Slashdot Mirror
Open Source Devs Reverse Decision to Block ICE Contractors From Using Software (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Motherboard:
Less than 24 hours after a software developer revoked access to Lerna, a popular open-source software management program, for any organization that contracted with U.S. immigrations and Customs Enforcement, access has been restored for any organization that wishes to use it and the developer has been removed from the project... The modified version specifically banned 16 organizations, including Microsoft, Palantir, Amazon, Northeastern University, Johns Hopkins University, Dell, Xerox, LinkedIn, and UPS... Although open-source developer Jamie Kyle acknowledged that it's "part of the deal" that anyone "can use open source for evil," he told me he couldn't stand to see the software he helped develop get used by companies contracting with ICE.
Kyle's modification of Lerna's license was originally assented to by other lead developers on the project, but the decision polarized the open-source community. Some applauded his principled stand against ICE's human rights violations, while others condemned his violation of the spirit of open-source software. Eric Raymond, the founder of the Open Source Initiative and one of the authors of the standard-bearing Open Source Definition, said Kyle's decision violated the fifth clause of the definition, which prohibits discrimination against people or groups. "Lerna has defected from the open-source community and should be shunned by anyone who values the health of that community," Raymond wrote in a blog post on his website.
The core contributor who eventually removed Kyle also apologized for Kyle's licensing change, calling it a "rash decision" (which was also "unenforceable.")
Eric Raymond had called the decision "destructive of one of the deep norms that keeps the open source community functional -- keeping politics separated from our work."
Kyle's modification of Lerna's license was originally assented to by other lead developers on the project, but the decision polarized the open-source community. Some applauded his principled stand against ICE's human rights violations, while others condemned his violation of the spirit of open-source software. Eric Raymond, the founder of the Open Source Initiative and one of the authors of the standard-bearing Open Source Definition, said Kyle's decision violated the fifth clause of the definition, which prohibits discrimination against people or groups. "Lerna has defected from the open-source community and should be shunned by anyone who values the health of that community," Raymond wrote in a blog post on his website.
The core contributor who eventually removed Kyle also apologized for Kyle's licensing change, calling it a "rash decision" (which was also "unenforceable.")
Eric Raymond had called the decision "destructive of one of the deep norms that keeps the open source community functional -- keeping politics separated from our work."
Should politics be separated from our work? I'm not convinced it should be. The whole idea of open source / free software is political in nature as it is a means to keep power and control of a users computing with them and not in the hands of any outside entity such as a corporation or government.
So let's take this to the extreme: If computing and Linux were around in WW2, should we have let Hitler use Linux? What if Hitler's use of Linux was the deciding factor in NAZI Germany winning the war?
This reminds me of the Drupal developer that was kicked out of the group because some people didn't approve of his consensual sex life.
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/17/03/27/2115233/prominent-drupal-php-developer-kicked-from-the-drupal-project-over-unconventional-sex-life
This sort of PC nonsense is a cancer in our society. We're in this weird era where we've normalized rejecting doing business with anyone you might disagree with. Oddly this is mostly coming from the left, who used to be the ones calling for tolerance. Now it seems to be the opposite, the far left calls for purity, and stamping out anyone or anything that's impure.
It has to stop, it's already tearing us apart.
No. As a US citizen, you're being ROBBED of your tax money...
I'll stop you right there. You are more right than you know. Taxation is not robbery only if you disagree with the use of the funds. If you think about the nature of taxation, it is really a confiscation of money from a person (remember that corporations are persons too). It is a confiscation because it is not is not an equitable and mutually agreed upon exchange. Therefore, it is always robbery. Also, the one on whom the tax is levied does not have the ability to not pay (in practice people evade taxes, but the government enforces compliance with harsh penalties) and market forces have on bearing on taxes (really taxes are themselves an influencer of the market).
All that said, taxes are necessary. The governed populace collectively identifies those matters which the government must discharge, manage, execute, etc., and via their representatives they levy taxes on themselves to see to it that those functions are accomplished.
This is what underlies the principal grievance of the American colonists prior to the American Revolution: taxation without representation. If taxation were not by its nature confiscatory, there would have been no grievance.
So, where we are left is to strike a careful balance of the things that the government should do and the things it should not do, then levy taxes appropriate to accomplishing the things it should do. This exercise must be accomplished at each level of government. It is painful, arduous, tedious, and never-ending. If you look at the last 100 years of history in the US, various crises have enabled the government to tip the balance toward expanding what government does at every level and especially at the federal level.
Of course, people are going to come out and say how every civilized nation provides healthcare, education, and jobs for their people. I suppose that is fine when you talk about a nation that has the population of Florida and you do not have a founding document that enumerates the power of the national government and then specifically prohibits it all other powers. To say nothing of the economic complexity of implementing those things on the scale of a nation and economy the size of the US.
Politics in the US is so polarized right now because lots of people want to rebalance the "things government should do" and "things government shouldn't do" while those who benefit from the expansion of government are not particularly excite about ceding their benefits. Add to that the fact that while many Republicans want to paint the party as being about small government, the reality is that they want as much government as the Democrats, but they want to get there by growing different parts of it.
It's impossible to separate politics from daily life, because politics is how we manage our daily lives. I say this as someone who was driven from their home, their family, their country of birth by politics.
But sometimes you also have to recognize that there are other issues. In this case the integrity of free software really matters. I take a hard line on it, I'm a strong supporter of the GPL and its principals, even when they meant that software can be used for evil.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And U.S. law, 28 USC 1498, specifically allows contractors for the Federal Government to use intellectual property for government projects whether they are licensed or not. Link discusses 28 USC 1498(a) (patent infringement), but 28 USC 1498(b) covers copyright infringement.
Oh sure, you can file an action in the Federal Court of Claims for "recovery of [your] reasonable and entire compensation as damages for such infringement," but since the licensing cost for the rest of the world is zero... you do the math.
The aspect of the story that doesn't make sense to me is the revocation of the developer's access. If he had gone and made the license change without consulting anyone, that would make sense, but by all accounts the other lead developers agreed to the change. In that case they should all share responsibility for making the change.
Is there something else going on with this guy?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?