Open source has become a safe harbor for far-right politics, from David Heinemeier Hansson's white-nationalist rhetoric and the Omarchy Foundation's $12 million in patron funding to so-called apolitical projects that treat marginalized contributors as political, and why a united boycott of complicit tech companies is our only way forward.
Jesus kurwa ja pierdole… Code is code. Who the fuck cares who wrote it? Unless project itself serves racist/transphobic/homophobic/etc purposes (like an app specifically build to doxx gay people or something) I don’t care who’s developing it. If you don’t agree with the developers simply don’t donate or contribute to the project. If it’s paid don’t support their business. If it’s free - who cares?
I don’t really care that some influencers use open source to promote their shitty agenda. There are shitty influencers everywhere and there’s plenty of fascist money to go around so yes, they will always find some sponsors. Don’t donate, don’t contribute, don’t engage. But if the code is already written and does something useful… who cares who wrote it?
I think the issue here is that 12 million has been donated to a fascist, not just that some people use said fascist’s software.
Like yes it’s technically a foundation, but he can just use that money to further his fascist goals. Remember, this is a dude who complained that non-white people dare exist in London
I agree. It’s an issue that some right wing foundation got 12 million dollars. It’s a political issue. The fact that some people use some free software is not an issue at all. What I was talking about is people mixing those two things, exactly like you did in this sentence. I wrote more about in a comment below so I’m not going to repeat it here.
Can you please be ignorant somewhere else? Thanks!
Yeah but the problem with that argument is that when kind and empathetic people have to starve and beg for money with equal or higher level of quality output compared to those who peddle racism and bigotry, it feels like the world only rewards racism and bigotry.
You tell me: there are a lot of great projects that don’t spread hatred, bigotry and disparity but they don’t get even a fraction of the funding this project gets. And this project is just some dotfiles over ArchLinux. Even Archlinux didn’t get this much funding in one go.
The spirit of open-source is built on Kindness and Empathy. When a movement such as that is slowly hijacked by people who are ideologically opposed to kindness and empathy, then the kind and empathetic get deprived of a sense of place and belonging.
The main idea of open source is that code should be free (as in speech) so people can really own it, modify it, contribute and work on it together. So no, open source is not about Kindness and Empathy. I can accept your PR for my project and I don’t have to know anything about your values, opinions or gender. If you run into a bug in an app you’re using you can submit a fix without getting into the politics of the maintainer. Open source is a technical solution for a practical problem of locked down code.
What your talking about is another layer of ideology and politics built on top of the open source movement. It’s natural that people from communities and need some rules on interacting within them. In different groups different views become mainstream and different types of people join them. Then groups with different ideologies start fighting with each other. It’s all normal. And yes, right wing influencers always get more funding simply because rich people are mostly right wing and are willing to support them.
The problem here is that people now start to mix those two layers and try to govern the technical part using tools from the ideological part. If code is useful, if it does something we need (it’s a driver, it’s a protocol implementation, it’s offers some crucial functionality) it doesn’t really matter who wrote it. You can use it and it will not contaminate your computer with fascist/liberal ideology. If you want to engage will all this drama on political level you’re free to do it, just like you’re free to be a political activist in any other space. Just be careful not to mix politics with code. What is happening now is that people start rejecting code because they don’t like who wrote it. It makes no sense. It’s just code.
If you pay a nazi to bake you a pizza, you may have gotten a pizza you need to live, but you’ve also paid a nazi.
And when there are also 19 other pizzamakers, who aren’t nazis, then it’s not all that strange for people to think it’s a bad thing when you get your pizza from a nazi.
Do you pay for your open source code? I don’t.
Someone paid 12 million
And interestingly enough, the people with money all seem to go to the nazi pizzamaker
Even if you’re not giving money, your still giving support to a facist. You’re saying “I dont mind that they’re facist as long as I benefit from their work”. Just by using their software they’re being promoted over non-facist software.
When a facist gives out a free lunch, and people line up for the lunch, the facist is getting visibility for their facism.
No, you think that because you’re mixing politics and engineering and you feel ‘yucky’ when using software written by someone you disagree with. I don’t.
If a fascist engineer designed a bridge and I walk on it am I supporting fascism? Am I giving visibility to it? Do I have to walk around and use a different bridge? You will probably say that yes, people using roads in New York support racism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses) but I disagree.
I can use software without giving money, likes, following its creator on social media, reposting his messages or otherwise promoting his ideas. His code running on my computer doesn’t provide any support to him, same as people driving under racist bridges don’t promote racism.
Thank you for writing this. I find this behavior incredibly counterproductive and immature. Additionally people are like “look at all of its security flaws!”. Great, now all of the fringe people who have joined Linux because it has gotten them to jump Microsoft/Apple ship and who might not understand the realm of software are just going to get hit with FUD.
If you’re going to keep up the crusade against it, wouldn’t it just be better to channel that energy into a fork and that way we can all build of its success?
I have used Omarchy and I loved it. DHH also acts like someone I might feel desirous of punching. It feels like something Microsoft would seed discontent and leverage our lizard brains’ need to shake our fists in the air.
Opposing racism and bigotry is not immature. I feel like you should learn kindness and empathy.
additionally, i’m not saying that opposing racism or bigotry is immature. I’m saying throwing out a successful open-source project because the owner is allegedly a racist/bigot (i admittedly know nothing or care to know anything about this DHH character) is counterproductive. Is the code racist/bigoted? If I make something using Omarchy as my OS, am I racist/bigoted? It sounds like that’s what you’re implying…
i find it interesting you think that i do not have kindness or empathy based on my stance. I’d be curious if you were to meet me in real life if you could pick me out of a hypothetical lineup.
This project has received money because it has drawn people to linux. I can still appreciate open-source code even if it’s written by an asshat.
On the other hand, I won’t touch an Apple product and I judge tech enthusiasts who do. I will still say they make impressive products, but I have a strong stance against proprietary code for the sake of profit.