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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#71

Post by Latty »

slackfan wrote: post #57
Latty wrote: post #34

Do people think the people protesting like this don't know that this is damaging? They presumably feel that the issue at hand is more important than that damage. Every protest every has been met with "but this protest is being done the wrong way, don't inconvenience me", but that's the point: protest has to disrupt things to make people take notice and make changes. Would I do this? No. I don't think it's effective o…

If the intent is to disrupt, why be surprised at people being pissed off about it? Seems like a natural progression of the conversation.

Was anyone surprised people were pissed off?

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#73

Post by trentnix »

slackfan wrote: post #40
extheat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re basically saying, don’t use X tool chain because the 3rd party software doesn’t move on your pace? Or they have different “views” than yours? I don’t see how that makes any sense. Why do you have to be beholden 3rd party developers and the pace they work at?

I use software to build stuff, not to subscribe to a set of political ideologies.

A small, extremely loud, and extremely sanctimonious part of the population will not accept that. They will consider your lack of political motivation for your work distasteful and eventually immoral. You'll be asked to support movements, participate in ritual, and publicly proclaim your allegiance. Eventually, they'll demand it.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” - C.S. Lewis

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#74

Post by matsemann »

ekianjo wrote: post #47

> Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities How about not taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing one side is black and the other white with absolutel…

Not taking a side is agreeing with the oppressor.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#75

Post by bitcharmer »

ekianjo wrote: post #47

> Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities How about not taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing one side is black and the other white with absolutel…

Russia's aggression is pretty one sided. Not taking sides is like turning you eyes away.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#76

Post by staticelf »

bjt2n3904 wrote: post #18
commandlinefan wrote: post #5

I'm in Texas. A LOT of Californians disagree with some of the laws that Texas has passed. How long will it be until my hard drive gets reformatted by some protestor in San Francisco who localizes my IP address?

I have legitimately argued against using NodeJS as the foundation of our next product for this very reason. NodeJS' culture is very much "move fast and break things", and "all software is political". Look at the TSC drama. Leftpad.js. This isn't an ecosystem that you want to build and maintain a product on.

Basically all big js front ends have the same issue. Most of them had banners or whole pages for the BLM movement which made no sense to anyone outside of the US like myself.

I mean a framework or library with a global audience shouldn't push american politics. Vue, React, Preact, Nodejs, Ember (had a whole page and made documentation unavailable for some time), Go lang, ExpressJS (still has the banner up), Typescript, a lot of python projects etc etc. The list can be made very long.

I try to avoid any framework and library that pushes political agendas onto their sites because that signals what type of people are in charge of them. They must think that their political views are so important it must infiltrate every aspect of life even if the thing has nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, there is such a large amount of them doing this it's practically impossible to avoid it.

The funny thing is, now when Russia has invaded Ukraine there is no banners on the same websites so it's obvious some lives matters more than others in their views..

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#77

Post by grishka »

Latty wrote: post #34

Do people think the people protesting like this don't know that this is damaging? They presumably feel that the issue at hand is more important than that damage. Every protest every has been met with "but this protest is being done the wrong way, don't inconvenience me", but that's the point: protest has to disrupt things to make people take notice and make changes. Would I do this? No. I don't think it's effective o…

As a Russian, you already notice this and you already have many things in your everyday life disrupted. Someone deleting your files as an act of shoving politics where it doesn't belong helps absolutely nothing. If anything, it's not an act of protest, it's an act of vandalism. Causes don't matter here — vandalism is simply never okay.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#78

Post by Errancer »

ekianjo wrote: post #47

> Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities How about not taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing one side is black and the other white with absolutel…

How about taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing the existence of gray negates the existence of white and black. Perspectivism is the beginning of inquiry, not the end of it. Stop being a tool of your own social superstitions.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#79

Post by boffinism »

ekianjo wrote: post #47

> Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities How about not taking sides instead of acting like a kid believing one side is black and the other white with absolutel…

Using the existence of shades of grey to deny the existence of black and white is equally childish in my opinion...

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#80

Post by alexb_ »

laurent123456 wrote: post #31
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #16

Poorly chosen headline. As the text makes clear, 'protestware' as a concept is fine, destroying random people's data is not. > When deployed, this ‘protestware’ expresses the maintainer’s opposition to the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine. Most protestware simply displays anti-war or pro-Ukrainian messages when run. This is a non-violent, creative form of protest that can be effective.

I wonder is protestware as a concept is fine. It's a form of ads, just people pushing their opinion in front of everybody just because they can. Sure, everybody's against the war, but what if the message was a more controversial anti-this or pro-that topic - do we really want to have these messages popup during installation and even after?

If a large project had "unpopular" opinions in the commit messages, it would be top of HN instantly and companies everywhere would be pressured into not using the project in the future. Software should do what you want, only what you want, and do that thing well. Political messages are horrible additions that accomplish nothing but isolate people and make free software look bad.
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