Slashdot Mirror
A Cautionary Tale of Open Source Social Technologies
eweekhickins writes "The 'country' drop-down menu on one organization's donations pages omits Israel as a country and includes 'Palestine.' Among other things, this means that Israelis can't donate to the organization from these pages; it also presents the risk of a PR nightmare for the organization. This EWeek story cautions that while basic Web 2.0 technologies combined with open source can be incredibly powerful and productive, they can also lead to disastrous results for an organization that isn't paying close enough attention."
...although not sure to classify it as FUD, but wondering if anyone else out there has similar stories?
I don't know why EWeek is specifically highlighting open source software. I don't see how closed source software is immune from this concern.
If you're a nonprofit, you need to look at all the software you're, open-source or not. If you're using software you need to examine it to make sure its not sending a message at odds with your organization.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Seems like people will always look for reasons to hate each other. Can't just make a suggestion; this is something we can HATE over!
They see a huge number of bogus transactions from one country, so they ban it. It's perfectly fine if you want to avoid getting burned.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
This particular anecdote is rather punchy, as stories of the "OMG if I say something about geography on te7 interwebs someone willz hate me!!!111" variety generally are; but the connection with open source software seems deeply tenuous and circumstantial.
I, for one, am shocked, shocked that a program might not have sane defaults for every situation, particularly if "sane" is not terribly well defined.
As for the payment processing thing, various sorts of black holing of countries based on their dubious reputations is not an "open source" thing, or a "closed source" thing or, for that matter, anything to do with code at all. It is wholly a matter of CYA and cost/benefit calculations, no matter what software the vendor doing the deciding is running. An interesting anecdote about the complexity of doing stuff that seems simple; but barely source related at all.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
This has nothing to do with Open Source. It didn't occur to these doofuses that it just might be a good idea to systematically _test_ their Web site?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
If it was one guy selling the software he wrote, you'd probably see the same implementations of his political views (provided that there was a way to do so).
With Open Source, the one guy can write his political opinions into his code ... which get grabbed and used in a different project ... which ends up in a third project ... etc.
And unless you have a similar political bent, you'd never notice it. At least until someone who did have such a bent brought it to your attention.
> I, for one, am shocked, shocked that a program ...
> might not have sane defaults for every situation
An I am shocked, shocked that open source software might come attached to a socio-political agenda...
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
It's Open Source... How hard can that be! I mean really. it might be 2 lines of code more, or (if done right) just another database entry.
It isn't rocket surgery people. that's the strength of OSS, you *can* fix it without having to beg for a fix from your vendor!
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
And I am shocked, shocked that you didn't RTFA, which made it pretty clear that this software came attached with a "we don't want fraudulent donations" agenda.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
If my reading of the article is right, it goes something like this:
There's a Ruby API that lists countries and regions. One of these is "Palestinian Territory -- Occupied". Someone decided to shorten this to "Palestine".
Meanwhile, someone at Facebook decided that a certain list of countries contains high risk of credit card fraud. One of those countries is Israel. So they won't take your credit card if you live there, probably because they've run into fraudsters operating in that country and they don't want to risk it. Just like they won't take a credit card from Nigeria, to name one.
So, someone sees this and concludes the worst. The Facebook application is anti-semitic. Overreact much?
Honestly, I think people are a bit too touchy about Israel/Palestine. Sure, it's a touchy subject, but a simple set of unrelated mistakes and people assume you're part of a vast conspiracy to destroy their nation? I think we as a society owe it to ourselves to be more careful about such accusations, and not simply react.
Really, what article is the summary about? I was afraid that after reading all that gibberish it could lead me to a rick roll...
So, even assuming the story is real, quite it could actually not be real, it has nothing to do with open source, I'll tag it FUD, thanks.Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Wtf does this have to do with the crap that is "Web 2.0"? When has giving a donation been considering "Web 2.0"? Online donations have been around since forever. Well I guess everything else that is labelled "Web 2.0" such as social networking and user generated content has been around forever as well, so from that stupid and pointless viewpoint I guess it would be "Web 2.0". Did Kdawson post this story?
The drop down menu isn't even testing-it's something they should have done before they even considered using the software. (It's probably in some of the documentation-'specially if the reason for it is fraud.) Part of figuring out if it's the right tool for the job and all that. Though even if they did implement it, looking at the drop down menu isn't testing-it's just learning the damn software. You should know what options users have, just 'cause it may be important for a variety of things.
open source modern art: laser taggi
Yeah, that crap really cheeses me off. Taiwan? Geeze. It gets worse... I keep hearing these Americans talking about Germany, Greece, Japan and Spain, but I've never heard of one of these places. After some intensive research, I found out these fucking idiots were gibbering about Deutschland, Hellas, Nihon and España.
Idiots. Idiots.
neither why is open source per se or social networking potential culprits there.
- Palestine appearing in the countries list because is a (valid?) short form of "Palestinian Territory, Occupied". If isnt valid is not Web 2.0 or open source fault, was a developer decision that could had been taken in any part of the chain (i agree that the chain in this particular case is pretty long).
- Israel not listed because, as with other 14 countries, their IP space is very used by fraudsters. Maybe with spam is easier to understand... If Israel were responsible for 80% of world spam, and because of that becomes filtered from a lots of mail servers (lots of countries used to be widely filtered because of spam coming from them), that would be anti-semitism of those servers admins? Maybe a bit worse, if an israeli ISP a lot of spam is being sent, and it ends a rbl (if behaves badly that way, will end in most), would be antisemitism too?
Is a nice spin to blame web 2.0 and open source for things that dont implies them to happen. Next big hurricane, if being tracked by web 2.0 sites and with open source software, will be blamed to them too.
My company does exactly this, and it is a conscious decision.
Anyone that tries to tell us that we "can't" do business like this needs to join the free world.
And to be blunt, it is really only a PR nightmare for American companies.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
Even Microsoft can get hit by this.
I worked for the university webmaster back when I was in school. My boss noticed the option "Palestinian Territories, Occupied" appeared in the dropdown list of some web-form software we were using. Being kind of a joker, he then changed Iraq to "Iraq, Occupied". It remains like that to this day, years later.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
Please don't bring the Israel/Palestine mudwrestling into slashdot. The walls have just been freshly painted, and it's not fundamentally a technology issue anyway, since those lobby groups will latch onto anything for publicity.
"Deutschland"? Sounds like some kind of barbarian lingo.
The proper name for this province is Germania.
FUD. The pro-Israel activists are more annoyed that Palestine is recognized and is in the drop down menu more than Israel being omitted.
They spend a lot of time discouraging recognition of Palestine as an independent state and at every opportunity. Re-read the article again with that in mind. Palestine certainly IS a country and is recognized by many others around the world. The UN reference is a red herring. Israel occupies Palestine with military force.
Take note that it was a pro-Israel pressure group that started this 'controversy' with immediate threats to the developers.
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
It might as well read: "A Cautionary Tale of Closed Source Social Technology". Go check ten random sites with nationality registration. Chances are, "Israel" is on the list, but "Palestinian Territory" isn't. They are no more indicative of the failure of closed source than this is of a failure of open source.
I wonder how many times they've bitched about the omission of Palestine... gee, none? What a surprise. Hypocrites.
I'm a little bitchy, but one can't play the anti-semitic card every time Israel is omitted/criticised. It devalues everybody.
People leave things out, forget, or usually just plain didn't know better. Similar things were said for some commercial product a few years back (I think it was Windows or Office, but I could not recall). It was either a language or time zone setting that neglected the country.
This is like all the software bug news articles - yes, there are bugs in software, but you know what, people actually FIX them, they don't STAY that way there are new versions, etc. It's all just some techno-political FUD mudslinging to influence the ignorant.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
The courteous way to deal with people is to assume that they've made an honest mistake before throwing around conspiracy theories and wild accusations of rascism and religious hatred.
What their stance: that a product should be boycotted and that an organisation must be anti-Semite and anti-Zionism, based on a country options drop-down box is reasonable?
Someone who isn't acting like an arrogant, spoilt child would simply point-out the error and ask that it be fixed. Then if nothing happens, perhaps send a stronger letter. Sending a threatening flame-mail, right off the bat, makes this group look like a bunch of arseholes (in my opinion).
They look even more antagonistic and stupid when the reason for the ommission of Israel is taken into account. It is due to being on an online fraud black list:
This is nothing but FUD and here's why.
Any organization using FOSS and/or COTS has to understand its need to QA the combination of parts. This is also true when you write your own software.
Don't be so gullible.
Actually, no statement was made. The inclusion of Palestine was a glitch, and Israel was not included due to fraud originating from the country. I know this is slashdot, but would it kill maybe 3 or 4 people to actually RTFA before going off on rants? Doing that makes us all look bad. Thank you.
Great Intellect...
From TFA:
Israel was omitted because of fraud from that country, which seems like a good reason. Palestine was probably included in the list because it is recognised by the UN, and is included in ISO 3166-1. If you were to delete Palestine from the list, it would certainly be a very loaded political statement, but its inclusion is not.
Actually the Palestinian state as created by the UN existed until it was annexed Jordan after the 1948 war.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
"This means that if you're using open-source code, you have got to be very scrupulous and diligent to make sure that another developer hasn't surreptitiously slipped in a political message or a feature that could make your organization look bad or even lose it money.
And always be mindful that once you let third parties touch your enterprise in any way, decisions they make will be broadcast around the Internet whether you like them or not. Basic Web 2.0 software technologies are proving to be both incredibly powerful and productive, but they can also lead to disastrous results for an organization that isn't paying close enough attention."
There. That's better. Same point. Less FUD.
I'll have to add this to my list of criticisms of things as if they don't apply to the things they're being contrasted with. Like blogging vs TV, radio, and newspapers, or Wikipedia vs Britannica.
Q: Why is closed source/Britannica/TV/newspapers/radio better than open source/Wikipedia/bloggers?
A: When closed source/Britannica/TV/newspapers/radio makes a mistake, almost no one finds out about it.
Q: Ah. Wait... that's a feature?"
A: It is to them. Get it?
Australia isn't even on the map of anything I care about. Frrrp
smilies are for reetards
That's not how the Zionist lobby operates. They don't rely on courteous behaviour and goodwill. They bully people into submission by crying 'anti-semite!' and threatening to 'go and tell the whole Jewish community'.
The fact that Taiwan is a Chinese word sort of kills the joke.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The first of the quote listed at this page from British comedy 'Yes Minister' always made me laugh (from the 80s).
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
So, the next time we write code using FLOSS libraries, we must read every line of code?
How productive is that?
Where should I stop - 1000 lines, 10k, 100k, or all of the millions of the Linux kernel?
From the Big Fucking Manual:
Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. Bah! stop the discrimination, you lofty fscking overlords.http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#believe2
Umm..... "You know who you are."
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
+5, Insightful
Hackers have long memories. It works both ways.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
I don't see any risk here that's particular to open source. Analogous issues have come up with proprietary vendors, including Microsoft. And often, there is no way to win, because no matter what you do, someone will be upset.
As for Israel, personally, I think it is a country and it has a right to exist and I'm glad that the US supports Israel.
But it is simply a fact that hundreds of millions of people do not share this view. Odd as that view may seem to you or me, it doesn't seem odd to them. And some of those people are open source developers as well.
Self-important posturing or attempts at trying to control their minds through controlling language isn't going to work. What does work is dialog and compromise. For example, I think Israel should be on the list, as should be "Palestine (occupied territory)". There is also no requirement that these lists be mutually exclusive, so if there are different views of how the world should be divided up, put all of them on there.
And if you don't like a software product or don't like to support the author because you disagree with his politics or ethics, then simply don't.
I can't just declare my selected land-mass a country and expect people to recognize it,
No, you can't expect that. But Israel has been recognized. Therefore, it is a country.
Of course the UN and its constituent Western imperialist powers decided
That's the way decisions get made in the world, so get used to it.
It's ironic for a Muslim to complain about "imperialist powers", given the history of the religion. Islam didn't take over the Middle East by gentle persuasion, it conquered, subjugated, oppressed, and killed. The Caliphate and its constituent Muslim imperialist powers were considerably more heavy-handed and vicious than the UN, and considerably less tolerant of other beliefs. The UN isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than the kind of rule and oppression Muslims visited on others for centuries.
And as for the rabid frothing-at-the-mouth 'pro-Israeli' fools who make absolutely sure that the world knows of the plight of the poor, innocent, fun-loving Zionists, they can go fuck themselves.
They aren't going to fuck themselves, they are going to fuck you until either (1) you manage to defeat them militarily (not bloody likely), or (2) you find an arrangement you can live with. The West isn't going to let you have exactly what you want, so you'll just have to get used to that. And the West certainly isn't going to let Muslims unite because we remember well what happened last time that happened.
I am shocked, shocked at the shocking state of affairs when so many are shocked at the shockingly common shocking contents of this shocking article.
I hate printers.
This is an issue, and it is an issue with Open Source.
First, this isn't an Israel vs. Palestinian rights question. However, it did put this organization in the midst of the issue. His wife's organization trusted a commonly used Open Source widget and got pulled into an unfortunate debate.
Why is this an Open Source issue? Because the way Open Source works: If I buy a program from Microsoft, I can completely hold Microsoft responsible for the results. However, many times, Open Source software depends upon multiple contributors who themselves might have other contributors. Finding the person responsible for a particular issue can be quite tough. The widget in question was Causes which was produced by Project Agape. Project Agape tried to fob off responsibility upon the Ruby or Rails module ActionView::Helpers::FormOptionsHelper.
Then, the issue popped up that the real problem is that the payment processor Network for Good doesn't accept credit card payments from Israel. Network for Good claims that "e-commerce experts" list Israel as a high fraud country. But, the territories under Palestinian control is one of the worst places for credit card fraud because of the weakness of the governing structure and the many super legal organizations and militias that operate outside the rule of law. I've looked over the organizations that back Network for Good, but I doubt any of them would have any anti-Israel bias. It could be that Palestine wasn't black listed by Network for Good as a high credit card fraud country because it isn't a country and wasn't on the list given to them by their e-commerce experts. Yet, it is listed in the RoR module.
So who is responsible? The original organization that used the Causes widget on their page not knowing that in a list of 140+ countries, laid a time bomb that was going to get them in the middle of a political debate they rather avoid, Network for Good that doesn't process payments from Israel, the Causes widget that lists Palestine but not Israel, or the ROR module that lists both Israel and Palestine?
That's why it is an Open Source issue. It is the power of Open Source to be able to freely build new projects from prebuilt modules. Yet, it is also the curse: Because so many bits and pieces are involved, it becomes impossible to point the Finger o' Blame at the responsible party.
So basically, if I get you right, you're pissed because they left Israel out. But also because they are not denying the existence of Palestine?
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
things like a missing line in a file can happen easily. what i find much more disturbing, is that microsoft had their worldmap (the one, displayed in the time settings) wrong for years. from windows 95 up to (and including) windows xp this map had poland entirely erased! instead of the large country the map showed sea. here's a link to a screenshot of the map in question. http://www.depauw.edu/it/helpdesk/images/DST_screen.jpg
So now I'm supposed to feel upset because somebody decided they didn't like oh HOLY
HOLY! HOLY! IS! - RA! - EL!. Uuuuh uuuuhh uuuh IS! RA! EL! uuuh! uh! uh! uuuuuuh!
Call me antisemite, call me a nazi and don't allow your daughter to date a goy. For the
record I bear not one grudge against anyone decent no matter where they (have to) live
be it Israel or elsewhere or whether they have semitic genes in them or not.
Mod me up mod me down... your mod points I had my say.
When they say "Taiwan", I think they're talking about Formosa.
Hello, I'm looking for a Mrs Schluss, first name Anne.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I always insist that I'm from my mother, when people ask my geographic background/ethnic blah-blah. That or from the internet. :D Because really, for better or worse (better+5), if we're going to measure "nurture" influence, the internet has had more of an impact on my psyche than many of my family members, and much more than where I happened to have popped out.
Also too lazy to look up, but I think Arabs count as semitic, which is pretty funny.
Also funny: goyim means "nations", like people who have a nation (like Israel).
Does the UN objectively determine what is contested territory? How do you determine something like that objectively? If England were to claim Normandy is English (as it has been in the past), would it make it contested territory?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Hmm, no. You can't normally join races. You can convert to Judaism.
Besides, "Israeli" isn't a proper subset of "Jewish". There are plenty of Israeli citizens who are Arabs.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
I don't see what it's got to do with web 2.0 either. It's more to do with dumbly copying things without understanding how they work.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Most people wouldn't kick up such a stink if their country were excluded. They would be mildly annoyed, rather than accusing the person who made the list of being an outright racist. I think they are more pissed off that Palestine was included. Yeah, its a loaded political statement - but the problem is that it is a loaded political statement that recognizes the existence of people that Zionists would rather we all forgot about.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Mr anonymous coward, you have a perfect right to make a bold stand and refuse to buy things manufactured in a country whose policies you disagree with. I hope you agree with the Saudi policies on freedom of religion.
Since labor and land are both expensive in Israel, there isn't much manufacturing there for export. Unless you refuse to use services from Israel, or from companies that do product development in Israel (IBM and Intel spring to mind), this is a meaningless gesture.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Search for Palestine on this page:
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table
Palestine is a country, you dumbass. It's not a sovereign country, in that it is under the control of another country, but places don't stop being countries because of that. (Iraq, for example, continued to be a country during the invasion.)
If Palestine isn't a country I have to wonder who the hell signed the Oslo accords along with Israel?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I live in Kansas,perhaps Oz should go in drop down boxes if Israelis have to tolerate a Palestine drop down.
Both places are imaginary yet refer to actual geographic locals.
It's just a matter of improving public school educations,I'm sure.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Well, yes, but people objecting to presence of Palestine on the list are just stupid. Those people exist, they live in, according the UN, 'Occupied Palestine Territories', which is shortened, just like every other name on the list. (Have you ever seen 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland' on a country list? (1)
How exactly should they be referred to? This isn't like Taiwan, where there's a debate over who the legitimate government is...Israel does not assert that they legally own Palestine and wants people there to be called Israelis. (2) They have to be called something.
And arguing about the technically sovereignty of a state, or the legitimate government, does not mean the state itself does not exist, for example, Iraq has been a 'State' this whole time, it just hasn't been a sovereign one for a short span.
Statehood does not require sovereignty. Americans often do no quite grasp this because our Federal government ran roughshod over the assumptions of states during the Civil War, but the rest of the world understands this.
Even the US makes a distinction between the government of a country, which may or may not be sovereign, and may or may not be recognized by us, and the existence of the country itself. We don't recognize the government of Cuba. We recognize the existence of the country of Cuba, though, or we could hardly ban business with that country.
Even if a place doesn't recognize the government of Palestine, Palestine itself still exists, and is still a country.
And the exclusion of Israel had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with a deliberate exclusion for fraudulent activities. Which was probably mentioned as default option in the documentation of the OSS project.
1) Ironically, speaking of Northern Ireland and names, there's a country officially named, simply, as 'Ireland', which is the rest of that island, which is often listed as 'Republic of Ireland' on country lists.
2) Also ironically, if Israel doesn't do something about Palestine soon, they will soon be risking the most hilarious solution to that whole mess...that Palestinians give up on their own state and demand the Israeli vote which, when combined with existing Arab Israelis, would make Jews a minority in the resulting country.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It's open-source, right? This means that you can modify the source code, right? So if it's a such a big deal, well, you just add the proper code in the drop-down box.
* * *
Now, {$OCCUPIER_COUNTRY} (the one which occupies {$OCCUPIED_COUNTRY}) is no different than any other rabid religious state. Any attack or perceived attack on it will be perceived as anti{$RELIGION}ism. There is no escaping that.
The fuckheads who rule any rabid religious state have had their brains thoroughly corrupted by the nonsense that is their religion, and are therefore immune both to clues and intelligent reasoning.
So it is quite not suprising that they would fuckeadly hammer the poor website who's guilty of ignoring their particular brand of fuckheadness.
Another example: every country list I've seen online except a few Greek ones lists the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia simply as "Macedonia". Political dispute aside, I bet every developer who types the term into the list thinks what a great job he's done of shortening that big long name that messes up the site's alignment, oblivious of the fact that he's taking part in a long and complex political problem.
Yes you bet Arabs are semites. Incidentally the ironic part about those calling people ... in fact they despise semites both jewish and non-jewish but they're the
"uuuuh uuuhh ANTISEMITE! uuuh! uuuuuh! ANTISEMITE!" are not semites themselves
nor do they care a whole lot for semites. There are two major kinds of jews, the
sephardic jews who are as semite as the arabs and then there are the Azkhenazi
jews from which the ruling elite in Israel recruits from. The Azkhenazi are not
semite
ones that will screem "UUUUuuuuh ANTISEMTIE!" at the top of their lungs to defend
the very much in fact NAZI regime they have been _permitted_ to build in what was
once Palestine and DARE call that Israel
I hate your fence, zionist scum. I hate your bombing of children, tearing down house
with people inside them just because someone fought back in that house,
denying food, water aid and medicine to the arab population you're slowly killing.
You are ZIONIST SCUM and even though I AM FAR FROM BEING ANTISEMITE...
I AM ANTIZIONIST AND PROUD OF IT!
oops, you fell into the us/them bullshit I retract my agreement
A Semite used to be someone from one of the semitic language group, which includes ancient Hebrew and Arabic. An anti-Semite therefore is someone opposed to Semites, someone opposed to (now extinct) Isrealites, Arabs, Babylonians (Iraqi) and more.
In the 19th and 20th centuries the word Semite was corrupted to refer specifically to Jews. Through this corruption anti-Semite became synonymous with anti Jew. In the later half of the twentieth century the term has been corrupted further by European Jews and their descendants who were in fact mostly descended from Khazars, a non Semitic Eurasian group, to mean someone who modern Israelis and Zionists hate.
In reality, if we use the uncorrupted version of the word, most of the aggressive actions of Israel have been genuinely anti-Semitic. They seem quite happy to wipe out Palestine, go to war with Lebanon and Syria and they supported the war with Iraq. These are all anti-Semitic acts.
I don't therefore I'm not.
Then English(UK) locale could list the USA as "The colonies"!
This issue will shortly be rendered moot when the Israelis trigger off WW3 by attacking Iran, with the permission if not encouragement of their American military and financial backers.
Not really ironic, just fucking depressing.
... and then they built the supercollider.
1. Why would it make a difference whether the payment processor is using open source software or not? If they won't take donations from certain countries they can implement that on a closed source platform just as easily.
2. Only open source software can be misconfigured, or has problems with commas in unexpected places?
This has nothing to do with open source, and everything to do with not looking under the hood before you buy a used car.