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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 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.

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  • (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.