Re:Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source
by beaconstudios on Thursday March 24, 2022 @10:46AM
(#30790596)
you can't really escape politics and ideology. What you can do, is to not be petty with your public contributions. As the parent example states, while somebody /could/ embed malware into their software that targets Texans, this falls under the pre-existing social doctrine of a "dick move". These things exist on a scale from "exclude government/corporate entities from your software license" to "try to fuck up random people's hard drives" and vary widely in terms of validity.
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Re:Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source
by BaronVonSteuben on Thursday March 24, 2022 @11:59AM
(#30791705)
I think the main problem is that we are increasingly operating with different definitions of "dick move."
To many people, the idea that a small business owner would have their store burned to the ground because someone else in their town (or on the other side of their country) did something bad, is a massive dick move. Yet, this happened numerous times during the summer of BLM in 2020 and it was widely defended with things like, "everything is political" and "not to take a side is to take a side" and "you're either with us or you're against us" and "mostly peaceful protests." There was even a famous "looting is reparations" in articles and at least one book called "In Defense of Looting."
Re:Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source
by beaconstudios on Friday March 25, 2022 @04:03PM
(#30806499)
If anybody is defending burning down small businesses as part of BLM, I can promise you they're in the vast minority.