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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#401

Post by morpheuskafka »

mpweiher wrote: post #330
celeritascelery wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a package (that I won’t name) which completely removed their online documentation and replaced it with a BLM message for a period of time. I was floored at that unprofessional behavior. Now when I link to their docs, I always use archive.org to make sure other users don’t run into a similar issue in the future.

> I was floored at that unprofessional behavior. Profession - "A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns a living from a specified professional activity. " If you want professional behavior, pay the person. If you want free, you get whatever the person wants to give you for free.

The term professional is clearly applicable to software engineers working on open source projects, just as it is for lawyers doing pro bono work, and just like a plumber fixing his neighbors' sink for free is still performing his trade and expected to do work that upholds its standards.

No one is required to do any work for an open source project, but they are expected to behave in a professional manner and plenty of people have been rightly criticized here when they acted inappropriately as part of an open source team.

Its debatable whether OP is right, but there's at least a case to be made that taking down documentation that was not costing any money to host for the sole purpose of making an unrelated statement (not one targeted at their customers, just society in general) does damage the professional reputation of the team and its product.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#402

Post by kennywinker »

prepend wrote: post #372
kennywinker wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> general I am for personal expression. I’m for signal, not noise. I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful. I used to work with a person who would raise their hand in every presentation and say “security is important how is this software secure” even when it wasn’t anywhere remotely relevant. It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we c…

> I don’t want stupid personal expressions, I want meaningful or beautiful or somehow useful.

I guess I feel that improving our world, ending war, making our society more just and fair, these are meaningful, useful, and beautiful things to do. They might be some of the most meaningful things actually.

> It was counterproductive and distracting and wasted valuable time that we could use to do something better.

This is an argument about context. Security IS important, I imagine we'd both agree, but maybe not in that specific situation. Like if I bring up climate change while we're rushing to the hospital after a car accident. Climate change is a real and important issue, but right now it's a distraction. So is an open source website an inappropriate context to indicate support for movements or disapproval of others? I don't think so, but if you do calling it "virtue signaling" isn't what you mean, and is actually a counterproductive distraction.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#403

Post by BlueTemplar »

raxxorrax wrote: post #324
shuntress wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things are inherently "political" just not always significant enough to be worth considering. The trite ways to say it (ie: "we live in a society" or "actions have consequences" ) don't really capture the full complexity of human interaction but do somewhat describe the notion that everything you do as an individual affects and is affected by everything everyone else does. Being "political" really means just beli…

What makes everything political? Of course something I do or say can influence others, but it is still not political in the vast majority of instances. Not even non-significantly. Political action is shaping my environment to my desire. Via compromise or war perhaps. What is your definition of it that it applies to everything?

That's just action. What makes it political is if happens to have an effect outside of your home. (And technically even those restricted to the inside will usually end up having some sort of effect outside of your home.)

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#404

Post by kdmccormick »

dunkelheit wrote: post #363
kdmccormick wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a less cynical take: When it comes to Ukraine support, the banner could theoretically have an anti-propoganda effect. Russian and Chinese citizens are cut off or pushed away from world political discourse in a lot of ways, so using open source libraries as a vector for anti-Russia messaging could have a real effect on devs in those countries.

Two counterpoints: 1) the kind of people that use open-source libraries are one of the most plugged into the world political discourse parts of the population (BTW I am not sure that this is unequivocally a good thing, this "discourse" is just another brand of propaganda at this point) and 2) If some random open-source maintainer from across the ocean starts lecturing me that I am guilty of not overthrowing Putin or,…

No post body was provided.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#405

Post by kennywinker »

michaelt wrote: post #399
kennywinker wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The implication seems to usually be that it’s all talk and no action. That's the implication. But I'm pretty sure the critics would be even angrier if the open source project had taken action.

hah, yup - that's literally why this is news right now, somebody went past talk and acted - and people are upset

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#406

Post by oauea »

mpweiher wrote: post #330
celeritascelery wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a package (that I won’t name) which completely removed their online documentation and replaced it with a BLM message for a period of time. I was floored at that unprofessional behavior. Now when I link to their docs, I always use archive.org to make sure other users don’t run into a similar issue in the future.

> I was floored at that unprofessional behavior. Profession - "A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns a living from a specified professional activity. " If you want professional behavior, pay the person. If you want free, you get whatever the person wants to give you for free.

If you want people to use your stuff, which you probably do because you put it out there, be professional.

If you don't care, then do whatever the hell you want of course.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#407

Post by krapp »

mwcampbell wrote: post #278
krapp wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Put another way, I think being neutral and silent by default is a necessary defense against manipulation. But what if the purpose of the manipulation is to suppress dissent, or at least encourage passive acceptance of the status quo, by convincing people remain to neutral and silent?

The people who have certain knowledge of something wrong in the world, through firsthand experience or domain expertise, should certainly speak out. For example, I'm vocal about accessibility for blind people, perhaps to a fault. But I think we should be silent about things that we don't have direct knowledge about. Otherwise, we're no better than computers in a botnet sending out spam. That's why, lately, I've unsub…

>The people who have certain knowledge of something wrong in the world, through firsthand experience or domain expertise, should certainly speak out.

To whom? If everyone followed the rule you're proposing, the only people they could speak out to are people who share their firsthand experience or domain expertise. Communicating further would necessitate secondhand information or some form of media which can't be trusted, as it could possibly contain some manipulating element. Who could Ukrainians ask for help from? The Russians? Would everyone else be required to fly to Ukraine to try to verify the existence of the war firsthand before having an opinion?

There are more important things than being made a fool of sometimes. The risk of being manipulated exists no matter what you do, or don't do, and you can never have perfect knowledge of any situation, even if you're an eyewitness, because human perception itself is fallible, limited to a single perspective and prone to self-deception.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#408

Post by gs17 »

pbourke wrote: post #344
HideousKojima wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just like most men aren't violent criminals but men are still statistically more likely to be violent criminals. The point is that JS devs seem (perhaps a proper statistical study will show otherwise) more likely per capita to shit up their ecosystem. There are several reasons contributing to this (the limited JS standard lib being a big one) but a major part of it really seems to be that JS devs are a differen…

> I've never seen controversies like this in the .NET/Nuget ecosystem Some .NET ecosystem projects have put political messages on their documentation over the past couple of years.

I think they meant "controversies" more in the "adding malware to a common dependency" sense.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#409

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#410

Post by BaronVonSteuben »

vkou wrote: post #355
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Oh absolutely. The reason the Boston Tea Party is celebrated is because their side won the war. Had the British won, it would have been one of the many wicked/evil "rebellions" against the King that got crushed.

But I'm not really seeing the connection here or why it invalidates the Unabomber example.

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