181–190 of 286 posts
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Are you really expecting people critical of the US military to not use computers, else be keeping a "double standard"?
I think these people are keeping a double standard, yes.
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On one hand, I struggle to think that people might actually care about switching "master" to "main", as opposed to making wider improvements to inclusivity. On the other hand, I don't have a strong attachment at all to naming a branch "master" and can easily rename it without a second thought.
> On one hand, I struggle to think that people might actually care about switching "master" to "main", as opposed to making wider improvements to inclusivity. I thought it wasn't a big issue until I saw how hard one side fought to keep the name "master". After that I changed my mind and name all of my branches main and give a little push to projects I'm part of to do the same. Plus, words do have power: https://www.y…
Master craftsman? Master mold? Master copy? Head Master... Just because this word was used in relation to slavery doesn't curtail its use in language, removing it only serves to focus its "power".
Also, thats not how language works. At all. It is never how language worked. An Australian and an American are going to have a very different reaction to the word cunt.
Candidly, the erasing of words from language for any reason is very 1984, it's a book you might want to read, its a good primer to understanding how control of language is one of the features of fascism. You should probably read up on how linguistic purity was part and parcel of Italian and to a lesser degree German control of the people.
> Anduril, a military contractor that uses NixOS, has repeatedly attempted to become a sponsor of NixCon, which did not go over well with the community Something similar happened in the Haskell community, where some people called for Anduril job postings to be removed. Nix is a software project, not a social movement. The goals of Nix are entirely separate from how the software is used. I really like Coinbase's state…
> Nix is a software project, not a social movement. everyone loves to assert that Nix is this or that. whatever label you fight to place it under, it's a product of some thousands of people. whatever it actually is, it's underpinned by something social.
I believe people say that in part because every political topic gets dragged into the community. Yes, there is a political aspect to everything, but that doesn't mean everything under the sun has to be dragged in.
Just take a look into some of the discussions that frequently happens in the NixOS offtopic Matrix channel. A small yet vocal portion of the community constantly brings up extremely hot takes on a broad range of topics. Anyone who objects are met with dismissal, condescension, and personal attacks.
Topics include:
* How tech companies should handle takedowns
Many of us probably already know how this is a very complex and controversial issue. But some folks advocate SESTA / SOPA like measures, accusing anyone who objects of supporting Kiwifarms and telling them to shut up.
* The use of the term "enshittfication"
A vocal member expressed annoyance and went into a long rant when someone mentioned the term. Apparently the term is a self-benefitting slogan for privileged folks because it wasn't popularized by someone they approved of. Fortunately, that didn't result in a argument because the other person immediately stopped engaging.
* AI use
In another case, someone who said they use AI was accused of supporting modern slavery. I'm somewhat skeptical of AI too, but this is just absurd. It really looks like the accuser was looking for a fight because "AI" could've been replaced with literally any other commercial product, from the clothes we wear to rare earth materials present in computers we use to write code. It's a modern day supply chain problem, not an AI problem per se.
It's one thing to express these opinions. But the aggression that followed in many of these cases is unacceptable. It seems to me that this constant cycle of hot takes and aggression is in no small part fueling this conflict even further. Like, supporting the same causes as the EFF can get you branded a right winger by very vocal people.
The Anduril issue seems to have been the main catalyst for the drama. Seems like Anduril probably did more harm then good - who at Anduril couldn't have predicted that the Nix folks would start to have a major freakout the minute they attempted to sponsor?
It's worse because after the first time much of the community was trying to write it off as a simple mistake or miscommunication. It became evident after the second time though that this was very on purpose and it was known there would be an issue.
Obviously there's the "people were angry last time, they will likely be angry this time". But that's projecting personal/political views into a sponsorship.
What should have been the right course of action? I'm not sure. "Tech is easy, people are hard"
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Anduril started by building tech to hunt poor people crossing the southern border of the US. Their CEO is a right wing extremist. How you can say this is the same as supporting Ukraine against Russia aggression is obviously telling more about you than about anyone else.
Of all the things to be upset with a "defense" company over, actual literal defense (as in border monitoring and sensors) is a funny one. That stood out to me in the open letter as well. Why not the weapons systems that are apparently "somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile"? Would people be as upset at Boeing as a sponsor, or would that just be boring? Would people be as upset if Google or Face…
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>I've stated above some parts of my views about certain political issues unrelated to the issue of free software—about which of those activities are or aren't unjust. Your views about them might differ, and that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would be programs b…
People want them not to be advertised at official Nix events, not to bar them from using it. That wauld be impossible due to licensing so isn't on the table. Would you require the FSF to accept a sponsorship from anyone and to advertise them in return?
Fuck no
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Of all the things to be upset with a "defense" company over, actual literal defense (as in border monitoring and sensors) is a funny one. That stood out to me in the open letter as well. Why not the weapons systems that are apparently "somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile"? Would people be as upset at Boeing as a sponsor, or would that just be boring? Would people be as upset if Google or Face…
Yes I believe it's acceptable to be upset at any company that undermines democracy. That very likely includes most big tech companies, and absolutely includes Google and Facebook.
https://events.linuxfoundation.org/archive/2022/open-source-...
with Google right there as a diamond sponsor and Meta as a platinum sponsor. IBM is also a diamond sponsor, and we've all heard about them and the literal Nazis (and the time they got a license exception for JSLint to be able to use it for evil).
Or perhaps the same people are upset over things like Linux sponsors, but everyone ignores them in that context?
The LWN article indicates 24 maintainers have removed themselves, which appears to be ~0.7% of the maintainer list. Were these people particularly impactful? Is there an actual crisis here?
I also don't really get it; are they going to use a different (worse) OS because of this? Or just stop pushing changes upstream for packages they care about (either staying out of date or maintaining a personal fork)? It seems like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
Dolstra nailed it: > It is my opinion that it is not for us, as open source software developers, to decide whose views are valid and whose are not, and to allow or disallow project or conference participation as a result. You really should not be in open source if you believe it is your purview to ideologically police the usage and contribution to your software. That notion is incompatible with the spirit of the ende…
Isn't that exactly what the free software movement is based upon? You can only use our software if you agree to share your source code modifications with the binary (death to proprietary software, very ideological) and you can only contribute if you agree if that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#Software_lic...
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It's wild to see how much hate Anduril gets from the same people who have statements supporting Ukraine in their READMEs or have licenses preventing Russians from using their software. How can you demand support for Ukraine, but then get upset by the people who are meeting actual needs for the war effort?
Anduril started by building tech to hunt poor people crossing the southern border of the US. Their CEO is a right wing extremist. How you can say this is the same as supporting Ukraine against Russia aggression is obviously telling more about you than about anyone else.
Even if you support open borders, this technology is essential.
> Anduril, a military contractor that uses NixOS, has repeatedly attempted to become a sponsor of NixCon, which did not go over well with the community Something similar happened in the Haskell community, where some people called for Anduril job postings to be removed. Nix is a software project, not a social movement. The goals of Nix are entirely separate from how the software is used. I really like Coinbase's state…
> Nix is a software project, not a social movement. Upholding the status quo is a social (and political) movement, it's just the most popular and accepted one.
I tend to agree with you on a moral/culpability level: passive acceptance is doing something but I wouldn't call it a "movement."