The ongoing discussions about age-verification and changes in Free and Open-Source Software and GNU Linux and related OSs made me realize a gross misunderstanding on my part. I think many other users may have the same misunderstanding (seeing many comments using the word “traitors”), and it’s important that we become aware of it. We must understand that using or saying “FOSS” or “Linux” does not automatically mean to stand up for human rights, for the community, against corporations, and similar goals and values.
If we read the comments in those age-verification discussions we can see that many developers and possibly also users make statements like “the developers have no obligation towards the community”, “the law is the law, no matter what the community wants”, “we must comply”, and similar. It’s important to realize that many developers work on FOSS not out of consideration for the community, or for human rights, or against corporations. For them it’s just one kind of software development. We may have projects that are FOSS and pro-corporations or pro-surveillance. The “F” in FOSS stands for freedom to modify and distribute the software by/to anyone in the community. It doesn’t stand for “software that promotes / stands up for general human freedom and human rights". But of course there are also developers that work with FOSS because of such values.
So for anyone who, like me, wants to use and promote software as an assertion of, and a stand for, human rights and against corporations, it’s necessary not to stop at “FOSS” or “Linux” but apply more scrutiny and more careful choices. Probably it’s always been like this, but the present times require extra awareness.
I wish there was an acronym or other word that made this moral aspect of some FOSS development clear. This would help users to recognize software projects that share their values, and also those FOSS developers who do work for those values. Is there such a term already out there?
Regarding “pro human rights”, what I mean is that software development can be (for some) a form of activism for human rights, just like it happens in the arts and in science.
Are you saying you don’t support FOSS projects that aren’t willing to engage in activism? A lot of us are morally aligned with you but aren’t willing to die on that hill. I think this age verification stuff is utter bullshit but if I were a maintainer of a project that was likely to be the target of one of these laws I would not be willing to put my livelihood on the line. Shaming people who are volunteering their time for being unwilling to endanger their livelihoods is pretty entitled IMO.
Yes I don’t support FOSS projects that aren’t willing to engage in activism. But I don’t shame them. That’s exactly the point of my post. Rather than shaming people or projects who’ve made a different choice, I think it’s best to find and focus on those who share one’s choice, for mutual support, discussion, and planning. It’s important to understand that FOSS and activism are two different things.
So… are you using nothing but FOSS from activist projects? That doesn’t seem like a big pool, from what I’ve seen. Or do you mean support as in with your time and/or money?
I have only partially until now. But sadly it looks like we’re entering times where choices regarding activism will become more important and inevitable. The pool with get larger. Any kind of support: money, time, developing, participating, promoting, legal…
In the case of arts. Arts is the transmitter of the message “human’s have rights”. Usually art also depicts some sort of human right, like freedom.
I am not sure how this can be applied to code. There are some projects that use a ukrainian flag to indicate support for ukraine. Is that what you mean by that?
I think code should be free of politics. I don’t want my tennis club to support human rights either. I want to play tennis, not make politics.
In one sense, nothing is “free of politics”. Should your tennis club allow black people to join? There was a day and age when allowing them to join would have been considered a bold political statement. The rules and decisions your tennis club make are inherently political, whether you think of them that way or not.
That being said, more specific to software licenses, the question is whether we should be using verbage that restricts FOSS from being used for unethical purposes (such as military weaponry). There are cases to be made for and against that, and so far, it would seem most FOSS licenses tend toward a less restrictive policy.
So the “political” question in software licenses is: does it make sense to add restrictions in an attempt to promote societal well-being, or do we stick with the “free”-er approach? Both have political and societal ramifications.