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posted by chromas on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the No-sir,-I-don't-like-it dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

In our increasingly politicized world, it has become popular to chant "all software is political." Software builds the systems that free or constrain us, the thinking goes, and so we should withhold it from bad people. This is the thinking that has led Microsoft employees and others to decry contracts tech companies have with ICE (US Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement), insisting that their software only be sold to people they like.

[...] Over the years we as an open source community have experimented with all sorts of stupid ideas, like efforts to block anyone from using code for commercial purposes unless they pay. Each time, we've realized that as good a goal as it is for developers to get paid, for example, the destruction caused by closing off the code to uses we don't like ends up ruining the foundations upon which open source rests.

This is dramatically more important, however, when it comes to attempts to politicize open source software.

As developer Chris Cordle stated, "Nobody wins" and the "whole idea [undergirding open source] dies" ... "if an author arbitrarily picks and chooses who can and can't use it based on whoever Twittersphere is mad at this week." It doesn't matter if there is tremendous cause for that anger. Open source dies when it becomes politicized.

Source: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-politicizing-open-source-is-a-terrible-idea/


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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:55PM (9 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:55PM (#733908) Journal

    Actually, jmorris is not unhinged. He and I disagree sometimes, but he does have a pretty clear view of reality. It is the muppets like you who are being led around by some pied piper, calling itself "progressive". Note the lack of a gender specific pronoun.

    Do you SERIOUSLY believe that if/when that piper attains power, it will share that power with people like you?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:27AM (8 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:27AM (#734017) Journal

    Actually, jmorris is not unhinged.

    Says the most unhinged member of SN? Seriously? This is just like David Duke swearing up and down (and probably up and down again, it's an alt-right thing, ask Milo) that Richard Spencer is not a racist. Job well done, Runaway! How is it possible for you to be so obtuse? Really, I would like to know. Such profound ignorance does not happen without intent.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:57AM (7 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:57AM (#734092) Journal

      Ari, whose doors were hung using strips of cowhide in ancient Greece, feels himself competent to speak about unhinging? Perhaps you would care to revisit AthanasiusKircher's farewell thread again. You are mentioned by name there. Aristarchus' toxicity is legendary!

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:15AM (6 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:15AM (#734097) Journal

        Jealous, Runaway? You are the most toxic, because you have the least to say, being an uneducated American, which if it were not so redundant would be embarrassing. You contribute nothing but vitriol and bile, venom and idiocy, in all your posts. We learn nothing from you, because you have nothing to share, but you are blissfully unaware of that fact. Go back to watching Fox News, and pining for the days when a Clinton was your Governor, or the two times a Clinton was your first Lady. And you best show proper respect, or we will give you the Soylentil equivalent of a Captain's Mast, you scallywag!

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:40AM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:40AM (#734109) Journal

          uneducated American . . . redundant

          Did you say vitriol, bile, venom, and idiocy? Then, you post your hatred of Americans, right here in plain sight, for all to see.

          Kinda funny - over time you have claimed to be American, Greek, black, white, and a number of other things. Why, you even claim to be educated!! Nobody knows who or what this Aristarchus personna really is, aside from hateful.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aiwarrior on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:20PM (1 child)

            by aiwarrior (1812) on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:20PM (#734182) Journal

            Aristarchus I disagree with Runaway1956 but you are not really bringing any righteousness by calling him uneducated and all sorts of insults. You are in the end, your own worse enemy of your ideas.
            jrmorris is known for his opinions. They are not popular around here, and this is the actual good meaningful result here. Rejoyce in that. You starting insults is more or less counter to the point.

            @Runaway, jmorris ideas are not the most consistent thing I have read set in ASCII. Supporting him may taint the often good no non-sense attitude that you show which might give you credibility. Unless the no-nonsense attitude has another meaning.

            People are irrelevant, they should be free to be what they want. Ideas are what you must judge. This is the actual problem of nowadays political climate. We attack the messengers instead of the messages. This is what is poisonous.

            Social orthodoxy like the kind propagated by SJW or other populace moralists, is fascism. Pure and simple!
            Disliking a person because he is black or purple or brownish is racism. Pure and simple

            A white SJW is as good an idiot as the Goebles loving people, as Serena Williams calling an umpire referee decision sexist (lol wtf?). The common link is the ideas as messages they propagate: They are easily deconstructed.

            If people and actual black people would follow Martin Luther King's motto: Judge not by color of their skin but by the content of their character, a lot of bullshit would stop.

            1st proposal: If people do not want to volunteer for that open source project, that is fine. They can even maintain their own branch, I do with Open embedded.
            2nd proposal: If people do not want businesses to sell that or to that one, do not work there. You are free and (ohh yeah responsible).
            3rd proposal: If you do not want businesses to undertake certain lines of work, convince your fellow citizens of it's wrongness and how you can overcome the hardship that may create.

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:08PM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:08PM (#734503) Journal

              Thank you, Sir.

              Yeah, I realize that supporting some people - uhhh - "looks bad" shall we say. JMorris? Sometimes he goes overboard, and often enough, overstates his case. That's the biggest reason I don't support him more than I do. But, even so, his brand of unpopular is more palatable most of the time, than the popular nonsense thrown around.

              Maybe I need to concentrate more on stating my own opinion, and avoid "taking sides", even when one side is obviously so far out in left field as to be out of the ball park. I mean - it's easier to identify with the guy who is still in the ball park, than to identify with the crowd at the custard stand, over in the next town.

              MLK. The man would roll over in his grave if he were to hear about BLM and Antifa. I hope no one goes by the grave yard to tell him about current events.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:11PM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:11PM (#734504) Journal

          https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=27562&page=1&cid=734182#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

          Wanted to make sure you saw that. It seems an objective opinion, and one not swaddled in partisan bullshit.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:57PM (1 child)

            by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday September 13 2018, @11:57PM (#734561) Journal

            Yes, I saw it, you vomituous mass of partisan hackery! Did you even read it? You are being lead to far more radical ideas that you actually hold. This is exactly how Trump is leading American to Southern stupidity, racism, and ultimately fascism. It will all be your fault, Runaway.

              Now go ahead, complain some more that aristarchus is being mean to you!

            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 14 2018, @12:24AM

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 14 2018, @12:24AM (#734579) Journal

              Mean to me? Somehow, I missed that bit of data. The real problem here is that you're posting stupidly vile insults, without any substance at all. Tell me - have you fallen and bumped your head in the past couple of years? Think hard - I can't exactly specify a time at which you "lost it", but apparently, sometime before Hillary's debacle. Maybe you should see your physician? A CAT scan or some such seems to be in order. If you can recover to the point that you can post semi-intelligent, rational insults, we will both enjoy Soylent more.