5 ms·

No, you're not. This is an argument that doesn't hold water. Why am I morally responsible but none of the abstractions below my code are not? What about chip ma

No, you're not. This is an argument that doesn't hold water. Why am I morally responsible but none of the abstractions below my code are not? What about chip manufacturers? The developers of CPU instruction sets? Compiler developers?

iandanforth 6y ago
They are. Why wouldn't they be? We put people in jail for distributing potentially harmful tools to people who are known to desire to harm others. This is not a new or controversial idea.
- umvi 6y ago
  Name one tool that has not been used to kill someone or commit an immoral act
  - iandanforth 6y ago
    This attitude disturbs me, it tries to absolve responsibility by denying the possibility that responsible behavior is possible. That's not just obviously false, whole troves of law cover exactly this point, individuals and corporations have responsibility that follows their products.
    - umvi 6y ago
      Your attitude disturbs me. You want the ability to yank the rug out from under individuals and corporations if they ever do something that runs afoul of your personal morality system. How do I know your sense of morality isn't capricious and subject to the whims of twitter mobs? You could destroy my whole business if you arbitrarily deem my current or past actions immoral. For that reason, I will never, ever use software with a license like that. Therefore, I will never, ever create software with a license like that.
    - DSMan195276 6y ago
      I just want to say I agree 100%. All these arguments that people are making that you can just absolve yourself from responsibility for anything you create because "you don't know what they'll do with it" worries me. Sure, a JS Linter is probably not a thing to be worried about, and adding an entry to your software license doesn't really help, but people (and developers) are asked to do arguably bad things, and we should encourage people to use their moral judgement in deciding whether to do something rather than just decide "I'm not responsible, so it doesn't matter". I think it's also somewhat interesting to compare these comments against the ones on articles where we find out a company is helping China (or a different country) censor their website, either locally or globally. In those situations people are upset they were willing to do it - but why wouldn't they if they have no moral responsibility for what they're making and it brings in more dollars? Someone in those companies had to approve it and eventually add those lines of code or those entries in a database, and good or bad they should be willing to stand up for those decisions and say no if they truly disagree with what they're doing. They are, quite literally, our last line of defense against such actions - and it might not be "fair" to them, but it is reality.
      - umvi 6y ago
        I don't think Linus Torvalds loses sleep at night just because North Korea has created a controlled linux distribution for use in their country[0]. Would you if you were the creator of Linux? If so, what would you have done that Linus Torvalds didn't do? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
        DSMan195276 6y ago
        Your example is so simplistic, not all situations are so passive and indirect. Here's some better ones: Do you think Linus would be willing to adding a driver for a USB device developed by North Korea that could or would be used by them for nefarious purposes? Do you think he would be willing to adding code that would make it easier for the NSA to spy on Linux users? Do you think he would be willing to add code to track Linux usage? Do you think he would continue to develop and work on Linux if it turned out North Korea was the only user of it? Not just one of, but the sole consumer? The real world involves actual hard problems and questions, and in some cases (In Linus's case, probably more often than not) your choices will have a direct impact on people. And while I can't tell you Linus's answers for those questions, it's not the answers that matter. What's important is that he should be willing to stand up for those decisions. It shouldn't be acceptable to us or him for him to simply throw his hands in the air and say "well I don't have any responsibility here so who cares how this software is used".
DSMan195276 6y ago
I think adding the term to the license doesn't solve this problem (and were silly), but I think your argument is the wrong way to look at it. People should take a moral responsibility for the code they write, and refuse to write code if they view its uses as immoral, but you have to weigh for yourself what that means and what those criteria are, and adding a license requirement doesn't solve this problem. It's not hard to justify developing a compiler or CPU (or a JS lintier) and deciding that it's just a generic tool and you have no control over the code compiled with it - and that's perfectly fine. You might however find it harder to justify writing functionality that's designed to track people or that you know is intended to be used for nefarious purposes, and in those situations you should be willing to hold yourself to whatever moral standard you have determined. Just because everyone below you hasn't prevented you from doing it isn't a reason to go along with it, you know more directly what your software is going to be used for than they do and they're effectively trusting you to make these decisions. Again though, a JS linter doesn't exactly have these concerns ;)
- wolco 6y ago
  Tracking someone isn't evil. Killing someone isn't evil. Pushing a kid into the bushes isn't evil either. Your tracking someone explore a new cave and recording paths found. You kill someone who is about to kill other innocent people. Pushing a kid into bushes to avoid a car could save their life. Evil depends on context. What's evil to you is not evil to me either. Courts generally throw out clauses like these unless the definition of evil is part of the agreement.
  - DSMan195276 6y ago
    I think it's worth pointing out I agree the clause is silly. I was talking on a more broader context of software development.

iandanforth 6y ago

They are. Why wouldn't they be? We put people in jail for distributing potentially harmful tools to people who are known to desire to harm others. This is not a new or controversial idea.

umvi 6y ago
Name one tool that has not been used to kill someone or commit an immoral act
- iandanforth 6y ago
  This attitude disturbs me, it tries to absolve responsibility by denying the possibility that responsible behavior is possible. That's not just obviously false, whole troves of law cover exactly this point, individuals and corporations have responsibility that follows their products.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Your attitude disturbs me. You want the ability to yank the rug out from under individuals and corporations if they ever do something that runs afoul of your personal morality system. How do I know your sense of morality isn't capricious and subject to the whims of twitter mobs? You could destroy my whole business if you arbitrarily deem my current or past actions immoral. For that reason, I will never, ever use software with a license like that. Therefore, I will never, ever create software with a license like that.
  - DSMan195276 6y ago
    I just want to say I agree 100%. All these arguments that people are making that you can just absolve yourself from responsibility for anything you create because "you don't know what they'll do with it" worries me. Sure, a JS Linter is probably not a thing to be worried about, and adding an entry to your software license doesn't really help, but people (and developers) are asked to do arguably bad things, and we should encourage people to use their moral judgement in deciding whether to do something rather than just decide "I'm not responsible, so it doesn't matter". I think it's also somewhat interesting to compare these comments against the ones on articles where we find out a company is helping China (or a different country) censor their website, either locally or globally. In those situations people are upset they were willing to do it - but why wouldn't they if they have no moral responsibility for what they're making and it brings in more dollars? Someone in those companies had to approve it and eventually add those lines of code or those entries in a database, and good or bad they should be willing to stand up for those decisions and say no if they truly disagree with what they're doing. They are, quite literally, our last line of defense against such actions - and it might not be "fair" to them, but it is reality.
    - umvi 6y ago
      I don't think Linus Torvalds loses sleep at night just because North Korea has created a controlled linux distribution for use in their country[0]. Would you if you were the creator of Linux? If so, what would you have done that Linus Torvalds didn't do? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
      - DSMan195276 6y ago
        Your example is so simplistic, not all situations are so passive and indirect. Here's some better ones: Do you think Linus would be willing to adding a driver for a USB device developed by North Korea that could or would be used by them for nefarious purposes? Do you think he would be willing to adding code that would make it easier for the NSA to spy on Linux users? Do you think he would be willing to add code to track Linux usage? Do you think he would continue to develop and work on Linux if it turned out North Korea was the only user of it? Not just one of, but the sole consumer? The real world involves actual hard problems and questions, and in some cases (In Linus's case, probably more often than not) your choices will have a direct impact on people. And while I can't tell you Linus's answers for those questions, it's not the answers that matter. What's important is that he should be willing to stand up for those decisions. It shouldn't be acceptable to us or him for him to simply throw his hands in the air and say "well I don't have any responsibility here so who cares how this software is used".

DSMan195276 6y ago

I think adding the term to the license doesn't solve this problem (and were silly), but I think your argument is the wrong way to look at it. People should take a moral responsibility for the code they write, and refuse to write code if they view its uses as immoral, but you have to weigh for yourself what that means and what those criteria are, and adding a license requirement doesn't solve this problem. It's not hard to justify developing a compiler or CPU (or a JS lintier) and deciding that it's just a generic tool and you have no control over the code compiled with it - and that's perfectly fine. You might however find it harder to justify writing functionality that's designed to track people or that you know is intended to be used for nefarious purposes, and in those situations you should be willing to hold yourself to whatever moral standard you have determined. Just because everyone below you hasn't prevented you from doing it isn't a reason to go along with it, you know more directly what your software is going to be used for than they do and they're effectively trusting you to make these decisions. Again though, a JS linter doesn't exactly have these concerns ;)

wolco 6y ago
Tracking someone isn't evil. Killing someone isn't evil. Pushing a kid into the bushes isn't evil either. Your tracking someone explore a new cave and recording paths found. You kill someone who is about to kill other innocent people. Pushing a kid into bushes to avoid a car could save their life. Evil depends on context. What's evil to you is not evil to me either. Courts generally throw out clauses like these unless the definition of evil is part of the agreement.
- DSMan195276 6y ago
  I think it's worth pointing out I agree the clause is silly. I was talking on a more broader context of software development.