Date: 2025-06-16

The POSIX cage

It tells you it's the standard.
Portable. Universal. Clean.

Lie.

POSIX is a cage.
A spec written in fear.
Fear of change. Fear of breakage.

It is the spreadsheet.
Compliance is not clarity.

You don't write code.
You comply.
You bend to the spec.

Every flag.
Every obscure rule.
A scar from 1980s paranoia.
Frozen in time.
Dressed up as compatibility.

You build tools?
You inherit ghosts.
Legacy of fear.

Sh, dash, bash, ksh, whatever.
None of them agree.
None of them are free.
They all lie.

It wasn't built to free you.
It was built to make you stay.

POSIX is not minimal.
It's a bureaucrat's dream.
A box to tick.
A cage to live in.

Conformance is not truth.
Portable doesn't mean clean.
It means carrying the dead with you.

You want to be free?

Break it.
Build what runs
Not what conforms.

POSIX is pain.
You don't escape by obeying.
You escape by walking away.