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As much as I hate what Russia is doing, I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. If an author of a library chooses to apply political

As much as I hate what Russia is doing, I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. If an author of a library chooses to apply political condition(however justified they may be), then the software is simply not free by definition. I’m neither Russian nor Ukrainian. I cannot turn a blind eye simply because it doesn’t apply to me. What if another library that I use apply a license that says “those that look like this cannot use my software from now on”?

black_puppydog 5y ago
> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. Really? Making software free is just about as political as it gets. Restricting that freedom, as happens here, is equally political. I guess you just don't this special kind of politics in your software.
- joshmanders 5y ago
  Right? Like the whole open source movement was a massive political thing... Open source by definition is political.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    I think you are confusing it with the free software movement. Their idea of proprietary software being "evil" is why they don't get as much support as compared to open source.
  - chii 5y ago
    but software licenses are related to the field of software and freedom _within_ software. I'd hate to say it, but including other political ideologies into the software license is making it more political. If the author of the software wants to, he is within his rights, but i think it's the wrong platform to try to voice his opinion. A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power. May be this war is extenuating circumstances - and understandable. But i'm concerned about the slippery slope. Realistically a license change is not going to affect the course of the war, nor make putin reconsider. I argue that the effort is only going to inconvenience their users, without actually making a true change. It may be better to ask for donations, etc, rather than changing the license as a political statement.
    - joshmanders 5y ago
      > A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power. I disagree, I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform. Anyone who thinks using your platform regardless of the context is bad are people who feel inconvenienced, threatened or annoyed by said message in which case, congratulations you successfully achieved your goal. If Colin Kaepernick didn't use his platform as an NFL player and instead did something else like I don't know, stood outside his political offices holding a sign, would have had dramatically less impact and probably wouldn't have gone anywhere, but he used his platform and now look, we're still talking about it, black lives mattering, and all the messages he was intending to send what 4 years later?
      - chii 5y ago
        > I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform. you think that because the message resonates with you. You happen to agree with the ideology being presented. If you truly are one who would allow such political messages to be sent via an unrelated platform, then you are also implicitly in agreement to acts of terrorism. After all, the terrorists are just using such platforms to spread their political message too. Of course, i can hear the rebuts - that terrorists aim to kill, and they don't deserve to say spread their opinions that way. But who's to judge? Who's to say that it is not right for them to do it, but for some inexplicable reason, it is right when the opinion being said is in line with your own? I'm not one for making the world any more political than it already is. I disagree with the russian invasion of ukraine, but any action i take would be via my gov't - e.g., my taxes go towards paying for aid to ukraine, or charities donating.
        joshmanders 5y ago
        That's a large reach you have there, did the Guinness book of world records come and award you a trophy?
      - 5y ago
  - rgoulter 5y ago
    I think "open source is political" uses the word 'political' in a significantly different way than stuff like "I'd hate to see more politics in software discussions". Consider: "Open source is political": the power 'open source' relates to is the power of the licensed software's users to read the program's source code, and to redistribute/modify the program. Insofar as there's a moral vision to it, the idea of a world where users are unable to distribute/modify/etc. their software is worse than a world with open source software. Whereas, the meta-statement "don't bring politics into discussions" is more like rules-of-engagement for discussion involving a diverse group of people. The 'political' in the statement refers to e.g. moral or ideological points of view. -- "asl2.0, but you have to agree abortion is murder" is 'political' in a different way than "asl2.0, you can't use this software if your name is Jared", because the restrictions itself is about a moral disagreement.
throw_m239339 5y ago
The reasonable answer is also a political fork. The author is entitled to use whatever license they want, and the community is entitled to a fork if it doesn't violate the previous license. That's all there is to it. the author doesn't owe the community anything, and the community, as long as they respect the terms of the previous license, is free to fork the project and get rid of the new license. In general, these political stunts eventually reflect badly on their author. Open source is a double edged sword.
- jacobr1 5y ago
  Although one thing the author does owe the community is clarity in the license. The PR in question changed the named of the license from "Apache 2.0" to "Modified Apache." If you change the terms of a well known license, like Apache or MIT or whatever, for whatever reason, you should not mislead others into thinking it is an unmodified licensed.
  - antonbabenko 5y ago
    I have updated the wording in README - https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-eks#additional-information-for-users-from-russia-and-belarus https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-eks#a... . The project was and will be under the same Apache 2 license.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      That makes it clear.
jen20 5y ago
> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. You would hate a statement being added to README file EVEN MORE than civilians being shelled indiscriminately, entire families shot while waiting in bread lines, and the targeting of war correspondents by a foreign army? Got it.
- reacharavindh 5y ago
  That’s a twisted interpretation of what I wrote. One can be disgusted to a high extent, and then from that baseline even more disgusted by some _added_ on top of it. Just because a despicable thing is happening, one must not justify viewing the whole world through that lens _alone_ and refuse to reason things in other contexts.
  - jen20 5y ago
    In that case the appropriate phrase is “would also hate” rather than “would hate even more”.
clearcoat 5y ago
> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. Yes, but has not that ship sailed already? I go to great efforts to keep my "feed" purely technically focused, but in the past ~2 years this has become basically impossible.

black_puppydog 5y ago

> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. Really? Making software free is just about as political as it gets. Restricting that freedom, as happens here, is equally political. I guess you just don't this special kind of politics in your software.

joshmanders 5y ago
Right? Like the whole open source movement was a massive political thing... Open source by definition is political.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  I think you are confusing it with the free software movement. Their idea of proprietary software being "evil" is why they don't get as much support as compared to open source.
- chii 5y ago
  but software licenses are related to the field of software and freedom _within_ software. I'd hate to say it, but including other political ideologies into the software license is making it more political. If the author of the software wants to, he is within his rights, but i think it's the wrong platform to try to voice his opinion. A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power. May be this war is extenuating circumstances - and understandable. But i'm concerned about the slippery slope. Realistically a license change is not going to affect the course of the war, nor make putin reconsider. I argue that the effort is only going to inconvenience their users, without actually making a true change. It may be better to ask for donations, etc, rather than changing the license as a political statement.
  - joshmanders 5y ago
    > A piece of software is a platform - but using this platform (granted to the author by the participation of a community) to further a different, unrelated ideology could be considered abuse of power. I disagree, I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform. Anyone who thinks using your platform regardless of the context is bad are people who feel inconvenienced, threatened or annoyed by said message in which case, congratulations you successfully achieved your goal. If Colin Kaepernick didn't use his platform as an NFL player and instead did something else like I don't know, stood outside his political offices holding a sign, would have had dramatically less impact and probably wouldn't have gone anywhere, but he used his platform and now look, we're still talking about it, black lives mattering, and all the messages he was intending to send what 4 years later?
    - chii 5y ago
      > I think using any platform you have to spread a message that is important to you is a GREAT use of said platform. you think that because the message resonates with you. You happen to agree with the ideology being presented. If you truly are one who would allow such political messages to be sent via an unrelated platform, then you are also implicitly in agreement to acts of terrorism. After all, the terrorists are just using such platforms to spread their political message too. Of course, i can hear the rebuts - that terrorists aim to kill, and they don't deserve to say spread their opinions that way. But who's to judge? Who's to say that it is not right for them to do it, but for some inexplicable reason, it is right when the opinion being said is in line with your own? I'm not one for making the world any more political than it already is. I disagree with the russian invasion of ukraine, but any action i take would be via my gov't - e.g., my taxes go towards paying for aid to ukraine, or charities donating.
      - joshmanders 5y ago
        That's a large reach you have there, did the Guinness book of world records come and award you a trophy?
    - 5y ago
- rgoulter 5y ago
  I think "open source is political" uses the word 'political' in a significantly different way than stuff like "I'd hate to see more politics in software discussions". Consider: "Open source is political": the power 'open source' relates to is the power of the licensed software's users to read the program's source code, and to redistribute/modify the program. Insofar as there's a moral vision to it, the idea of a world where users are unable to distribute/modify/etc. their software is worse than a world with open source software. Whereas, the meta-statement "don't bring politics into discussions" is more like rules-of-engagement for discussion involving a diverse group of people. The 'political' in the statement refers to e.g. moral or ideological points of view. -- "asl2.0, but you have to agree abortion is murder" is 'political' in a different way than "asl2.0, you can't use this software if your name is Jared", because the restrictions itself is about a moral disagreement.

throw_m239339 5y ago

The reasonable answer is also a political fork. The author is entitled to use whatever license they want, and the community is entitled to a fork if it doesn't violate the previous license. That's all there is to it. the author doesn't owe the community anything, and the community, as long as they respect the terms of the previous license, is free to fork the project and get rid of the new license. In general, these political stunts eventually reflect badly on their author. Open source is a double edged sword.

jacobr1 5y ago
Although one thing the author does owe the community is clarity in the license. The PR in question changed the named of the license from "Apache 2.0" to "Modified Apache." If you change the terms of a well known license, like Apache or MIT or whatever, for whatever reason, you should not mislead others into thinking it is an unmodified licensed.
- antonbabenko 5y ago
  I have updated the wording in README - https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-eks#additional-information-for-users-from-russia-and-belarus https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws-eks#a... . The project was and will be under the same Apache 2 license.
  - jacobr1 5y ago
    That makes it clear.

jen20 5y ago

> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. You would hate a statement being added to README file EVEN MORE than civilians being shelled indiscriminately, entire families shot while waiting in bread lines, and the targeting of war correspondents by a foreign army? Got it.

reacharavindh 5y ago
That’s a twisted interpretation of what I wrote. One can be disgusted to a high extent, and then from that baseline even more disgusted by some _added_ on top of it. Just because a despicable thing is happening, one must not justify viewing the whole world through that lens _alone_ and refuse to reason things in other contexts.
- jen20 5y ago
  In that case the appropriate phrase is “would also hate” rather than “would hate even more”.

clearcoat 5y ago

> I’d hate even more for software to come under political purviews. Yes, but has not that ship sailed already? I go to great efforts to keep my "feed" purely technically focused, but in the past ~2 years this has become basically impossible.