Should open source sniff the geopolitical wind and ban itself in China and Russia?
In 2022, information technology collided with geopolitics like never before. After Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, many nations decided that Vladimir Putin's regime and populace should be denied access to technology and even to services from the companies that make and wield it.
The USA, meanwhile, extended its restrictions on technology exports to China, citing its belligerence and repression of human rights.
[...] Which got me wondering: should open source contributors, and the organizations that facilitate their work, consider the positions their governments adopt? Should they be concerned that their efforts are being used for nefarious purposes? Might they be restrained from doing so? If they did want to limit distribution, how would that even work, license wise?
[...] The US government, however, is in no doubt that open source projects can and should be subject to its sanctions: in August 2022 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added a tool called "Tornado Cash" to its Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN list), a document that names entities with which US citizens are not permitted to do business.
[...] Open source advocate Coraline Ada Ehmke in 2020 delivered a speech titled: The Rising Ethical Storm In Open Source [webm].
In the speech, she opined: "Open source software today is playing a critical role in mass surveillance, anti-immigrant violence, protester suppression, racially biased policing and the development and use of cruel and inhumane weapons."
"And open source's complicity isn't a bug. It's a feature," she added. "This is actually by design. The open source definition allows for use of software for any purpose including specifically for evil."
Ada Ehmke went on to argue that open source developers cannot ignore their social responsibilities.
"I believe that as technologists we have a moral imperative to prevent our work from being used to harm others," she said.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday January 04, @09:21PM (8 children)
Especially Russia. But China ain't no angel, either.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 04, @09:42PM (5 children)
If we're reviewing their pull requests, writing thorough test cases for all requirements, etc. etc. like we _should_ be regardless of who's submitting code, I'm all for leaving open source open to whoever wants to contribute.
Real world? Yeah, most projects should scale back their acceptance of code from un-trusted sources.
Thing is: how can you identify Putin's evil code monkey farm when they use VPN to look like they're coming from Canada and they have usernames like "Robert Smith"?
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @12:57AM (4 children)
It's not just about accepting contributions, it's also about how it's applied: one could build an wonderful open source ${SYSTEM} with all contributions vetted to the extreme. But what this is also about is how ${SYSTEM} is then applied in the real world: is it being used to cause harm to people or to be beneficial to humanity? And if beneficial, to whom? Only those we like, we like full stop, or we like right now? What if actions we like today become unliked tomorrow, do we have to yank the code out? I can come up with quite some scenarios that would make this a nightmare, for instance ${RANDO_COUNTRY} would argue that it's beneficial to humanity for ${CHOSEN_MINORITY} to be exterminated because they are ${VILLAIN_OF_THE_DAY}; so clearly that'd be an OK application, right?
I do not claim to have an answer though... First off, it's a super hard question itself to answer and humanity would probably be worse off if I were the one needing to provide an answer.
Secondly, if one were to go "sure, we should limit applications of ${SYSTEM} to those particular ones that we approve of" then you still have more conundrums ahead than you may anticipate.
Or in short: "ethics... it be hard", but it's not like there's an indicator thereof like a whole branch of philosophy that's dedicated to it by itself, now, isn't it? Surely, this is something some rando software engineers could solve with more tech...
In my mind, this is all about hubris: the hubris to think that they have the authority or even ability to define and enforce such limitations. In reality, they can put in whatever kill switches they want, and whatever covenants to abide by in the repo, but if it's proper open source, then those can be yanked out or ignored by those who wish to actively use the software for malicious/their own 'unapproved' intentions. After all, it's open source, right? (I'm not saying the modified version would be 'legal', I'm just saying open source allows for this and must allow for this for it to be open source, not allowing it would make it not open source.)
I think it was Oppenheimer who quoted the Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the Trinity test: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds". It's hard to put genies back into the bottle from where they came...
It is not a technical problem, nor one that can be solved with technology or licenses. It's a human problem that point blank cannot be solved by vCurrent humans.
Ehmke is right about this though:
Yes it does, and altering this, which I think is what their goal really is, would make it something else than open source. It would still be 'a thing', but it wouldn't be Open Source. And herein lies my fear: like we have seen in the past with this particular individual, their tactics are playing out in the exact same way as how they forced the CoC down our throats and the throats of many an open source project: swoop in, redefine the meaning of common concepts claiming "obviously you're against ${VILLAIN_OF_THE_DAY}, right? If you don't incorporate this thing, we'll say you are a member of ${VILLAIN_OF_THE_DAY}, now do it", take over via carefully placed sniping-clauses, and push out/exclude what was there and worked perfectly well while replacing it with an massively inferior thing.
Be afraid, be very afraid, because this is the second big battle in the Open Source community, and they won the first one with CoCs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @02:22AM (2 children)
The Code Of Conduct (CoC) targets behavior on the left of the repo(1), this particular story targets behavior on the right of the repo(2).
(1):
- No open source software allows anything but excellent tip-top behavior in its community.
- Yeah, but open source software X's community has a lot of bad behavior
- Well, no True Open Source allows ...
(2):
- No open source software allows itself to be used for bad actions
- Yeah, but open source software X is used in many places for bad things
- Well, no True Open Source allows ...
No True Scotsman and all that...
Have no doubt: this is not about ethics, this is about control and exclusion.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 05, @01:24PM
Next phases:
1. Microsoft/github implements "ethical NFOSS" (Not Free OSS) licences
2. Microsoft/github defaults to "ethical NFOSS" licences
3. Microsoft/github makes it a pita to not use "ethical NFOSS" licences
4. Microsoft/github makes it mandatory to use "ethical NFOSS" licences
Note the same has happened with their stupid rule requiring the master branch is called main or some such nonsense, where we are at phase (3) at the moment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @03:34PM
Last I heard, you are free to make/sell/buy sewing scissors, even if it is your intention to go and stab every single person in a primary school, including the janitor.
Should we ban duck tape because it is routinely used to gag people in bank robberies? There is no practical limit on what you can use to cause serious damage.
I, personally, recommend the hippy version of the BSD licence:-
"You can use this software for whatever purpose you like, including, but not limited, to killing time and making babies or vice-versa".
If the Regents of Berkley approved that, it must have been before LSD was made illegal.
--
You have the right to remain insane. Should you exercise this right, you may be elected to high office.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 05, @02:03PM
>what this is also about is how ${SYSTEM} is then applied in the real world: is it being used to cause harm to people or to be beneficial to humanity? And if beneficial, to whom? Only those we like, we like full stop, or we like right now?
These are ideas we're talking about, mostly software but also designs easily implemented by basically anyone with some infrastructure current to 20 years ago or better.
The genie is out of the bottle, even if we resurrect the walls of China, the Iron Curtain, etc. the ability for information to pass those walls is ubiquitous, unstoppable without bombing global society back to the 1830s.
Licenses are meaningless across hostile borders. Anything open source does to "stop it's application by evil regimes" is worse than security theater, it's delusional in the extreme.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by higuita on Thursday January 05, @11:50AM (1 child)
what the hell?!
why mix politic with everything? why other people opinion should be imposed on anybody? should China/Russia block all their software and developers from western side, until they convert to communism or agree on take over land? Should Europe block all countries that aren't doing enough to stop the CO2 emissions? should one random dev forbid usage by LGBT groups, or the opposite, by religious groups
Those kind of artificial blockers are the same that created the Free Software movement, everybody should be able to use and change the software, no limits.
If we do this, to support one side, what you will miss if the other side do the same thing? soon you will be unable to use several software, you have multiple forks, less features, open security bugs, less maintained software
No, simply no! keep politics and your opinions to yourself, away from free/open source software. Just like science, everyone should work open and free of those stupid artificial limits and everybody profits
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday January 06, @08:26PM
It's not about opinions, or somebody's feelings getting hurt, it's about the national security of democracies.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04, @09:30PM (11 children)
If open source becomes political, subject to state authority, it is no longer open.
Don't let the state decide who your enemies are.
Mass media is full of advertisers' bullshit. We know nothing about Russia and China. Our mindless embrace of comfortable lies confirms it.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday January 04, @09:42PM (2 children)
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday January 04, @11:04PM (1 child)
well you are too late for that. that ship has sailed. politics are deep inside open source software. progressive CoCs. that FSF - how is that going? Anywhere you have people doing things that generate value you will have politics, subversion, infiltration.
(Score: 2) by pgc on Friday January 06, @03:16PM
And guess who 'adovcated' these progressive CoCs... ? The same person that is quoted in this article. Coraline Ada Ehmke |:(
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04, @09:59PM (2 children)
If we know nothing about Russia and China, how do you know that those things about them that you call lies are lies?
Of course, you're not going to answer that. You're just going to yell something incoherent about Hunter Biden's laptop.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by higuita on Thursday January 05, @12:00PM
you know the lies you are being told by western news?!
why CNN and FOX have so many different views on the same problem? and they are even on the same "side"
did the USA invaded Iraq for any good reason? you were told it was because Mass destruction weapons, but was that true?
we only see what they want us to see, everybody is hiding some info or sharing fake info, either knowing or not about it
the world is not black and white, there are many shades of grey and even colors
don't assume you are the one that is correct because if you do, you would be one of the other side supporter if you were born in their country, blindly believing everything is wrong and dangerous
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @12:55AM
Is that the best strawman you can come up with to divert attention away from your mass media brainwashing? pretty transparent...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by oumuamua on Thursday January 05, @02:52AM (4 children)
It is important to understand that China has committed no international crime. They are a valid participant on the international stage. They threaten Taiwan but they have made their stance on Taiwan clear for decades, and the US accepted this stance with the 'one china policy', Pelosi should not have made that visit.
To preemptively lump them in with Russia is stupid. Paint them as the enemy and they will become the enemy. https://www.genolve.com/design/socialmedia/quotes/Attack-on-Titan-Marley-Paradis-Rumbling [genolve.com]
It's easy to check on the internet that 1/8 of the planet is not evil. They're just like the rest of us living rather boring lives and perpetually short on cash but hoping for better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV0WxeJOy3U [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @04:46AM (2 children)
Uighur genocide, various human rights violations. Of course, international law is a joke system, but it is what it is.
(Score: 2, Informative) by oumuamua on Thursday January 05, @03:27PM (1 child)
Thanks for highlighting a prime example of media spin and selective coverage.
Sure, China overreacted when responding to the Uyghur terrorism events of 2013/14 https://www.scmp.com/topics/tiananmen-square-terror-attack [scmp.com] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack [wikipedia.org]
When the media called it genocide, they did not highlight that it was genocide by forced birth control, not killing. The UN human rights investigation ultimately did not call it genocide.
Meanwhile, you heard next to nothing from the media about a far worse genocide, ending up with 500,000 dead - and yet people still debate whether to call that a genocide: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/genocide-in-tigray/ [thenation.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06, @02:57AM
https://theconversation.com/legal-expert-forced-birth-control-of-uighur-women-is-genocide-can-china-be-put-on-trial-142414 [theconversation.com]
Forced birth control including abortion and sterilization is absolutely a form of genocide. There have been reports of other shenanigans like shacking up Han Chinese men with the wives of detained Uighur men. Helps solve the incel problem at the same time, an absolutely brilliant move by China.
It's not really a surprise that China has opted for slower methods than lining people against a wall and shooting them. It's a more PR-friendly genocide. It's also not surprising that the toothless international community is slow to condemn China or Tigray, for different reasons.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 05, @01:08PM
> It is important to understand that China has committed no international crime.
> To preemptively lump them in with Russia is stupid
You are correct to an extent. The Western media portrays both nations' government as having strict control of the media and not much freedom of speech in general. In the context of TFA state control is, one might argue, anathema to the very concept of FOSS.
My experience of Chinese people is that they are, as with most countries, just trying to get along; with varying degrees of nationalism and anti-nationalism, as in any country.
(Score: 5, Informative) by BsAtHome on Wednesday January 04, @09:44PM (1 child)
There is no discussion. The definition of terms for the license to be a valid open source license [opensource.org] are:
and
Therefore, any restrictions in the distribution based on political winds makes the project no longer FLOSS.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 04, @11:59PM
Plenty of licenses to choose from besides FLOSS, including roll your own if you are so inclined.
May cause a fork if enough of the community dislikes the new license, such is the nature of Open Source. The communities decide which forks live and die with their support efforts and lack thereof.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 5, Informative) by GloomMower on Wednesday January 04, @09:46PM (3 children)
Coraline Ada Ehmke from Contributor Convenient and no such thing as meritocracy fame.
I think this article by Stallman addresses this article:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html [gnu.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @04:19AM (2 children)
Does Stallman's article address his view of hippie earth chicks and picking fleas out of his beard and cracking them between his long uncut fingernails?
(Score: 1) by GloomMower on Thursday January 05, @04:25AM
What does that have to do with anything?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @01:39PM
You should watch some videos of social life among the monkeys. Stallman would be picking the fleas from the hippie earth chicks beards instead of his own, which would lead to mating.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday January 04, @10:08PM (1 child)
I think that there are certain realities that make attempts by an author to restrict their open source in this way a bad idea regardless of their politics.
1. The US government does not need your help. The government can outlaw exporting your software then allow it again then outlaw it again without you ever having to change the license once.
2. The license does nothing to stop authoritarian regimes from using your software. Try suing someone in a Chinese court on the basis that your license doesn't allow Chinese use. See how that goes for you.
3. How much time are you planning to spend fiddling with your license? Do you plan to change it every time some country becomes a bad actor and then again every time the country stops being a bad actor? Good luck with that!
4. Polluting your license is a one way trip. Once you put a bunch of nonstandard crap in your license your domestic users will abandon you just to avoid the compliance burden.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by GloomMower on Wednesday January 04, @10:28PM
1. I think the goal is to stop even the US government. In the video, if you work for any company that does business with another company that has done business with ICE (specifically listed out, amazon, microsoft, ibm, salesforce) then it is your responsibility to quit your job.
3. I thought maybe the license would be just about UN charter of human rights, but then I went to https://ethicalsource.dev/licenses/ [ethicalsource.dev] and there is a license about atmosphere emissions, workers rights, violence, human rights.
But I see there has been other propsosals also.
Vaccine license - You promise to vaccinate yourself
This will go well. Currently not convinced, I think Stallman had it right here: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.en.html [gnu.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Wednesday January 04, @10:18PM
I think I know where this is going. Cause the previous codes of conducts etc have really cured all and stopped the bad things from happening. Lets crank it up another level and write some more words that doesn't matter ...
It is the usual amounts of good feelings and stuff. Very light on how this banning of China and Russia (and others you don't like) should actually work considering a line of text doesn't actually stop anyone from downloading anything and compiling it themselves if it is shared freely. Will there be a little checkbox next to the download button where you really promise you'll only do good things and such? Otherwise what? It's really just digital virtue signaling and it doesn't work or does anything worthwhile.
All sorts of fencing on the download can just be skipped around, it's like they never even heard of a VPN or the gazillion of services that makes you appear as if you are in another country or another ip then your own, or if they somehow can't they will just send a person in a proper country out to download it there and then ship it home to the motherland. DRM is always bad for the real customer, never or rarely for the once that chose to bypass it.
Fagner Brack, apparently the only sane voice of reason in the entire article.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 04, @10:38PM (2 children)
I'll echo first what other users have said: Open source is open, or it isn't open source at all. You put your code out there, and people will use it as they see fit. Maybe someone will improve on it, maybe not, maybe no one will even use it - but none of that is for you to decide.
Now, if our government is going to tell us that we cannot share with, or benefit from contributions from, people of specific nationalities, what's next? Shall we outlaw the export of various other basic technologies? The screw, maybe? Simple machines like levers? Where does that nonsense end?
Gubbermint can take all their super-duper-top-secret bullshit off line, and keep it all secret. I suppose that's their right. But, open source is open. Gubbermint can just fuck right off.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 05, @12:06AM
There are already many flavors of open source, and few projects that have withered away primarily due to a license quirk.
Working at a big MNC, our legal division occasionally makes noises like they want to understand and standardize / proceduralize the use of OSS within our products. So far that has amounted to little other than the occasional inventory of what we are currently using.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Friday January 06, @01:32AM
You forgot to add "maybe no one will read your license". It might be a problem for corporate users, but individuals are not going to care, and how well will attempts to enforce your license against governments go?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday January 04, @10:52PM
That's a relief, as they've disavowed doing anything bad [apnews.com]. I mean, if you're going to try to prevent anyone from using free software ... how do you plan to actually effect that [youtu.be]?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bloodnok on Wednesday January 04, @11:33PM (1 child)
As a developer of free software it is not my place to determine who uses it or how it is used. Its is free for goodness sake.
If we want to try to limit how our software is used, then why limit it to China and Russia. I'm not particularly fond of the GOP, so should I put a clause in preventing them from using it? How about hedge fund managers? Or weapons companies? Or advertisers? Or social media companies? Or anyone with a high net worth who pays less tax than I do?
If I wanted a full time job of trying to figure out who could use my software, I suppose I could try to write a license that achieves it, but it wouldn't be a free software license. And how the hell would I enforce it? It's not like I could audit every politician or advertising company.
Repressive regimes are in any case not going to concern themselves with the legal niceties of licenses. If something I have written is going to be useful to them, the only way I am going to keep it out of their hands is to not publish it in the first place. And really, who does that help?
Let the diplomats deal with geopolitics. Let ordinary people choose whether or not they buy from those regimes. Put effort into persuading politicians and the general public to boycott and sanction the bastards. But trying to use free software licenses as a tool for this is madness.
__
The Major
(Score: 2) by TrentDavey on Thursday January 05, @12:33AM
In this case "It is free for badness sake".
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday January 04, @11:36PM (1 child)
Has Microsoft remotely disabled all versions of Windows/DOS and MS software and open source on Windows software in Russia yet? I'm sure they can do that, even with pirated copies (they'd only be able to not touch off-line versions).
Microsoft is hostile to 'other' open source entities (they will only push Windows versions): how are they still able to use open source?
Lay off the rhetoric until the 'establishment' is 'corrected' first.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by higuita on Thursday January 05, @12:04PM
they can't do that, because that would force them to use other OS and NSA would have more problems accessing remotely those machines... also you can't cut profits from companies, being big corporate or arm dealers ... but everybody else should comply
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday January 04, @11:49PM
From it's beginning, Open Source is designed for sharing.
It was released free. No backdoors. No DRM.
Damn near everything is this way. Even a hammer.
Once made, the original concept author has no control whatsoever in how his concept...a heavy mass mounted on a stick for the purpose of increasing force via inertial physics... will be used.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday January 05, @12:53AM
If a single vociferous eunuch like that can shatter the whole concept of Free and Open Source Software with just some policy move, then the original concept of FOSS legality by its licensing anchored in some laws guaranteed by some state was very fragile for the first. Such paradigm is logically inconsistent from the beginning.
Outlaw the Evil, yes, everyone agrees that, either may or must, but who is to decide what actually is Evil? And how? That's where the fun begins... as always to be finalized at battlefields when no consensus could be achieved in chatterhalls.
I tell you what: with FOSS denied to "enemies", divergent development will happen and most damage will be done to agencies, them quickly losing all the opportunities for backdoors and exploits of vulnerabilities in systems of opponents. They will not be happy about that.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Thursday January 05, @01:09AM
We are solidly in the "condemned to repeat' phase of humanity learning and forgetting very important lessons.
All authoritarians persecute with the noblest of intentions. "It's for your own good, we have a moral obligation" said every despot ever.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday January 05, @01:37AM (1 child)
There's a simple technical solution to this! Just amend RFC 3514 to require all evil countries, terrorists, and general criminals to set the evil bit. Then web and ftp servers can be configured not to allow downloads when the evil bit is set. Done in one!
In other words, the NSA wasn't able to keep the bad guys from mis-using their very much restricted and secret arsenal of the cyber equivalent of tactical nukes. Commercial software with the DRM hacked out appears all the time in restricted countries. Hammers and nails are available around the world. Like it or not, there is no measure that will magically make Free and open software any less available, and even trying damages everyone but the bad guys.
Interesting thought: If I was a Russian operative, planting the seed for this crap is exactly how I would assault the free world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @02:16AM
When I read about DNT (Do Not Track), I had to think of the Evil Bit...
(Score: 2, Troll) by hopdevil on Thursday January 05, @02:38AM
Let's avoid double standards and restrict any war use, including preventing Ukraine from using this software to harm others. Maybe not as interested now?
Or better yet, realize OSS is doing it's job, and doesn't need your ethical bullshit opinions
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 05, @06:00AM
(Score: 4, Funny) by zzarko on Thursday January 05, @06:03AM (2 children)
Almost anything can be used to harm others, either by criminals, or unpopular regimes and so on. Should we ban everything just because of that?
Here is an old text about the dangers of bread, with many true but pointless facts:
- More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters!
- Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests!
- In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations!
- More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread!
- Bread is made from a substance called “dough.” It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average
- American eats more bread than that in one month!
- Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and osteoporosis!
- Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after only two days!
- Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts!
- Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person!
- Newborn babies can choke on bread!
- Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute!
- It’s been proven beyond a doubt that both serial killers and vicious corporate CEO’s like Walt Disney, Michael Dell and Dave Thomas have eaten bread regularly!
and most shocking of all:
- Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling!!!!
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
- No sale of bread to minors.
- No advertising of bread within 1000 feet of a school.
- A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
- No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
- A $4.2 zillion fine on the three biggest bread manufacturers.
Pass LAWS!! Remember the Control Freaks’ Credo: “Shoot First, Get Understanding Later” (Coerce FIRST; Persuade LATER — if at all).
Please notify everyone you know who might care about this crucial issue.
Remember: Think globally; reason rectally; act idiotically.
C64 BASIC: 1 a=rnd(-52028):fori=1to8:a=rnd(1):next:fori=1to5:?chr$(rnd(1)*26+65);:next
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday January 05, @03:43PM
I went to a well known legal firm who represented people who were on drugs charges, and questioned the people in the waiting room.
I can say without equivocation (or evidence) that 100% of heroin users ate cornflakes while of primary school age.
(Draw your own conclusions - preferably with a yellow crayon).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by higuita on Thursday January 05, @11:06PM
Spot on!
don't forget that bread also contains high levels of Dihydrogen Monoxide, a very harmful component:
https://www.dhmo.org/facts.html [dhmo.org]
notice:
if anybody takes this as real, please go search for Dihydrogen Monoxide
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday January 05, @08:15AM (1 child)
Open Source is Open Source. Anything that is not open cannot be considered as such. If you want to have a closed system that doesn't allow others to see your code we can already do that - we call it a company. People who want to write code in this way can even get paid for doing it.
But get real - how on earth could anyone enforce this? If country X is using open source software (that may contain contributions from around the world), how do you stop them? Write a stern letter, invite them to attend a hearing in a court that they do not even recognise as being legitimate, launch your own nukes to demonstrate your displeasure?
Open source projects can accept or decline contributions as they see fit, but they cannot dictate who can 'see' it once it is released.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @08:27AM
It could be seen like encryption bans. Unenforceable with the exception of someone who is in the wrong place at the right time, gets nabbed, and the government wants to make an example of them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05, @10:02AM (1 child)
Just don't call it open source. Call it something else. I remember the days of shareware, postcardware, etc.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Dr Spin on Thursday January 05, @03:49PM
howl at midnight at every full moon [snip] don't call it open source.
May I suggest "Open Mouth".
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Sjolfr on Thursday January 05, @08:45PM
At least on the important parts: %20 [soylentnews.org]" rel="url2html-1004644">https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/30/22410164/linux-kernel-university-of-minnesota-banned-open-source>
(Score: 2) by pgc on Friday January 06, @03:12PM
Coraline Ada Ehmke. The same awful person that introduced the rediculous 'Code of Conduct' into various projects... and that was basically all this person 'contributed'.
This is not an Open Source Advocate, this is an activist of the worst kind.
Ignore this toxic being.