71–80 of 286 posts
Nix Flakes looking like the real source of the schism in the Nix community.
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…
Stallman covered this in a (IMHO) very well thought out article: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... His article is specifically about pretend free/open source licenses that restrict what software can be used for. But the conclusion applies to similar behaviors around the entire free/open source ecosystem like conferences: it will just drive participants away and strengthen the position of…
I don't actually know his position on this, but mean to communicate I see the use of free software and the sponsorship issue as separate issues.
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…
Stallman covered this in a (IMHO) very well thought out article: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... His article is specifically about pretend free/open source licenses that restrict what software can be used for. But the conclusion applies to similar behaviors around the entire free/open source ecosystem like conferences: it will just drive participants away and strengthen the position of…
(Signed, someone who absolutely does not want military contractors in their community, but feels that a license is the wrong place to enforce that.)
I think it’s important to make clear that the letter is mostly bogus and almost libelous. Check into any one claim, and you’ll find it’s not the entire story. This however is true: > The Foundation board has unrepresentative composition relative to the community because, due to our count, all current members are cisgender, white-passing, men, one of whom has done military service, and one other (Eelco) likely relies…
While this may be technically true, the framing seems disingenuous, unless I am missing something. I have not been following the situation closely. My understanding is that Eelco's company, Determinate Systems, _may_ have contracts with customers connected to the military-industrial complex, but I dislike the implication as it renders Eelco as a bad-faith actor. It seems like a circular argument. I also dislike the implication that it is somehow problematic for Eelco's _for profit_, separate entity to have customers that the _community_ finds problematic.
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…
I don't see anything in the article that indicates ideological policing. Did I miss that part? It seems like these are questions of conflicts of interest and how the organization is being run. Those seem very relevant.
I absolutely sympathize with them fwiw. I despise DRM and think it's a reprehensible practice, and I would be extremely off-put if my code were being used by one of those companies. I would hate to see them at a conference. But I acknowledge that is my ideological bend, so my opposition there is "ideological"
> 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…
Upholding the status quo is a social (and political) movement, it's just the most popular and accepted one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stallman covered this in a (IMHO) very well thought out article: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freed... His article is specifically about pretend free/open source licenses that restrict what software can be used for. But the conclusion applies to similar behaviors around the entire free/open source ecosystem like conferences: it will just drive participants away and strengthen the position of…
Bridging Stallman's article to the issue at hand of sponsorship, I find it hard to believe that because he's fine with say Oracle using his code that he would also be fine with giving them a platform as a sponsor. I don't actually know his position on this, but mean to communicate I see the use of free software and the sponsorship issue as separate issues.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very reasonable to not want your work used by arms dealers, and it is in fact your purview to "ideologically police" the uses your work is applied to. "If you don't want to help create war machines you can't contribute" is your solution, not mine. Historically the conventions of open source has been that use is completely without restriction, but there has always been conflict about that. The domain is new enoug…
But the software licensing explicitly allows your work being used by anyone (as long as they adhere to the license). If you don't want your work to be used by entities you disagree with you can not contribute to the project or advocate for use of a different license.
Skimming the letter makes it look like another attempt at pushing through their Code of Conduct (RFC98) targeting "ideas rooted in fascism or bigotry", whatever that means. Now going a step further by erasing the people in charge.
> targeting "ideas rooted in fascism or bigotry" Is targeting "ideas rooted in fascism or bigotry" a bad thing?
The root of the problem is that it is basically impossible to defend yourself against the accusation that you are secretly a fascist. If you say yes, you admit to being a fascist, if you say no, you're a lying fascist. If you question why the accusation is levied against someone else, you're defending a fascist, if you speak out against the proceedings, you're defending fascism.
The only way to prevent accusations of harboring secret fascist sympathies is to deflect the accusation by lashing out against others with the same sort of accusation, thus demonstrating that you are not secretly a fascist.
This is a dynamic that has repeated itself many times, it's the engine behind countless actual witch hunts, but also metaphorical ones such as the McCarthy-era red scare, the ideological persecution under Stalin.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
How is it slanderous to point out the board composition is not representative of the community. Seriously walk me through this one.
The slander against the board is quite obvious and I believe you're being disingenuous.