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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#161

On one hand, I don't want to be anywhere near protestware when it comes to my work or the tools I use. On the other hand, Javascript developers have a whole different culture than the developer circles I like to frequent. In npm-land, the societal expectations of quality and solemnity (for lack of a better word) are lower, and this kind of behaviour is even celebrated if it favors the "right cause". The last two case…

>Javascript developers have a whole different culture than the developer circles I like to frequent.

Most Javascript developers I know are just writing code and that's what they're concerned with.

Vocal voices on twitter or etc != most Javascript developers.

I'd argue most vocal folks on forums or etc don't represent most developers of any given language.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#162
post #127

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?

Quoted post unavailable.

You are part of the problem

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#163
post #127

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?

Quoted post unavailable.

Congratulations, you're part of the problem. Enjoy creating a world in which open source cannot be relied upon for any purpose: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed...

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#164
post #134

> 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. There are so many outlets for open source communities to be creative without harming everyone who happens to load the…

Isn't it likely for Russian ISPs to start blocking infowarship.com, if they haven't already? Since the script is loaded from their domain this would be easy to censor.

I certainly hope people don't just load this random website's script directly from their website frontend. That seem super insecure. If people want to use that popup they should download the code, give it a quick review, then host it themselves. This also solves the issue with that domain getting blocked.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#165

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 long argued that there are things that should remain agnostic of politics ( as hard it may sometimes be ). This trend is genuinely destructive to opensource and I can't help but wonder if it is not done to undermine it by design.

“Politics” Is often what people call serous issues that don’t affect them. So, maybe you’d just like open-source to be the domain of privileged people.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#166
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it is understood. Most people who write JavaScript aren’t keeping up with the latest drama. I hadn’t seen any of these political complaints before this thread and I’m a lead engineer on a full stack typescript stack. Not that I have an opinion either way I just don’t think you can reasonably expect devs to keep up with stuff like this.

I think keeping up on things like this is the bare minimum expectation I would have of any lead developer worth his or her salt, because keeping up on things like this is a fundamental aspect of knowing the technological ecosystem in which you claim to have the skills and knowledge in which to make decisions about things like which technical ecosystem your entire team should be using. Whether or not most engineers _d…

>I think keeping up on things like this

Keeping up on actual code related concerns yeah. Internet drama, no.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably hoped the effects would negatively effect people there so they could put pressure to stop the murder of other innocent civilians. Arguments like this are similar to the BLM protest that try to equate property with human lives.

Arguments like this are superficial and justify bad behavior. Destruction of property isn't murder, but it's still not ok and it still causes harm to living people who have no influence over the issue.

> who have no influence

I believe the crux of the political theory is that in a representative democracy, nobody has no influence over the issue.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#168
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About half of the comments here appear to be.

Are they? I don't see surprise: I see people defending the action (to some degree), but I can't find a single case of anyone who is surprised at people reacting negatively to it.

I suppose condescending smugness can read like surprise in certain cases.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not every politics-adjacent thread needs to devolve into "the wokes are coming for us all". You can disagree with the actions of progressives without making it this all-encompassing threat. Hell, I'm pretty left-wing and I'm fairly critical of some of the factions. Either way, I can't see anybody putting "must add a BLM banner to their website" to the licensing conditions of their FOSS code.

That would be a wonderful thing to able be do, if the woke brigade wasn't screaming "YOU'RE WITH US OR YOU'RE AGAINST US" a parent over. ;) Ignoring that isn't an option, unfortunately, believe me, that's been tried.

Yeah but so what? Disagreements are going to happen in politics. Other people disliking your politics and vice-versa is not an existential threat.

Anybody who legitimately makes a "liberals only" stand in their license will get forked and their usage will drop off.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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), Typescrip…

> Most of them had banners or whole pages for the BLM movement which made no sense to anyone outside of the US pretty sure they made sense to quite a few people outside the US: https://blacklivesmatter.uk/ https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/06/frances-black-lives-matter-... https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/06/22/...

Comparing europe with the US when it comes to the police killings is ridicolous. Sure there was attempts to bring it to europe but that is besides the point. There are a lot of countries in the world, many without any issues in which the BLM protested against. Why should we get pushed american politics for? What is the point?

The UK as an example had something like 6 people killed that year when protests arrived. Most of which wasn't black if I remember correctly. Do you really think it's comparable to the issues that exists in the US?

My critique is still valid tho, doesn't ukrainian lives matter? Why are there no banners for them?

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