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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#351

Post by acomjean »

meken wrote: post #37

It’s crazy how much trust plays a factor in the success of open source. And if that trust is eroded, the whole system comes crumbling down.

When I worked on Radar software (over a decade ago) they were very hesitant to use open source packages and such. Like everything there, there was a process that had to be followed. We'd have to vet the source and such and then bring it over to the development network. I don't think anyone did.

When I was leaving they were looking to run new projects on Linux (from the proprietary unixes we were running) so I'm not sure how that would work. I'm guessing that's where the linux vendors fees come in.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#352

Post by zucker42 »

ziml77 wrote: post #335
lioeters wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that they got caught up in the socially accepted "hate fest" against citizens of a certain country, particularly by private companies.

None of this is hate against the citizens. No one wants to hurt the innocent people in Russia. But pulling out of Russia is about the only thing that anyone can do to slow the flow of money that will be used to fund the invasion of Ukraine. The optimal thing would be to push the Russians out of Ukraine with military force, though that is also going to leave many dead. Just because they're soldiers doesn't mean they d…

> No one wants to hurt the innocent people in Russia.

The actions of the node-ipc maintainer's seem to provide evidence against this assertion.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#353

Post by vkou »

rrsmtz wrote: post #306
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charitably, it creates a new friction for Russian business in deploying open-source software. That drag further diminishes Russia’s economy, and thus, its warmaking ability.

This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts. Weaponizing open source is such an awful precedent. There are extremist groups of every shade who harbor ill intent towards some other group or institution. For a rather mundane example: "My malicious npm module detects you are running the Brave browser? The evil Brendan Eich runs that, say goodbye to your filesystem!" Never mind if you…

> This is the line that every extremist group uses to justify their horrible acts.

And in this case the 'horrible act' is not wanting your free labour to be used in another country.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#354

Post by Latty »

abnry wrote: post #155
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…

But what is the limiting principle? Once you allow yourself to cause disruption and hurt people, when is it too far?

A good question I don't think there is an easy answer to, and one that depends on how you perceive the action being protested and the protest action.

A recent case in the UK involved people vandalising (throwing into a river) a statue. It was charged as a crime but they were found not guilty by a jury (in what most believe was an act of jury nullification).

There are a lot of loud people who felt this was disproportionate, but when it came down to it, a randomly selected jury from the UK clearly felt it was justifiable.

If my government was doing something morally abhorrent, that justifies greater disruption in the name of trying to stop it. Given there is no obvious way to judge the objective moral value of things, let alone one consistent across people, there will never be a hard rule about what is correct.

If we say there can be no justification for disruptive protest, then we lose the ability of the people to fight back against a tyrannical government doing things against the will of the population.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#355

Post by vkou »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #257
FredPret wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Crime X can be a form of protest” “Every protest ever has had people saying that the disruption to them is over the line” So which crimes would not be acceptable in a protest? And if people will always complain about the line being crossed, does this mean there can be no line at all?

Indeed, by this logic, the Unabomber was a pretty effective "protester."

Why not pick, say, the Boston Tea Party (And the war that followed) as a better example of an effective protest?

Highly illegal and immoral, destructive and violent, killed some five-digit number of press-ganged soldiers and civilians, met all of its political goals...

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#356

Post by NoGravitas »

cameronfraser wrote: post #349
baryphonic wrote: post #262

To be honest, I'm annoyed by the benign protestware messages when they start to get in the way of using the software, particularly on mobile. I was looking at the isomorphic git documentation the other day, and noticed that their "#BlackLivesMatter #DefundThePolice" banner scrolls under the rest of the content, leaving this annoying gap that takes up screen real estate, especially in landscape mode on a phone.[0] Wha…

they're virtue signaling, not trying to create change

Would you rather they signal vice?

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#357

Post by Latty »

shkkmo wrote: post #209
Latty wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, to some extent. I think it was largely ineffective and poorly targeted protest. The media coverage is not really necessary as it's already highly reported on, and the people harmed have no control over it. With that said, disruptive protest can be (and often is) illegal. I may think it's justified in some cases, but also if I do something illegal I expect to face legal punishment for it. Some people lay down…

I think that blocking your software from running on some computers would be very disruptive but should be legal. (Edit: not endorsing this, just trying to clarify where the line lies) Actively trying to harm those computers is simply not OK and goes beyond "disruptive" protest into harmful. To analogize, if your protest blocks traffic, it is disruptive. If you protest goes looking for property owned by Russian speake…

I don't think the line is so simple.

I agree that the "any Russian person" aspect of this makes it unjustified, in my eyes, but harming property more generally?

Well, denying someone their property is certainly harm of a sort, and if I were asked if it was justified to seize or destroy an oligarch supporting Putin's property or yacht or whatever, then I'd say absolutely.

In a similar way, there was a case in the UK recently where a statue of a man who was both a philanthropist and a slave trader was thrown into a river. This was charged as a crime, but the accused were found not guilty (commonly believed to be jury nullification).

Was this right? Well, the guy had actively limited his philanthropy where anyone was anti-slavery, people had tried getting a plaque added to the statue to explain context, but this had been blocked. I think this was a reasonable act of protest, and clearly a jury of their peers agreed.

More directly, what if they found their software was being used in a Russian weapons factory that was being used to produce munitions killing Ukranian people? In my mind, that would significantly raise the justification to cause damage to that property.

Harm, especially when it comes to property rather than people, is tricky. I don't think it can always be ruled out when it comes to justifiable protest.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#358

Post by gruez »

matsemann wrote: post #186
gruez wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So by this logic, if your blog/commit logs doesn't contain: * russia invaded ukraine * vaccines work * wear a mask * black lives matter * trans women are women * abortion is a right then you're a pro-russian, vaccine-denying, anti-mask, white supremacist, transphobic, misogynist?

No one said that. I'm saying that if you cannot answer which "side" you're on, but still engage in the discussion (and thus have knowledge / interest in the subject), it's obvious for everyone to see.

That's not what we were talking about though? In the context of this thread, we we talking about the behavior of open source projects, not people engaging in political debates.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#359

Post by kennywinker »

LunaSea wrote: post #292
gadders wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Is a single person going to be persuaded to support either cause by seeing this banner on a relatively niche JS library that reduces readability of its documentation? The purpose of the banner is not to convert anyone, the purpose is to demonstrate that the author of the package subscribes to the correct opinions.

So basically virtue signalling

The term “virtue signaling” is a pet peeve of mine. Like the word “problematic” it’s too vague and broad to be useful. The implication seems to usually be that it’s all talk and no action. But if we’re talking, as we are now, that’s completely separate from my actions. Like, if I say “pollution is bad” and don’t do anything in my life to reduce pollution that’s virtue signaling, but it’s not if I’ve dedicated my life to reducing global pollution? How are you supposed to know what I have or have not done in real life during this convo.

So either virtue signaling applies anytime someone expresses an opinion about something moral, in which case it’s a useless truism. Or it’s meant to express doubt or challenge someone to prove that they take action, in which case who owes you proof?

Putting a statement of support for a cause in your open source repo may or may not have any direct impact, but it is personal expression - and in general I am for personal expression.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#360

Post by ahtihn »

dspillett wrote: post #84
Palomides wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a disagreeable take: why should open source projects make any effort to be accessible to corporations that will never donate or support them?

While the prior post was talking about reticence to trust OSS code in commercial environments, the problem is not limited to that arena. This change hit national news here, albeit very temporarily, not just tech and business news. If an OSS developer can drop a logic bomb on Russian interests, one could do it to anyone else they disagree with, and that might understandably make people uncomfortable. Furthermore, the…

> one could do it to anyone else they disagree with, and that might understandably make people uncomfortable

That's why you audit your dependencies and have tests right? Right?

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