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If your 'general principle' doesn't apply to the most important and popular software in the world (open source) then perhaps it is not very general, and not ver

• fauigerzigerk 4y ago
  My general principle is that political opinions as well as political conflicts and fault lines should not determine access to IT infrastructures. Now, open source licences themselves as well as distribution platforms such as public git repositories guarantee access to some very important global IT infrastructures. Perhaps you can see why my general principle cannot apply to open source in the same way it applies to other things that fall under "their politics" - the rather sloppy term I originally used. It's the same reason why the principle of tolerance cannot apply to tolerance itself in the same way it applies elsewhere. I think principles are always contradictory in the absolute. They only make sense as directions along specific dimensions and can rarely be applied to themselves.
  • kelnos 4y ago
    > My general principle is that political opinions as well as political conflicts and fault lines should not determine access to IT infrastructures. Then you're going to be disappointed, because politics is intrinsically intertwined with software and IT infrastructure. The fact that so much IT infra is built on top of open source and free software means that discussion is inescapable. The fact that corporations need to track the licensing of the software they use (both for proprietary and open source software) is enough proof of that.