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Julia Reda (a Member of the European Parliament from Germany) writes in her bog about upcoming censorship legislation in the European Union and a call to action for those most affected, specifically the Free Software community.
The starting point for this legislation was a fight between big corporations, the music industry and YouTube, over money. The music industry complained that they receive less each time one of their music videos is played on a video platform like YouTube than they do when their tracks are listened to on subscription services like Spotify, calling the difference the "value gap". They started a successful lobbying effort: The upload filter law is primarily intended to give them a bargaining chip to demand more money from Google in negotiations. Meanwhile, all other platforms are caught in the middle of that fight, including code sharing communities.
The lobbying has engrained in many legislators' minds the false idea that platforms which host uploads for profit are necessarily exploiting creators.
The fight affects both sides of the Atlantic because once bad rules are enacted on either side, it is not uncommon for calls for "harmonization" to come from the other.
Earlier on SN:
Mulled EU Copyright Shakeup Will Turn Us Into Robo-Censors
EU Parliament's Copyright Rapporteur Has Learned Nothing from Year-long Copyright Debate
European Commission Hides Copyright Evidence Again
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @04:26AM (26 children)
Search up "Contributor Covenant" for starters. It's just the first example that comes to mind of many, many instances of "the free software community" thinking free speech means the freedom to agree with them or be destroyed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Vocal Minority on Monday April 09 2018, @04:36AM (16 children)
The Contributor Covenant, from my understanding, is an attempt by Social Warrior Bullies to impose their will on the free software community and has mainly been in issue with github hosted projects. When you talk about "Loudest Assholes" this would, I think, be generally taken to mean Stallman. Linus etc. who I don't believe support any of that sort of nonsense. Any other examples?
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @04:48AM (15 children)
Yes, we have a few crabby old bastards like them and myself who are unwilling to put up with that sort of nonsense. We're not winning though. Every project they shove their CoCs into is a defeat for free speech. Look into the history of Ruby or the Rust community. Or look back at this story [soylentnews.org].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 09 2018, @04:59AM (2 children)
Well then, think of it as a live test of your unspoken hypotheses then :) if you're correct, these projects will eventually crumble under their own idiocy (clone and fork their shit now, just to be safe...). This is that liberty stuff in action, isn't it? They are at liberty to take the kind of action that will eventually result in a repeat of the Gnome disaster if they want.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @05:37AM
People that didn't agree forked some projects, like MATE, but there is a limit of what can be done. We would need also to fork toolkits, libs, whole organizations... and specially be able to push back. It's a huge task, even more so if projects are fattened and twisted instead of kept simple and well documented (= forkable and maintenable with low resources) as a power grab.
They kept important parts, no end of PR (or coorporate support... Linux Foundation is a joke with no community voice but GPL infringers), and played hardball instead of cooperating, because that is what they don't want, an even field based in merits and not weight/money. In some cases the method, if true FOSS, should have been "someone forks, demostrates the new thing is worth, and then the old part merges back the new (or gets replaced completly)" but they did the opposite.
Let's not forget systemd, kdbus or the newest "secure boot and kernel lock down must come as a whole" (IIRC FreeBSD had lockdown features over 15 years ago, before EUFI was created, see security(7) [freebsd.org], look for "system immutable") that get pushed by some people that should know better about FOSS spirit, yet they play the coorporate game without shame.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @05:56AM
Indeed but that example cost me a perfectly good DE. I feel a little bit of bitching is warranted.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Vocal Minority on Monday April 09 2018, @05:10AM (8 children)
OK thanks for providing some context. Agree to some extent, I don't think I would want to be involved in a CoC project as these sorts things in my experience are simply weapons for those who like to play politics and as such would not like it to become the norm.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @06:01AM (7 children)
Here's the draft one I wrote up earlier today [github.com] for our rehash repository. I forget what it was that annoyed me into doing so but I'm quite amused with the results.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday April 09 2018, @11:21AM
That's not dissimilar in spirit to this: Github:NCoC [github.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @04:20PM (2 children)
Only insensitive clods use tabs instead of spaces! Next you'll start putting modelines all over the place forcing us to set shiftwidth to 4! :P
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @04:51PM
Well, yeah... I thought it was a given that anyone who could make code so ancient you'd expect to find it chiseled into stone tablets work is going to be an insensitive clod.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @05:51PM
All good with me, including tabs.
BUT, I learned emacs in the late 1970s (first piece of software that I was introduced to) and it's a bit too late for me to switch. Met rms through friends in Cambridge MA about the same time. Not long after I used Mince (Z-80 & CP/M - Mince is not complete emacs) to write a million character book.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday April 09 2018, @05:06PM (2 children)
You use tabs instead of spaces? Why would anyone do that?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @05:16PM (1 child)
At this point? Sheer contrariness and spite.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday April 09 2018, @05:35PM
lols
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Monday April 09 2018, @08:36AM (1 child)
Crabby old bastards? Is that what you neo-nazi racist misygynist youths are calling yourselves these days? Seriously, Buzztard, it is time for you to get a clue, and realize that spouting shit is not free speech, does not resemble free speech, and has no protection as free speech. Do I need to repeat myself? Or shall I refer you to Ethanol_fueled? Hmmm?
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @02:11PM
Youths? You looking for a free subscription extension or something?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @01:44PM
As I've been saying 'Wake up and stop sucking on CoCs.' :)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @04:49AM (6 children)
FTFY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Captival on Monday April 09 2018, @05:32AM (2 children)
That's usually how it starts. The SJW cancer tends to infest itself into the bureaucracy of an already successful host and corrupt it from within.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Monday April 09 2018, @05:50AM (1 child)
Yeeesss, the plague of starting a new open source project (or forking an existing one) under your own terms, this is how those SJW promote bureaucracy.
You know it absolutely makes sense!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday April 09 2018, @06:20PM
What get's lost in these whiny 'muh free speeches' rants is that freedom of speech doesn't outweigh freedom of association.
If I want to form a group with a specific purpose in mind that is my right. If someone is acting counter to that purpose it is absolutely within the groups' right to kick them out.
Simple as that.
Writing the rules down just makes it easier.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @06:03AM (2 children)
I actually meant them getting you fired, swatted, ostracized in your neighborhood, and anything else they can manage. Forking a project is no biggie.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 09 2018, @08:39AM (1 child)
Sorry about what happened to you, oh Buzzard of Moderate Worth, but you might consider being less of an asshole, at least in the work environment, so that there is less of a basis for your groundless paranoia. I know I would have dropped the anonymous note to HR, if I had to work with you, after what you said about my posterior! So, independent contractor, for the duration, I take it? Checks out.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 09 2018, @02:19PM
Since you asked, independent contractor since two minutes after my assistant manager (hired for his friendship with the manager rather than the tech skills which he utterly lacked) bitched me out for not working while I was actively in the process of setting up the software side of building a new server for the ISP I was admining for at the time. Untreated adult ADHD does not lend itself to patience with office bullshit, for which I am eternally thankful given the results of having to create a job for myself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by bug1 on Monday April 09 2018, @08:28AM
Contributor agreements are required so projects have a strong legal basis.
There are a lot of people who think they understand freedom, but are really dangerously ignorant,
Freedom is about the ability to control yourself
Power is about the ability to control others.
Some people think permissive licensing is a greater freedom, but its freedom for the individual, not for the crowd.
Permissive licensing is freedom as in slavery, and its this attitude that resulted in the movement being sold off to the corporation.
Queue the zombies, trolling for brains...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 09 2018, @09:09PM
Hey, I thought this was the social justice people who were forcing these things on open source projects, then halting any actual work on the projects before moving on to the next. As in, not the programmers themselves? Now you're lumping them together?
Like me doing a local bakesale then chewing me out when the state legislature Democrats pass some stupid bill and I happen to vote Democrat.
I don't think your definition of "the free software community" is necessarily the same as everyone else's.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"