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Why Politicizing Open Source is a Terrible Idea

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

MrPlow writes:

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/

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:58PM (3 children)

    by ikanreed (3164) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:58PM (#733672) Journal

    Look, if you're a mighty buzzard, you ain't afraid of no strawman, like some lowly crow.

    (Also that tweet, far from "chanting" seems to clearly state a coherent point, fairly prosaically for a tweet)

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:31PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:31PM (#733774) Journal

    Are we supposed to know who Ian Henry is?

    • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:29PM

      by ikanreed (3164) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @08:29PM (#733824) Journal

      What you mean you haven't heard of this person with 300 followers or their tweet with... 2 likes?

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:41AM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 13 2018, @01:41AM (#733949) Homepage Journal

    Seems to me it spawned a pretty worthwhile and intelligent discussion. Were you looking for some other result?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.