retarded society, a kind of ideal society which we aim to achieve with our technology.
LRS is a set of ideas and kind of a mindset, a philosophy, though it tries to not become a traditional movement or even something akin a centrally organized group; by anarchist principles it sees following people and groups of people as harmful, it always advocates to only follow ideas and to associate loosely. Therefore it tries to only be a concept that will remain pure, such as for example that of free software, but NOT an organization, such as for example the FSF, which will always become corrupt.
As a symbol of LRS we sometimes use heart (love), the peace symbol (pacifism, nonviolence) and A in circle (anarchism), but these only serve as a universal identifier of the philosophy, not as a flag or anything similar -- as flags are a sign of fascism -- for this the official LRS flag is defined to be a completely transparent square which has side length of one billion light years times the busy beaver function of the current 64 bit Unix time -- this is so that the flag cannot practically be manufactured and even scaled down versions will hardly serve the purpose of a flag (only the ideal version of the flag is acceptable, i.e. that which is completely transparent and invisible). The official international LRS day is every day in the year and it always takes precedence over any other cause whose day it is supposed to be (as long as it is aligned with LRS the other cause may be acknowledged too, but only in second or lower place).
{ TODO: official currency? }
The definition here is not strict but rather fuzzy, it is in a form of ideas, style and common practices that together help us subjectively identify software as less retarded.
Software is less retarded if it adheres, to a high degree (not necessarily fully), to the following principles:
Here are a few bullet points giving further ideas about what LRS is about, also serving as advice for creating such technology:
LRS exists for a number of reasons, one of the main ones is that we simply need better technology -- not better as in "having more features" but better in terms of design, purpose and ethics. Technology has to make us more free, not enslave us. Technology has to be a tool that serves us, not a device for our abuse. We believe mainstream technology poses a serious, even existential threat to our civilization. We don't think we can prevent collapse or a dystopian scenario on our own, or even if these can be prevented at all, but we can help nudge the technology in a better direction, we can inspire others and perhaps make the future a little brighter, even if it's destined to be dark. Even if future seems hopeless, what better can we do than try our best to make it not so?
There are other reason for LRS as well, for example it can be very satisfying and can bring back joy of programming that's been lost in the modern toxic environment of the capitalist mainstream. Minimalist programming is pleasant on its own, and in many things we do we can really achieve something great because not many people are exploring this way of technology. For example there are nowadays very few programs or nice artworks that are completely public domain, which is pretty sad, but it's also an opportunity: you can be the first human to create a completely public domain software of certain kind. Software of all kind has already been written, but you can be the first one who creates a truly good version of such software so that it can e.g. be run on embedded devices. If you create something good that's public domain, you may even make some capitalist go out of business or at least lose a lot of money if he's been offering the same thing for money. You free people. That's a pretty nice feeling and makes you actually live a good life.
{ Here and there I get a nice email from someone who likes something I've created, someone who just needed a simple thing and found that I've made it, that alone is worth the effort I think. ~drummyfish. }
see also LRS projects needed
The "official" LRS programs and libraries have so far been solely developed by drummyfish, the "founder" of LRS. These include:
Apart from this software a lot of other software developed by other people and groups can be considered LRS, at least to a high degree (there is usually some minor inferiority e.g. in licensing). Especially suckless software mostly fits the LRS criteria. The following programs and libraries can be considered LRS at least to some degree:
Other potentially LRS software to check out may include TinyGL, scc, ed, IBNIZ, lynx, links, tcl, uClibc, miniz, Lua, nuklear, dmenu, sbase, sic, tabbed, svkbd, busybox, darcs, raylib, IRC, PortableGL, openbsd, mtpaint and others.
It is also possible to talk about LRS data formats, protocols, standards, designs and concepts as such etc. These might include:
Other technology than software may also be aligned with LRS principles, e.g.:
See also less retarded society and FAQ.
LRS is connected to a pretty specific political beliefs, but it's not a requirement to share those beliefs to create LRS or be part of the community centered around LRS technology. We just think that it doesn't make logical sense to support LRS and not the politics that justifies it and from which it is derived, but it's up to you to verify this.
With that said, the politics behind LRS is an idealist anarcho pacifist communism, but NOT pseudoleftism (i.e. we do not support political correctness, COCs, cancel culture, Marxism-Leninism etc.). In our views, goals and means we are similar e.g. to the Venus project, even though we may not agree completely on all points. We are not officially associated with any other project or community. We love all living beings (not just people), even those who cause us pain or hate us, we believe love is the only way towards a good society -- in this we follow similar philosophy of nonviolence that was preached by Jesus but without necessarily being religious, we simply think it is the only correct way of a mature society to behave nonviolently and lovingly towards everyone. We do NOT have any leaders or heroes; people are imperfect and giving some more power, louder voices or greater influence creates hierarchy and goes against anarchism, therefore we only follow ideas. We aim for true social (not necessarily physical) equality of everyone, our technology helps everyone equally. We reject competition as a basis of society and anti-equality means such as violence, fights, bullying (cancelling etc.), censorship (political correctness etc.), governments and capitalism. We support things such as universal basic income (as long as there exist money which we are however ultimately against), veganism and slow movement. We highly prefer peaceful evolution to revolution as revolutions tend to be violent and have to be fought -- we do not intend to push any ideas by force but rather to convince enough people to a voluntary change.
All content available under CC0 1.0 (public domain). Send comments and corrections to drummyfish at disroot dot org.