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Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

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Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#61

Post by alwa »

kstrauser wrote: post #45

I could not be less sympathetic on this. If you don't want people protesting your actions, don't, like, invade their country. "But what if it was the US doing the invading?" Yes, even then. If some Iraqi author made an Xsnow that waved little Iraq flags, that's their right. Even if I disagree, it doesn't harm me, and it might inspire me to consider our actions. "But what if it makes someone's boss get mad at them?" I…

That may be, but if I do in fact live in a place where my "government are the baddies," why does it follow that open software should punish me—for nothing more than happening to be alive within that jurisdiction—by provoking my "baddie" government to visit its badness upon me personally? For speech I wasn't even trying to make—for speech that you kind of put in my mouth without asking me?

It would be fine if you gave me a beautiful and whimsical way to choose to express my feelings, and I took it. But when you're disguising the flag in code as an "EXTRATREE," that signals to me that you're trying to slip through a surprise without my noticing:

    #ifdef USE_EXTRATREE
          if (global.Language && !strcmp(global.Language,"ru") && drand48()
I think it's great that you live somewhere—and enjoy a relationship to your working environment—where you don't have to worry about that kind of thing! I wish more people got to enjoy those kinds of freedoms. I don't think the way to make that happen is to rub individual people's faces in the crappiness of their predicament.

I'm reminded of a situation I encountered some years ago where a person opened a web browser in front of a classroom—no porn in their history, nothing untoward, just going to a high-profile mainstream news site or something in service of a classroom discussion—and all the targeted ads were for things like HIV medicines and mainstream campaigns choosing ad variants that depicted gay couples.

Not the time or the place, that person didn't ask for it, and it led to deep consequences for them—from "outing" on one side, to accusations of "grooming that classroom full of students" and "probably being riddled with AIDS" on the other—that this good, responsible, kind, wise person did nothing to invite.

The targeters probably thought they were doing something righteous or even "accepting" by "making sexual minorities feel seen" or something—but by putting words in the person's mouth without their consent or agency, they caused great unnecessary harm to somebody who didn't deserve it.

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#62

Post by Arodex »

netsharc wrote: post #36
Arodex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So, are you American? What are you doing about your governments funding and supplying of genocide? Your litany of excuses also apply to the average Russian...

Nope, European, from a country that did the most to oppose Israel, despite the fact it is very difficult for any continental European country to do so as we are tainted by the Shoah...

And America is electing more and more anti-israel politicians.

https://www.axios.com/2026/06/28/republican-party-israel-net...

https://www.axios.com/2026/04/15/iran-war-israel-democrats-c...

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#63

Post by pluc »

krunck wrote: post #14

One comment really nails the problem with this sort of thing: " People in Western countries don't realize how bad the situation on the ground actually is¹; random Ukrainian flags showing up on your work monitor can result in severe problems for you (like losing you job, or worse), especially if you work in the government sector. If they show up on your laptop in a random cafe or an airport, you might very well get a…

Wouldn't that be.. acceptable, if not entirely the point? Raising awareness? Some rando getting arrested for a screensaver they didn't know contained a flag is pretty efficient propaganda and would likely turn at least the involved people and their inner circles? It might not be the point but I doubt they'd be disappointed

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#64

Post by pwdisswordfishq »

Insimwytim wrote: post #47

So, if someone were to modify a Debian package to show Palestinian flag for Hebrew speakers or Iranian flag for ...Enligsh speakers, the change won't be instantly reverted and the user won't be restricted, right?

Or LGBT flag for Arabic and Persian speakers.

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#65

Post by croes »

sssilver wrote: post #53
kstrauser wrote: post #45

I could not be less sympathetic on this. If you don't want people protesting your actions, don't, like, invade their country. "But what if it was the US doing the invading?" Yes, even then. If some Iraqi author made an Xsnow that waved little Iraq flags, that's their right. Even if I disagree, it doesn't harm me, and it might inspire me to consider our actions. "But what if it makes someone's boss get mad at them?" I…

Isn't there discrepancy between that and The Debian Linux team removing “offensive” quotes for the “fortune” application [1]? [1] https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/1952340426892984580

What is offensive on the Ukrainian flag?

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#66

Post by LtWorf »

kstrauser wrote: post #45

I could not be less sympathetic on this. If you don't want people protesting your actions, don't, like, invade their country. "But what if it was the US doing the invading?" Yes, even then. If some Iraqi author made an Xsnow that waved little Iraq flags, that's their right. Even if I disagree, it doesn't harm me, and it might inspire me to consider our actions. "But what if it makes someone's boss get mad at them?" I…

Looking at your comment history, it's odd how you feel this way about certain countries but not certain others.

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#67

Post by belorn »

neilv wrote: post #50
belorn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple solution that should make everyone happy is to simply document it. That way it is no longer a hidden behavior, and the Debian maintainer could even do that as a patch without the help of upstream.

That might be responding too narrowly to this objection. Then there's the question of singling out some subset of Debian users based on their country, for different behavior they presumably don't want and that is against their individual interests (see the other comment, about displaying a flag getting you beaten). The solution is to treat everyone fairly and honestly, and to set an example for how people can get alo…

The deceptive aspect is the stronger part of the objection. Banning any and all political messages in Debian packages would go too far and I doubt the community would support it. People and in extension developers, can be quite political active and will put some of that into their works. I am sure (as in I don't need to verify) that the pride flag is somewhere in Debian right now, in some package, and banning it would cause much more conflict than allowing it to remain where it is. The problem really only exist if people would have it shoved into their faces through deception.

An other example of political message is when projects redirect donations to a cause. Should projects be banned from having a "donate to Ukraine" somewhere in a program, maybe with a Ukraine flag next to it?

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#68

Post by croes »

alwa wrote: post #61
kstrauser wrote: post #45

I could not be less sympathetic on this. If you don't want people protesting your actions, don't, like, invade their country. "But what if it was the US doing the invading?" Yes, even then. If some Iraqi author made an Xsnow that waved little Iraq flags, that's their right. Even if I disagree, it doesn't harm me, and it might inspire me to consider our actions. "But what if it makes someone's boss get mad at them?" I…

That may be, but if I do in fact live in a place where my "government are the baddies," why does it follow that open software should punish me—for nothing more than happening to be alive within that jurisdiction—by provoking my "baddie" government to visit its badness upon me personally? For speech I wasn't even trying to make—for speech that you kind of put in my mouth without asking me? It would be fine if you gave…

What exactly is the punishment in seeing a Ukrainian flag?

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#69

Post by [deleted] »

LtWorf wrote: post #66
kstrauser wrote: post #45

I could not be less sympathetic on this. If you don't want people protesting your actions, don't, like, invade their country. "But what if it was the US doing the invading?" Yes, even then. If some Iraqi author made an Xsnow that waved little Iraq flags, that's their right. Even if I disagree, it doesn't harm me, and it might inspire me to consider our actions. "But what if it makes someone's boss get mad at them?" I…

Looking at your comment history, it's odd how you feel this way about certain countries but not certain others.

[deleted]

Re: Xsnow "protestware" in Debian

#70

Post by saltamimi »

Protestware as a whole has never worked to solve anything. Awareness of a particular issue is the only positive thing "protest" software has successfully tried, with the second order effect being better supply chain management.

I don't use Linux or Xsnow but it baffles me how distributions would allow something like this. Sure, it's just flags now, but if you look at faker and colors.js, you'll see the other side of the coin of what happens when you allow software like this.

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