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Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

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Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#561

Post by mrtranscendence »

whimsicalism wrote: post #389
mrtranscendence wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically is empty talk? Someone can support Ukraine for a number of reasons that don't require withdrawing from all life in a western nation. They might trust that their rulers have evaluated most alternatives before deploying military options and do not kill indiscriminately. You might scoff, but I suspect most people are at least somewhat in that boat; even if they think that the US shouldn't have invaded…

> murders of civilians were minimal. But nobody (AFAIK) is contesting that the US killed more civilians in Iraq or in Syria (or second-order in Libya) than Russia has killed in Ukraine. Your argument is that people perceive it as okay because the intentions were good? Our government could not forsee that these people would die, it was unexpected? Or were they unintended consequences that were foreseen? I don't believ…

> But nobody (AFAIK) is contesting that the US killed more civilians in Iraq or in Syria (or second-order in Libya) than Russia has killed in Ukraine.

That's missing the point. Nobody with knowledge of the matter is contesting that, but plenty of people lack that knowledge. This means that they're not willfully ignoring the kind of contradiction that would make their opinions about Ukraine "empty talk".

> Your argument is that people perceive it as okay because the intentions were good?

No, my opinion is that many people don't realize how objectionably the US has behaved in the past (and currently), so it's not apropos to call them out on a contradiction that invalidates their outlook on Russia's invasion. Call them out on ignorance all you like, though.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#562

Post by thot_experiment »

eternityforest wrote: post #559
thot_experiment wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It harms all of technology and by extension anyone who participates in the modern world. Just like any malware or other antisocial behaviour. Sure but the problems are in order of significance are: Putin invading Ukraine Trusting things from NPM This author adding malware to his package I'm disappointed by the chorus of "keep politics out of tech" that seems so prevalent on HN, though not surprised. In general I'm…

I believe pretty strongly in some of Taleb's theories. That some people are antifragile, they gain from chaos, and that the people in the strongest positions are the ones who do so. What I don't agree with is the idea of structuring society to benefit antifragile people and encourage more to become such. Indiscriminate sabotage is a type of chaos. I expect it to always benefit those who are already in the strongest p…

> But to me, it seems pretty random and poorly thought out.

I agree with this, it's not a move I personally would do, but yet I can't condemn it either. Lashing out like this when faced with the horrors of war makes sense to me.

> What I don't agree with is the idea of structuring society to benefit antifragile people and encourage more to become such.

I agree with the sentiment here, but on some level I feel that an increase in antifragility is necessary to combat the centralization of power. It strikes me as the only way to prevent bad actors in positions of power for ruining it for everyone else.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#563

Post by leaflets2 »

IMTDb wrote: post #531
leaflets2 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply -- seems there's some misunderstandings. Details below. > people who can't swallow the cost will pour in their last savings for a few more hours of warmth Where I live, people aren't that short sighted. They bought all the toilet paper, planning months ahead. > Those who can't will start rioting, Eh, no. Not when they know the higher prices are for saving people in Ukraine. But if they didn't kno…

> Where I live, people aren't that short sighted. They bought all the toilet paper, planning months ahead. Where you live, people chose to ensure that their comfort would be safeguarded, above all else, even if that lead to shortages for other people. "I don't care if I have too much and other people don't have enough, as long as I am confortable" was their motto. That has to tell you something. > Not when they know…

> That has to tell you something

I wasn't completely serious with that comparison (that they bought all the toilet paper). But saving energy, turning down the heating, isn't that mentally advanced? And people do plan a bit ahead, otherwise people couldn't have survived in the cold parts of Europe (if they didn't plan for the winter).

> When it means not being able to sleep because of cold

Seems to me that the state and municipalities should be able to save some gas and oil, for the coldest days.

But I'd say it's not that cold. Where I live (in northern Europe), I frequently wear extra jumpers, instead of using the heaters at all -- works also with snow outdoors and the lake frozen to ice (did you try? Put on a jacket and a winter cap, if it doesn't seem to work, and double trousers and 3 x socks).

> So the solution is to subsidise people on the countryside, subsidise people needing vans or trucks [...] subsidise [...] subsidise [...] subsidise ... the list goes on [...]

Sounds like too much subsidies.

Instead, look at society's covid response: Public transport drivers, and health care workers, and teachers -- all of them got to continue working, in spite of the virus. Such job roles could be prioritized, now as well.

> Benelux is the poster child for a society built for bicycles, in practice it only works for 5~10% of the population

That's interesting. What about buses and subways? Where I live, few people go by bike. Instead, buses and subways.

Couldn't the state hire more bus drivers, in Benelux, so fewer people needed cars. And people could do ride sharing, so there wasn't just 1 person per car. There could be ride sharing websites, and the state could ask everyone to use them.

Look at this:

Occupancy rate (passengers per vehicle), Commuting to/from work: 1.1 - 1.2

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/ENVISSUENo12/page029....

But one can fit 5 people in a car. This indicates that by coordinating traveling to / from work, the gas needed for commuting, could be reduced (theoretically almost 80% but I suppose 50% would be more realistic).

> Trigger points are : getting a child, changing jobs to something further away [...]

Interesting.

> We are very far away from a carless world

Hmm, what you describe sounds like a careless world to me? I mean, people prioritizing their cars and gas, and being okay with others then more likely getting bombed, elsewhere. (Don't know if you meant to write something else)

> puts the biggest amount of the weight on the poor. I don't find that acceptable

Do you find it acceptable, though, to give money to Putin so he can continue bombing? That sounds like a greater evil to me.

It's about choosing the least bad thing, I think.

There's also rationing -- controlled distribution of gas and oil, so everyone got the same amount. Or, prices could be low, until one's household had consumed X amount of gas -- then, the prices would rise, sharply, for that household. A bit like progressive taxes, but for gas and oil.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#564

Post by aspenmayer »

shkkmo wrote: post #530
aspenmayer wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If the node devs did the same thing, this whole story would have been a nonstarter. I don’t recall if you suggested for node devs to also do this. Ironically, if the dev who made the hard drive wiping changes had said that it was a protest against the bad practices of the node e…

With backend code, malicious stuff has to get through testing and hopefully some level of review, which is why the hard drive wiping changes were deliberately obfuscated. The problem with loading frontend libraries directly from third parties is that they can change that code at anytime and for arbitrary subsets of users.

> The problem with loading frontend libraries directly from third parties is that they can change that code at anytime and for arbitrary subsets of users.

I’m showing my ignorance here, but why does node do this? Is that just a consequence of how JavaScript works in the browser? Could node be designed or used differently so that it doesn’t have these failure modes?

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#565

Post by FDSGSG »

vkou wrote: post #540
FDSGSG wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's an obvious difference between trying to hurt people and not trading with them yourself Ah yes, because seizing Russian assets overseas is the same as "not trading with them".

Using another country's financial systems exposes you to significantly more counterparty risk, than using your own's. Nobody was forcing Russia's ruling class to have all their money in overseas bank accounts.

Same goes for using software from other countries, no?

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#566

Post by throwaway7033 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #184
duxup wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

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…

Here are some package counts(http://www.modulecounts.com/) for different platforms:

* npm - (1,916,619)

* Maven - (465,713)

* NuGet - (299,957)

npm has about 2.5 times the number of packages as Maven and NuGet combined; it's not surprising that it has more drama than other ecosystems.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#567

Post by aakresearch »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #545
jaldhar wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we still talking about BLM? Because I regret to inform you it has already gone away. The city where I lived published their provisional crimes stats for 2021 and it looks like murder rates have gone up. Most of that is gang related and black on black. Not only has the city not “defunded” the police department they’re looking to purchase what can only be described as a tank from a Homeland Security grant. There ar…

Maybe it didn't help much, and so what? Are you saying we shouldn't even try?

Precisely. We should not try things which, blatantly obviously, do not work, because it distracts and takes precious resources from things that actually do work. That applies to BLM in the same way as it applied to covid, as well as climate change and million other things. Virtue-signalling theater is distracting at best and harmful at worst.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#568

Post by FDSGSG »

yyyk wrote: post #551
FDSGSG wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless, Russia will not be able to subdue Ukraine, but there's nothing good coming from a more enthusiastic Russian society. You are mistaken if you believe that Russian society isn't already enthusiastic. But this isn't a country with the warrior culture US has, dying for your country isn't cool in Russia, it just means that you were too poor and/or stupid to dodge the draft. > There's a law for these things.…

>You are mistaken if you believe that Russian society isn't already enthusiastic. It's a society where showing up for what the authorities do is common. >Which law is that? A long codicil of war conventions (Geneva, Hague) and anti-terrorism conventions. What I wrote is a common exegesis. >Many of the sanctions... The sanctions will not go away. As I wrote, there's a difference between 'we won't trade with you' and a…

>It's a society where showing up for what the authorities do is common.

For a variety of reasons much of my circle of friend consists of Russians living abroad, you're mistaken if you believe that they support Russian leadership out of fear of what might happen if they didn't.

>A long codicil of war conventions (Geneva, Hague) and anti-terrorism conventions. What I wrote is a common exegesis.

But sanctions do exactly that. Attack random civilians.

> As I wrote, there's a difference between 'we won't trade with you' and actively harming someone.

It's not "we won't trade with you", that's a dishonest way of putting it. It's "we won't allow others to trade with you", which is very much actively harming someone.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#569

Post by cestith »

alexb_ wrote: post #53
cestith wrote: post #12

Bram Moolenaar famously uses Vim to raise awareness. A VPN package, dead drop website, steganography package, onion router, multi-point P2P routing mesh drivers, or other software and education on how to use them could really make a difference for dissidents. There are certainly productive ways to use software to support protests, organizing, workers' strikes, or even support targeted sabotage or insurrections withou…

He uses it to help starving children by including a message on startup. That's a little more agreeable and less political than all of the things you listed. To try and compare it is fucking absurd.

One of the things I listed is more agreeable than all of the things I listed? Please tell me more about how that works.

Re: Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

#570

Post by baryphonic »

heavyset_go wrote: post #446
zzzeek wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a look at the first site in responsive design mode and it looks like the "Branches" menu, which aims to be in a fixed spot, is getting pushed down by the extra content. the actual protest message scrolls up with the rest of it and does not get in the way of anything. Seems like a simple UX bug that could be fixed if you send the developers a bug report.

> Seems like a simple UX bug that could be fixed if you send the developers a bug report. Something tells me that they don't want to actually fix anything and are just virtue signalling on HN.

https://github.com/sveltejs/sites/issues/319

https://github.com/isomorphic-git/isomorphic-git.github.io/i...

Please, tell me what else I am "virtue signalling on HN" about.

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