Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lerna relicences to protest ICE

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 162 posts

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#101

Post by nathan_long »

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, not wanting your work to be used for purposes you deem evil seems commendable.

On the other hand, imagine how a trend of this could look. Library X is off-limits for companies doing GMO. Library Y is off-limits for advertising companies. Database X can't be used by anyone who contracts with the defense department. And the restrictions are updated as various issues come into the news.

In that case, using open source would suddenly be very risky. What if your company is deemed bad by someone who makes something you depend on?

The rational move would be to use proprietary software, whose standard is "whoever pays us".

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#102

Post by aeorgnoieang »

village-idiot wrote: post #74
Waterluvian wrote: post #43

I use BlueprintJS a lot. And about a year into use I realised that "Palantir" is apparently a company people don't like. All I could think about is how this might become a nuisance if a colleague or customer decides they're going to be political about it. These moves are frustrating. I just want to make neat stuff. I don't want to get involved in the politics of a country I have no interest in.

Trying to keep politics out of things isn't apolitical, it's the politics of status quo.

Perhaps you're failing to properly appreciate how wonderful the status quo actually is because you're comparing it to a fantasy instead of plausible alternatives.

I don't know your specific politics but I bet you don't constantly find ways to inject it into every conversation and every relationship.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#103

Post by mrob »

voidr wrote: post #64
exogen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: is Stallman not an activist, one who many of the same people panning this license change would claim to support? > Members of the free software movement believe that all users of software should have the freedoms listed in The Free Software Definition. Many of them hold that it is immoral to prohibit or prevent people from exercising these freedoms and that these freedoms are required to create a decent…

The project uses the MIT license, which is Open Source not Copyleft, it has nothing to do with the personal beliefs of Stallman, it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse. There are also many examples like the Linux kernel that do use a GNU license yet don't buy into Stallman's belief system. > It was already there, you just happened to perceive it as a neutral stance. How is me making my code public to anyone…

>it uses a license that Stallman does not endorse.

This is false. Stallman does in fact endorse the MIT license under limited circumstances:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#X11License

"This is a fine license for a small program."

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#104

Post by LordHumungous »

village-idiot wrote: post #82
75dvtwin wrote: post #23

very unfortunate to have this in the license. I guess in the future, we will use our selective outrage, to decide which formulas / research work can be used and by whom. Jamie Build is welcome to establish charity organization to help, whoever he believes the victims are. Given current practice of economic prosecution of conservative voices, Technology folks who would choose voice their support for Trumps administrat…

I'm getting tired of bigots crying about censorship right around the point where they face consequences for being bigots.

I'm getting tired of being called a bigot for disagreeing with other people on complex policy issues.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#105

Post by jancsika »

augbog wrote: post #91
jancsika wrote: post #21

This is about as effective as ripping an arm off your shirt and throwing it in the vicinity of an ICE agent. The result of that effort will be a day fielding questions from everyone but ICE about what the heck is wrong with your shirt.

The main goal is less to hurt the companies that are supporting ICE by not allowing them to use an open source project, but actually bring a lot more awareness that these companies DO IN FACT support ICE. I had no idea Palantir was working on the technology to help deport people https://theintercept.com/2017/03/02/palantir-provides-the-en...

I'm honestly glad you are now aware of that fact.

Now that we are both aware, let's talk about their license. Is it now a non-free license? How does it affect their current non-Palantir user base? Is it enforceable? Was it meant to be enforceable? Are there ways in which a license written by people who aren't themselves lawyers can come back to bite them?

This entire digression goes away completely if they put the relevant information nearly anywhere else. Their front page, README.md, change log, etc. Hell, they could even put it as a "did you know" comment in the body of the code.

They could do any or all of them and get just as much or more notoriety as they did by ruining their open source/free software compatible license.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#106

Post by wmil »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #30

Slightly off-topic, but: anyone know where I can find a solid debate / discussion on the political issues raised by illegal immigration in the U.S.? My own views lean pretty strongly towards one end of the spectrum, and I simply can't understand why people would hold the opposite views. So I suspect I'm missing something.

I'd recommend watching Stefan Molyneux's interviews with Jason Richwine. They're on Youtube.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#107

Post by dplgk »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #100
dragonwriter wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it politics when human rights are violated? Absolutely. The most important politics. Of course, using “politics” as a dismissal of importance is only a technique to protect the political status quo from a challenge one cannot otherwise defend against.

I think there's a legitimate desire in wanting to avoid "politics". It's a more specific instance of avoiding the trap described by 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Here's a good Tumblr post to which I linked earlier today in a similar HN thread: - [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...]( https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism... )

All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or something), right? So some politics are a pinch or a slap but others are a hammer to the head. What's wrong with taking a stance about, for example, children in cages? This isn't just a protest over whether trickle down works or if taxes are too high/low.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#108

Post by jsgo »

Remember when people were apprehensive about using React because Facebook might weaponize your usage of it? This project is explicitly stating it can: you might not be on this list today, but there's nothing preventing you from being on it tomorrow. So do you want to commit to integrating it to your stack?

While I'm not against their stance at all (at the end of the day, they've gotta do what is going to help them sleep at night and if it is barring the usage of their software, so be it), I really worry about the possibility of this becoming prevalent. What happens if libraries start restricting usage if you support the work of ACLU or Planned Parenthood or any other number of things? Now, I may be able to work with a specific library because I check the right boxes. But what if a collaborator can't because they'd violate it? This just feels like a slippery slope leading to a net negative for everyone

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#109

Post by chomp »

dplgk wrote: post #94
chomp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit. EDIT: Thought about…

Is it politics when human rights are violated? I don't think it's "politics" to oppose children separated from their parents.

I fully support peoples' efforts to protest the current US administration, and any other administration.

I don't support usurping other people's speech to push protests. Copyleft is a wonderful thing, but we have to treat it with respect and play by the rules, else we risk diluting its legal potency.

If this was a single maintainer, or a project that got the rest of its developers to agree on the sublicense, then that would be great. However, this seems like a rogue repo maintainer (or a few of them) pushing a sublicense without their contributors agreeing. Sounds like a great way to turn a few of its contributors against them, but also sounds like a great way to violate their copyright.

Re: Lerna relicences to protest ICE

#110

Post by bb010g »

augbog wrote: post #89

Don't worry Microsoft has their own fork of lerna anyways lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214257

…did you read through the issue [1] linked in the first comment there? Nobody could actually find evidence that Rush was a fork. Thanks for bringing up a libre Lerna alternative, though.

[1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/web-build-tools/issues/673

Post reply on HN