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You know, it wasn't too long ago that people were unpublishing repos because they learned ICE was using their software. There was a strong drive to add a code o

You know, it wasn't too long ago that people were unpublishing repos because they learned ICE was using their software. There was a strong drive to add a code of ethics to software, and an attempt to make software developers liable for how people use (or misuse) their software. Opposition to this idea was very poorly received. What makes this any different? Are we for using OSS to try and drive morality, or not? (My answer is no to both accounts, for the record, and hasn't changed.)

thatguy0900 6y ago
What makes this different is that is is trying to enforce unpopular ethics
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Unpopular to who? Christianity is a massive chunk of the US population (whether they actually practice what they preach is a different question).
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Unpopular to a lot of the people in the position of deciding software ethics, going by the dismissive tone here
  - sofixa 6y ago
    Christianity is among the religions that have the biggest amount of interpretations and custom versions believing in subsets or supersets of it ( just for starters, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Mormons, and a million others). Due to age, evolving interpretations, efforts of modernization and various sects, "Christianity" can mean different things to different people, and enforcing any version of it is bound to piss off any competing sect, religion and all non-religious people, which will probably be the majority.
ghaff 6y ago
Codes of Ethics and licenses are somewhat orthogonal. There are various engineering codes of ethics. Without looking, I think both the ACM and IEEE have them. I'd observe though that doesn't keep engineers from working on nuclear weapons for example. Which one may or may not agree with. In general, I don't think the idea of ethical licenses which was at least a somewhat hot topic in certain circles a while back really was a popular idea overall. And, in any case, I haven't heard it come up for a while.
- bjt2n3904 6y ago
  It's like we're rediscovering morality from first principles. "Haha, look at those old fashioned religions and their quaint religious texts. How shocking that someone would not know how to behave if it weren't for some words on a page. Anyways, I've just submitted a pull request to update the terms on our code of ethics that all users are bound to adhere to. It's very important to use the software to advance social causes!"

thatguy0900 6y ago

What makes this different is that is is trying to enforce unpopular ethics

colejohnson66 6y ago
Unpopular to who? Christianity is a massive chunk of the US population (whether they actually practice what they preach is a different question).
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Unpopular to a lot of the people in the position of deciding software ethics, going by the dismissive tone here
- sofixa 6y ago
  Christianity is among the religions that have the biggest amount of interpretations and custom versions believing in subsets or supersets of it ( just for starters, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Mormons, and a million others). Due to age, evolving interpretations, efforts of modernization and various sects, "Christianity" can mean different things to different people, and enforcing any version of it is bound to piss off any competing sect, religion and all non-religious people, which will probably be the majority.

ghaff 6y ago

Codes of Ethics and licenses are somewhat orthogonal. There are various engineering codes of ethics. Without looking, I think both the ACM and IEEE have them. I'd observe though that doesn't keep engineers from working on nuclear weapons for example. Which one may or may not agree with. In general, I don't think the idea of ethical licenses which was at least a somewhat hot topic in certain circles a while back really was a popular idea overall. And, in any case, I haven't heard it come up for a while.

bjt2n3904 6y ago
It's like we're rediscovering morality from first principles. "Haha, look at those old fashioned religions and their quaint religious texts. How shocking that someone would not know how to behave if it weren't for some words on a page. Anyways, I've just submitted a pull request to update the terms on our code of ethics that all users are bound to adhere to. It's very important to use the software to advance social causes!"