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Hello, author here. I do think the open source licence is framed to be non-discriminatory and I think that’s not a bad thing. Discrimination lends itself to pol

by beny23 5y ago

Hello, author here. I do think the open source licence is framed to be non-discriminatory and I think that’s not a bad thing. Discrimination lends itself to politicisation and in turn division. And I think an ecosystem where we have lots of division is not good. What would happen if two interdependent projects suddenly had conflicting political requirements?

beaconstudios 5y ago
I think that holding onto the idea that software is apolitical is untenable. Social media companies and large corporations try to toe this line and have been widely rebuked for it (Google trying to get ICE contracts, for example). I think the idea that "everything is political" is taking it too far, but so is the idea that providing material support to any comers is apolitical. Bear in mind that I'm talking descriptively rather than prescriptively here. I have my own opinions but I can also observe that political neutrality as a concept is waning.
- quinnjh 5y ago
  Ok so its political, what if this political take where we encourage openness and interconnectivity is superior to the political take where we are reactionary? What if it literally is a winning strategy? Im not saying it is necessarily- but i think to get past the division you have highlighted (apolitical universality vs political conservatism) there is perhaps a way to look at the various approaches and determine what approach would be technologically, logistically, and politically advantageous. Let us let go of the idea it is apolitical, what now?
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I do think that we should look at these choices through a utilitarian lens and consider both the immediate and long term impact of such decisions. I do think that innocent Russian civilians will inevitably get caught in the crossfire with sanctions, which is unfortunate. I still believe that it is a moral good to penalise colonialism and other unethical activity through withdrawal of material support because this increases the cost of such actions. I'm not sure what justification there could be that continuing material support for an expansionist government during an invasion has positive utility, it smells like an argument for consistency to me but I'd be happy to be corrected.
    - quinnjh 5y ago
      Something that comes to mind is the argument against aid NGOs in places with dire poverty and hunger. When an NGO comes to your town, where you are trying to build a farm business, and delivers months worth of free rice, can you afford to run your business? Similarly, can any russians make successful software as a service that analogues FOSS offerings? No they cant, because the alternative is available and free. Remove the free rice and you satisfy your egos necessity for first order moral resolution via punishment- bad people dont get rice- but as for second order effects? Perhaps now it becomes feasible to build a sustainable farm (or apache competitor)
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        The aid NGO question comes down to whether locals can build a self supporting economy and whether the aid is hampering economic development - but it isn't a binary question because you can subsidise farmers or reduce aid commensurate with local supply. I'm familiar with second order effects, and nth order effects and nonlinear causality. If we restrict Russia's access to Apache Web server, sure, they will eventually develop a local equivalent. So, over time they transition from being disadvantaged to simply leveling the playing field. That's a pretty good outcome, especially if many more open source projects could withdraw from Russia.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Then we end up with a [citation needed] on providing material support to a badly-acting nation being a winning strategy. IBM is still notorious for their willingness to work with the Nazi regime.
sharken 5y ago
Hi, must say that it's a thoughtful article that has valid points. Maybe as a European i feel more strongly about this, but every means possible must be employed to send a clear signal to Russia about the unacceptable state of affairs. Except destructive changes as in the second example, that behavior should not be allowed by the Open Source license. I'm still hopeful that a better wording can be found going forward.
- Delk 5y ago
  Almost everyone's sympathies are with Ukraine now, and Russia under its current regime is rightly being sanctioned by measures that are intended to hurt. Sanctions that aren't felt are meaningless. When it comes to open source licensing, though, the problem with these kinds of exceptions tends to be that there are a lot of causes that would, at one time or another or from one perspective or another, seem to warrant similar exceptions. There are other wars going on, with more or less clear aggressors. Should we build a list, somewhat akin to the U.S. export restrictions, that forbade using the software by the aggressive states? How would we make sure that the lists aren't influenced by political leanings or cultural preconceptions? (Hint: you can't.) It would be objectively easy to argue that people who eat meat should be sanctioned to give them a "clear signal" that they shouldn't. It would be emotionally easy to argue that perhaps we should exclude people who violate human rights from using our software -- although what exactly constitutes such a violation would be pretty hard to delineate. In a different culture, objectively or not, entirely different acts might be considered morally contemptible or even unforgivable. Allowing exceptions to open source terms based on individual reasons would lead to a jungle of rules that would end up ruining open source, even if each exception by itself can be easy to argue for. You could no longer build a Linux distribution or any kind of a large collection of software, or even an open source application that relied on lots of open source libraries for its functionality. That is, unless you decided not to include any software that had licenses with any such exceptions. That's exactly what drawing the line for the meaning of "open source" is. If you only take one of those exceptions and not the others, that's no longer an objective choice, and others are going to have different exceptions; if you take them all, you create an untenable mess, or at least a walled garden with really tight walls. At any given time it may feel like this is the one exception we should make, and it feels right at that moment. It just can't be done with any consistency without massive collateral damage in the big picture. By all means, let's cause trouble to Russia (under its current regime) as long as it restricts their ability to wage war. Let's do that even if it costs us. But let's not do it in such a way that it creates a massive moral or legal conundrum in the long run. Even if it feels right at the moment. - Another European, living less than 200 km from Russia
mistrial9 5y ago
long-term OSS author here - strong agree "the open source license is framed to be non-discriminatory" is the "right thing" for Intelligent Humans of every color, creed and mother-language
shadowgovt 5y ago
> What would happen if two interdependent projects suddenly had conflicting political requirements? The same thing that happens when two countries have irreconcilable differences. Software is a human artifact and subject to the same principles as all such artifacts.

by beny23 5y ago

beaconstudios 5y ago

I think that holding onto the idea that software is apolitical is untenable. Social media companies and large corporations try to toe this line and have been widely rebuked for it (Google trying to get ICE contracts, for example). I think the idea that "everything is political" is taking it too far, but so is the idea that providing material support to any comers is apolitical. Bear in mind that I'm talking descriptively rather than prescriptively here. I have my own opinions but I can also observe that political neutrality as a concept is waning.

quinnjh 5y ago
Ok so its political, what if this political take where we encourage openness and interconnectivity is superior to the political take where we are reactionary? What if it literally is a winning strategy? Im not saying it is necessarily- but i think to get past the division you have highlighted (apolitical universality vs political conservatism) there is perhaps a way to look at the various approaches and determine what approach would be technologically, logistically, and politically advantageous. Let us let go of the idea it is apolitical, what now?
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  I do think that we should look at these choices through a utilitarian lens and consider both the immediate and long term impact of such decisions. I do think that innocent Russian civilians will inevitably get caught in the crossfire with sanctions, which is unfortunate. I still believe that it is a moral good to penalise colonialism and other unethical activity through withdrawal of material support because this increases the cost of such actions. I'm not sure what justification there could be that continuing material support for an expansionist government during an invasion has positive utility, it smells like an argument for consistency to me but I'd be happy to be corrected.
  - quinnjh 5y ago
    Something that comes to mind is the argument against aid NGOs in places with dire poverty and hunger. When an NGO comes to your town, where you are trying to build a farm business, and delivers months worth of free rice, can you afford to run your business? Similarly, can any russians make successful software as a service that analogues FOSS offerings? No they cant, because the alternative is available and free. Remove the free rice and you satisfy your egos necessity for first order moral resolution via punishment- bad people dont get rice- but as for second order effects? Perhaps now it becomes feasible to build a sustainable farm (or apache competitor)
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      The aid NGO question comes down to whether locals can build a self supporting economy and whether the aid is hampering economic development - but it isn't a binary question because you can subsidise farmers or reduce aid commensurate with local supply. I'm familiar with second order effects, and nth order effects and nonlinear causality. If we restrict Russia's access to Apache Web server, sure, they will eventually develop a local equivalent. So, over time they transition from being disadvantaged to simply leveling the playing field. That's a pretty good outcome, especially if many more open source projects could withdraw from Russia.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Then we end up with a [citation needed] on providing material support to a badly-acting nation being a winning strategy. IBM is still notorious for their willingness to work with the Nazi regime.

sharken 5y ago

Hi, must say that it's a thoughtful article that has valid points. Maybe as a European i feel more strongly about this, but every means possible must be employed to send a clear signal to Russia about the unacceptable state of affairs. Except destructive changes as in the second example, that behavior should not be allowed by the Open Source license. I'm still hopeful that a better wording can be found going forward.

Delk 5y ago
Almost everyone's sympathies are with Ukraine now, and Russia under its current regime is rightly being sanctioned by measures that are intended to hurt. Sanctions that aren't felt are meaningless. When it comes to open source licensing, though, the problem with these kinds of exceptions tends to be that there are a lot of causes that would, at one time or another or from one perspective or another, seem to warrant similar exceptions. There are other wars going on, with more or less clear aggressors. Should we build a list, somewhat akin to the U.S. export restrictions, that forbade using the software by the aggressive states? How would we make sure that the lists aren't influenced by political leanings or cultural preconceptions? (Hint: you can't.) It would be objectively easy to argue that people who eat meat should be sanctioned to give them a "clear signal" that they shouldn't. It would be emotionally easy to argue that perhaps we should exclude people who violate human rights from using our software -- although what exactly constitutes such a violation would be pretty hard to delineate. In a different culture, objectively or not, entirely different acts might be considered morally contemptible or even unforgivable. Allowing exceptions to open source terms based on individual reasons would lead to a jungle of rules that would end up ruining open source, even if each exception by itself can be easy to argue for. You could no longer build a Linux distribution or any kind of a large collection of software, or even an open source application that relied on lots of open source libraries for its functionality. That is, unless you decided not to include any software that had licenses with any such exceptions. That's exactly what drawing the line for the meaning of "open source" is. If you only take one of those exceptions and not the others, that's no longer an objective choice, and others are going to have different exceptions; if you take them all, you create an untenable mess, or at least a walled garden with really tight walls. At any given time it may feel like this is the one exception we should make, and it feels right at that moment. It just can't be done with any consistency without massive collateral damage in the big picture. By all means, let's cause trouble to Russia (under its current regime) as long as it restricts their ability to wage war. Let's do that even if it costs us. But let's not do it in such a way that it creates a massive moral or legal conundrum in the long run. Even if it feels right at the moment. - Another European, living less than 200 km from Russia

mistrial9 5y ago

long-term OSS author here - strong agree "the open source license is framed to be non-discriminatory" is the "right thing" for Intelligent Humans of every color, creed and mother-language

shadowgovt 5y ago

> What would happen if two interdependent projects suddenly had conflicting political requirements? The same thing that happens when two countries have irreconcilable differences. Software is a human artifact and subject to the same principles as all such artifacts.