Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software
NPM unaccountability is an issue of its own I think, but yes, you are absolutely right! > On Mar 22, 2022, at 12:48, Jim Fulner wrote: > > Well, > It looks like all this nonsense went somewhere. > [1]https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/big-sabotage-famous-n > pm-package-deletes-files-to-protest-ukraine-war/ > I'm really sad that such discussion to attempt to make it more > difficult for anyone to access Free Software even happened in our > community. I suspect that such efforts not only make our movement > appear as though we aren't as committed to human freedom as we claim to > be, but it probably only reinforces government propaganda that the West > is against everyday Russian people and the authoritarian state is their > only protection. > Jim > > References > > 1. > https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/big-sabotage-famous-npm-package-deletes-files-to-protest-ukraine-war/ > ___ > libreplanet-discuss mailing list > libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org > https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software
Well, It looks like all this nonsense went somewhere. [1]https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/big-sabotage-famous-n pm-package-deletes-files-to-protest-ukraine-war/ I'm really sad that such discussion to attempt to make it more difficult for anyone to access Free Software even happened in our community. I suspect that such efforts not only make our movement appear as though we aren't as committed to human freedom as we claim to be, but it probably only reinforces government propaganda that the West is against everyday Russian people and the authoritarian state is their only protection. Jim References 1. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/big-sabotage-famous-npm-package-deletes-files-to-protest-ukraine-war/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Two recent news articles which relate to the discussion. Zelensly states that he wants IT companies to stop supporting Russian versions of their products. Some of his supporters may feel that free software developers should do likewise. The second article argues that matters are not so simple. --- Zelensky Presses Companies - Microsoft, SAP And Oracle - To Punish Russia More https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/03/13/zelensky-presses-companies-microsoft-sap-and-oracle-to-punish-russia-more/ Tagging Microsoft, Oracle and SAP's official accounts, Zelensky tweeted Sunday the technology companies must "stop supporting" their Russian products, asserting the company's Russian pullbacks were "`half' decisions.'" --- War censorship exposes Putin's leaky internet controls https://news.yahoo.com/war-censorship-exposes-putins-leaky-211745727.html ... Yet the Kremlin's latest censorship efforts have revealed serious shortcomings in the government's bigger plans to straightjacket the internet. Any Russian with a modicum of tech smarts can circumvent Kremlin efforts to starve Russians of fact. For instance, the government has so far had only limited success blocking the use of software known as virtual private networks, or VPNs, that allows users to evade content restrictions. The same goes for Putinâs attempts to restrict the use of other censorship-evading software. That puts providers of internet bandwidth and associated services sympathetic to Ukraine's plight in a tough spot. On one side, they face public pressure to punish the Russian state and economic reasons to limit services at a time when bills might well go unpaid. On the other, they're wary of helping stifle a free flow of information that can counter Kremlin disinformation - for instance, the state's claim that Russia's military is heroically "liberating" Ukraine from fascists. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
On 13/03/2022 17:57, Jean Louis wrote: Here is example of non-free proprietary software that falsely claimes to be free: https://github.com/WWBN/AVideo , | This Software must be used for Good, never Evil. It is expressly | forbidden to use AVideo Platform Open-Source to build porn sites, | violence, racism, terrorism, or anything else that affects human | integrity or denigrates the image of anyone. ` Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software. It is neither free software nor open source, it is proprietary and source-available. OpenPGP_0x1D43EF4F4492268B.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
> Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software. No, it is absolutely not. The founders of the open source movement, the Open Source Initiative, Debian (which also uses the term "open source"), many software communities and even several government agencies all mean the same thing by "open source" (with disagreements on licenses that are on the very boundary of that category) and software like that is absolutely *NOT* open source. "Open source" and "free software" are synonymous, or almost synonymous, when it comes to describing software categories or licenses. The open source movement and the free software movement, on the other hand, are two different movements with different ideas. The JSON license is not an open source license by any means. See: - [1]https://opensource.org/osd - [2]https://www.debian.org/social_contract - [3]https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html - [4]https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html - [5]http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html - [6]https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/ The software is source available, not open source. References 1. https://opensource.org/osd 2. https://www.debian.org/social_contract 3. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html 4. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html 5. http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html 6. https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
* Erica Frank [2022-03-10 18:33]: > This makes no sense. > "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal > purposes." Thanks for your opinion. Yes. Regarding "immoral": Please note that what is immoral is hard to define; it is vague and thus becomes unjust. For an average Muslim it could be immoral to use GIMP to draw a picture of Muhamed the prophet. Thus we get conflicts. Free software is not related to morality beyond the aspect of computing. What is "illegal" vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Free software is global and not jurisdiction specific. We do not want to "lock" free software into US jurisdiction only or any other, but that it remains global and compatible with all jurisdictions. What is "illegal" in one country may be legal in other. People can use free software to do illegal things. Law and order is handling such cases. You cannot possibly handle that by using any license. Here is example of non-free proprietary software that falsely claimes to be free: https://github.com/WWBN/AVideo , | This Software must be used for Good, never Evil. It is expressly | forbidden to use AVideo Platform Open-Source to build porn sites, | violence, racism, terrorism, or anything else that affects human | integrity or denigrates the image of anyone. ` Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software. For many people on this world porn is both moral and legal. For some others it is not. However, author keeps in chains users of this software as author is dictating what is moral. Thus it becomes unjust. Even for people who do not like porn, there are many movie scenes that could be construed as porn. It is vague and thus brings uncertainties. Does author mean soft porn? Or porn only? The definition of porn includes written text as well, does author forbid that too?! It is vague and unjust. "Violence" is another issue. Is it illegal to report violence on video? There are many legitimate uses of reporting violence, including such with educational purposes. It is however author's wish to keep software user in chains as author solely dictates what type of violence is "good" and what is "not good". "Racism" is another issue and it could be biased. Same with terrorism. And same with "anything that affects human integrity or denigrates the image of anyone". All those statements written by naive person lacking legal knowledge are subject to interpretations, thus vague, and render the software NOT TO BE free software. It is not. It is proprietary. Copyrights are only about copyrights, not other rights. What is illegal or imoral is quite different issue and is subject of those other rights, not copyrights. Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
That's a pretty much substance free comment. An axiomatic pronouncement - of both an opinion & judgement. And, just for the record... of COURSE politics has a part in thinking about software freedoms - copyrights, enforcement/protection thereof, business practices - all are subject to law, regulation, courts, police action (official & secret), etc. - and hence politics. Beyond that, if you're going to condemn someone's positions as "ethically questionable" - might you at least afford them, and the rest of us, some elaboration of which positions you're referring to, and what it is that you find ethically "questionable." (Which, I might add, is a rather dubious term. Pretty much EVERYTHING in life is "questionable" - unless you're a religious or political zealot. The use of "questionable" as a derogative label, is prejudicial, and itself, "questionable.") Now, if you don't want to think about the politics associated with software freedom, and/or the impacts of software (free & otherwise) on politics - that's your prerogative. But then, please, stay out of the discussion, while the rest of us think & talk about the issues. Miles Fidelman gregor wrote: hi aa, all my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software freedom(s). also, i find your positions on the question very ethically questionable, shame on you. g On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote: I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal inclination/assumptions. I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose with either centralized or decentralized power? Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized powers often use their power unethically. I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question. On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto: The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will get access to it. This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.) As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions. See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations. Federico ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Gregor, I don't know if you're talking to me as "aa" but your "shame on you" comment is out of line. I didn't even express my positions, I brought up questions for discussion. You don't know what my position is. Software freedom is itself a political issue, it's not merely "open source" development methods, it's about the political issue of computer users having freedom. On 2022-03-13 10:33, gregor wrote: hi aa, all my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software freedom(s). also, i find your positions on the question very ethically questionable, shame on you. g On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote: I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal inclination/assumptions. I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose with either centralized or decentralized power? Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized powers often use their power unethically. I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question. On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto: The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will get access to it. This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.) As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions. See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations. Federico ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
* Aaron Wolf [2022-03-12 20:48]: > The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of > this issue: From your link: > https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization , | But if the world lives on Bitcoin, we may not be able to sanction | nation states like Russia when they invade sovereign nations. ` To be sovereign nation it does not mean killing withing one country one's own people and even 13000 of them. That is not "sovereign". Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and neglect of human rights. This war is not begin, but end of the war that begun 2014. Back then the conflict was financed by US government. Thus it should be clear there are multiple viewpoints on the issue. One could say that US has used free software in all of the killings like in Afghanistan or Libya, etc. Those discussions will never end. That is why we stick to freedom zero, use it as you wish. Using free software principles now for political propaganda is disgusting. I find it hostile to free software principles. -- Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Jean Louis wrote: * Miles Fidelman [2022-03-11 20:54]: Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING SUBMISSIONS to the repositories. I expect that the Russians (among others) are spending a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into things - to better distribute disinformation, the better to collect names of folks to arrest, the better to prepare for large scale cyberattacks. Please do not spread FUD or Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts. Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man. That is not purpose of Libreplanet mailing list to support this or that political opinions. So how is posting a security concern - based on well-documented conduct of a national government currently conducting cyber operations - suddenly a political opinion, or against the code of conduct? Unless, perhaps, one is intentionally trying to deflect scrutiny? Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Aaron Wolf wrote: The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of this issue: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization Now, that does not really relate to powerful government entities like the Russian military, but it does get into questions of danger and risk as people access technology. We can probably all see that if there were some software that would have the effect of a nuclear bomb, making that free software and distributing it to the world would be insane. There are some powers too dangerous to let exist and others too dangerous to allow individuals to operate without a whole system of checks-and-balances. An awful lot of cyber-attack tools are out there, freely available. Also crypto stuff, like TOR (courtesy of the US Navy, by the way). This is an interesting debate about software freedom and whether there are places we should consider limiting it. Of course it's a little hard to do that, except for classified work, done in secure labs, by people who get thrown in Leavenworth if they release their work. And even then... Miles Fidelman Now, I don't agree with the tactic of the new ethical-source-license ideas where all the code is available and they try to use Copyright licenses to enforce ethical use. That can't solve these issues. But I think there's some challenging legitimate questions here, despite Jacob's views being largely misunderstandings for the current situation. -Aaron On 2022-03-11 21:27, Jean Louis wrote: * Jacob Hrbek [2022-03-11 21:00]: "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." Freedom Software (Free Software) is based on the principles of Four Freedoms of Franklin D. Roosevelt namely: 1. Freedom of speech 2. Freedom of worship/religion 3. Freedom of want 4. Freedom from fear Which is basically 1:1 copy of Four Freedoms of Free software with just changed wording to apply for computer science. Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software. Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general, though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free software. The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they wish. In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators. Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives, including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners. Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the perpetrator, it is not. Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on Libreplanet mailing list. Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality. Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior towards any ethnicity on this mailing list. Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html What we have is free software and that is what brings us together. Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
hi aa, all my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software freedom(s). also, i find your positions on the question very ethically questionable, shame on you. g On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote: I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal inclination/assumptions. I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose with either centralized or decentralized power? Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized powers often use their power unethically. I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question. On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto: The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will get access to it. This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.) As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions. See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations. Federico ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal inclination/assumptions. I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose with either centralized or decentralized power? Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized powers often use their power unethically. I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question. On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto: The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will get access to it. This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.) As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions. See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations. Federico ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto: The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will get access to it. This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.) As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions. See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations. Federico ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
The point of the podcast discussion was to grapple with the questions about power. I'm not saying I agree with every point or the way they frame the discussion. They are saying something to the effect of "empowering all people in the world via decentralized software freedom gives up the possibility of controlling bad actors", and the tension is whether there's any viable stance for the idea of even truly democratic organized power being okay having that sort of power over individual actors. I think the podcast is worth a listen, and your reactivity about Ukraine being described as "sovereign" is not relevant to the question. That said, the 13,000+ who died in Eastern Ukraine over the past several years are not all victims of the Ukrainian government directly, it amounts to the deaths on both sides. You can argue that the Ukrainian government could have made different decisions to avoid the situation, but other will argue that the Russian support of separatists is also at fault. Regardless of these dynamics, I get your point. Ukraine wasn't merely a plain old peaceful place prior to the recent invasion. Still, Russia chose to spread the war to a much greater scale and a much greater geographic region, affecting vastly greater numbers of people. "Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and neglect of human rights." Nonsense. Tell that to China. We can't honestly have a debate about whether China is a sovereign nation. We could discuss whether sovereign states of the modern sort should even exist at all. That could be more interesting. We could assert a political claim about what types of state sovereignty *ought* to exist or that we *recognize* (in the way that people politically refuse to recognize basic facts because of political tensions about the acknowledgement). But this gets too tangential for this list about software freedom. The philosophical and on-topic question is: are there ever situations where the decentralized power of software freedom is too dangerous? And if so, is it even possible to avoid it? And if so, who would justly be in control of such technology restrictions. It is a valid, and FSF-aligned position to say either that no situation ever justifies having software available but keeping the code restricted *or* to say that even if such situations exist, there is no (or even can never be a) powerful entity which we can trust to be the one managing the restrictions. But this is a discussion we could bother having. There is no discussion to have about blocking Russian military from using GNU/Linux distros. That's as out of scope as wishing for them not to have access to nuclear technology. The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that. The question now that we can at least have philosophically is to reflect on this in terms of considering whether or not we see a place for limits to software freedom for dangerous technology. And that discussion doesn't rely on any agreement about which current actors are good or bad. On 2022-03-12 10:53, Jean Louis wrote: * Aaron Wolf [2022-03-12 20:48]: The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of this issue: From your link: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization , | But if the world lives on Bitcoin, we may not be able to sanction | nation states like Russia when they invade sovereign nations. ` To be sovereign nation it does not mean killing withing one country one's own people and even 13000 of them. That is not "sovereign". Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and neglect of human rights. This war is not begin, but end of the war that begun 2014. Back then the conflict was financed by US government. Thus it should be clear there are multiple viewpoints on the issue. One could say that US has used free software in all of the killings like in Afghanistan or Libya, etc. Those discussions will never end. That is why we stick to freedom zero, use it as you wish. Using free software principles now for political propaganda is disgusting. I find it hostile to free software principles. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of this issue: https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization Now, that does not really relate to powerful government entities like the Russian military, but it does get into questions of danger and risk as people access technology. We can probably all see that if there were some software that would have the effect of a nuclear bomb, making that free software and distributing it to the world would be insane. There are some powers too dangerous to let exist and others too dangerous to allow individuals to operate without a whole system of checks-and-balances. This is an interesting debate about software freedom and whether there are places we should consider limiting it. Now, I don't agree with the tactic of the new ethical-source-license ideas where all the code is available and they try to use Copyright licenses to enforce ethical use. That can't solve these issues. But I think there's some challenging legitimate questions here, despite Jacob's views being largely misunderstandings for the current situation. -Aaron On 2022-03-11 21:27, Jean Louis wrote: * Jacob Hrbek [2022-03-11 21:00]: "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." Freedom Software (Free Software) is based on the principles of Four Freedoms of Franklin D. Roosevelt namely: 1. Freedom of speech 2. Freedom of worship/religion 3. Freedom of want 4. Freedom from fear Which is basically 1:1 copy of Four Freedoms of Free software with just changed wording to apply for computer science. Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software. Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general, though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free software. The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they wish. In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators. Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives, including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners. Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the perpetrator, it is not. Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on Libreplanet mailing list. Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality. Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior towards any ethnicity on this mailing list. Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html What we have is free software and that is what brings us together. Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
* Jacob Hrbek [2022-03-11 21:00]: > > "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal > purposes." > > Freedom Software (Free Software) is based on the principles of Four Freedoms > of Franklin D. Roosevelt namely: > > 1. Freedom of speech > 2. Freedom of worship/religion > 3. Freedom of want > 4. Freedom from fear > > Which is basically 1:1 copy of Four Freedoms of Free software with just > changed wording to apply for computer science. Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software. Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general, though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free software. The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they wish. In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators. Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives, including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners. Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the perpetrator, it is not. Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on Libreplanet mailing list. Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality. Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior towards any ethnicity on this mailing list. Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html What we have is free software and that is what brings us together. Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Are there ways to be hostile to Putin's regime without being hostile to the ordinary Russians? __ From: libreplanet-discuss on behalf of Richard Stallman Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2022 9:15:37 PM To: Félicien Pillot Cc: valentino.giudic...@gmail.com ; krey...@rixotstudio.cz ; libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org Subject: Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software? [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and > Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but why do that? It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with our softwsre. It would not stop Russians from downloading our software, as they could use mirror sites. It _would_ stop people in Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use Tor or a VPN. That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it. The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so you are scum." Is it useful to treat Russians that way? Would it help save Ukraine or defeat Putin? I don't think so. That message is not a valid or useful message to give to Russians. -- Dr Richard Stallman ([1]https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project ([2]https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation ([3]https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer ([4]https://internethalloffame.org) ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [5]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss References 1. https://stallman.org/ 2. https://gnu.org/ 3. https://fsf.org/ 4. https://internethalloffame.org/ 5. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
* Miles Fidelman [2022-03-11 20:54]: > Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING SUBMISSIONS > to the repositories. I expect that the Russians (among others) are spending > a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into things - to better > distribute disinformation, the better to collect names of folks to arrest, > the better to prepare for large scale cyberattacks. Please do not spread FUD or Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts. > Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man. That is not purpose of Libreplanet mailing list to support this or that political opinions. Please read here: LibrePlanet:About/Code of Conduct - LibrePlanet https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:About/Code_of_Conduct And let me remind you that in many countries your constitution defends human rights, including UN declaration of human rights, so please stick to what your nation, whatever it may be, promised to you as citizens, not to discriminate against others or accuse others without evidences. Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns In support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
On Thu, 2022-03-10 at 16:01 +, Jacob Hrbek wrote: > > It's just fucking crazy to argue that us writting a software for the > russian army is somehow a "good thing for freedom" when all rules of > freedom are being shelled with cluster bombs in ukraine at the time > when > even the definition of neutrality (SWITZERLAND!!) joined up on the > sanctions. > Nobody wrote the software FOR the Russian army specifically. I'm not sure what you want everyone to do here. Do you have any army to back your idea of restricting the Russian army from using Free Software? Even if we suddenly changed licensing terms to exclude acts of war or whatever that would only be active going forward, not retroactive if I'm understanding the licenses properly. Meaning there are repositories of software out there that would be available for use. Also, if someone is committing a war crime, do you think they'll stop at violating a software license? Like leveling a city was okay to them but violating software terms is the hard line they just won't cross? ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Richard Stallman wrote: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and > Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but why do that? It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with our softwsre. It would not stop Russians from downloading our software, as they could use mirror sites. It _would_ stop people in Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use Tor or a VPN. That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it. The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so you are scum." Is it useful to treat Russians that way? Would it help save Ukraine or defeat Putin? I don't think so. That message is not a valid or useful message to give to Russians. Good points all. Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING SUBMISSIONS to the repositories. I expect that the Russians (among others) are spending a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into things - to better distribute disinformation, the better to collect names of folks to arrest, the better to prepare for large scale cyberattacks. Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man. Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. Yogi Berra Theory is when you know everything but nothing works. Practice is when everything works but no one knows why. In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why. ... unknown ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
> "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." Freedom Software (Free Software) is based on the principles of Four Freedoms of Franklin D. Roosevelt namely: 1. Freedom of speech 2. Freedom of worship/religion 3. Freedom of want 4. Freedom from fear Which is basically 1:1 copy of Four Freedoms of Free software with just changed wording to apply for computer science. It's just fucking crazy to argue that us writting a software for the russian army is somehow a "good thing for freedom" when all rules of freedom are being shelled with cluster bombs in ukraine at the time when even the definition of neutrality (SWITZERLAND!!) joined up on the sanctions. One thing is people using free software to do crimes in the world like allegedly Pink Panthers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Panthers] using it for organized crime and the other state-sponsored terror projected to cause 1 000 000 civilian death including children, newborns and since few hours ago even _UNBORNS_ (https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=RI01f-YRUdY) that could escalate into a WW3. The history will remember you for the actions that you've taken today, because everyone in the Free Software movement has a major role in the capability of russian military in this war [https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-to-replacing-windows-with-astra-linux]. On 3/9/22 19:03, Erica Frank wrote: This makes no sense. "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." First, the practical side: Savannah, Github, and Sourceforge are not the only sources. There are distributors, small and large, all over the web. If the big three stopped hosting it, or blocked downloads, other ones would pop up quickly. This happens even for pirate sites - did the end of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa end unauthorized music downloading? Once the code is out there, there's no putting it back under lock. If the free software community wanted to prevent the software from being used for evil, that needed to be folded into the original license, not added decades later. This is hardly the first war, nor the first horrifically oppressive political action, since the free software movement began. More importantly: Any restrictions on distribution or use will hit marginalized communities first and hardest. This is *always* what happens when "morality" laws are introduced - the goal is to restrict or end corruption, but the result is crackdowns on the people who are easiest to find and punish. The penalties hit the people who don't have resources, not the ones who are causing the problems. You think the Russian government and military orgs can't operate VPNs? It's the everyday citizens, ones who oppose the war, who would be hurt by "no downloading from Russian IPs." Hell, if they need to, Russian gov't agents can travel to other countries, buy a new laptop, and download anything they want. There is no type of restriction on access that is going to hurt the Russian government and military more than it hurts the average user, who had no choice in the war. On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 8:23 AM Félicien Pillot wrote: Le Tue, 8 Mar 2022 23:50:45 +0100, Valentino Giudice a écrit : This is not cooperating with community and society, it's mass murder by complacency and sooner we take action on this the sooner the russian gov will have issues getting updates for GNU and FSF to contribute to the non-fascist side of this war. Freedom 2 is necessary to help others with the purpose of making society better, but it absolutely is not and has never been limited to that: you can choose whom to help (by giving copies of the software to those people) regardless of their intentions. When you say "you" a.k.a. the distributor of the software, it means: those who host online the source code and binary packages, from the forges and cvs repositories to the GNU/Linux system distributions. So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. WDYT? -- Félicien Pillot 2C7C ACC0 FBDB ADBA E7BC 50D9 043C D143 6C87 9372 felic...@gnu.org - felicien.pil...@riseup.net ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss This makes no sense. "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." First, the practical side: Savannah, Github, and Sourceforge are not the only sources. There are distributors, small and large, all over the web. If the big three stopped hosting it, or blocked downloads, other ones would pop up quickly. This happens even for pirate sites - did the end of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa end unauthorized music downloading? Once the code is out there, there's no putting it back under lock. If the free soft
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and > Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but why do that? It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with our softwsre. It would not stop Russians from downloading our software, as they could use mirror sites. It _would_ stop people in Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use Tor or a VPN. That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it. The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so you are scum." Is it useful to treat Russians that way? Would it help save Ukraine or defeat Putin? I don't think so. That message is not a valid or useful message to give to Russians. -- Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org) Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org) Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org) ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
This makes no sense. "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes." First, the practical side: Savannah, Github, and Sourceforge are not the only sources. There are distributors, small and large, all over the web. If the big three stopped hosting it, or blocked downloads, other ones would pop up quickly. This happens even for pirate sites - did the end of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa end unauthorized music downloading? Once the code is out there, there's no putting it back under lock. If the free software community wanted to prevent the software from being used for evil, that needed to be folded into the original license, not added decades later. This is hardly the first war, nor the first horrifically oppressive political action, since the free software movement began. More importantly: Any restrictions on distribution or use will hit marginalized communities first and hardest. This is always what happens when "morality" laws are introduced - the goal is to restrict or end corruption, but the result is crackdowns on the people who are easiest to find and punish. The penalties hit the people who don't have resources, not the ones who are causing the problems. You think the Russian government and military orgs can't operate VPNs? It's the everyday citizens, ones who oppose the war, who would be hurt by "no downloading from Russian IPs." Hell, if they need to, Russian gov't agents can travel to other countries, buy a new laptop, and download anything they want. There is no type of restriction on access that is going to hurt the Russian government and military more than it hurts the average user, who had no choice in the war. On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 8:23 AM Félicien Pillot <[1]felic...@gnu.org> wrote: Le Tue, 8 Mar 2022 23:50:45 +0100, Valentino Giudice <[2]valentino.giudic...@gmail.com> a écrit : > > This is not cooperating with community and society, it's mass > > murder by complacency and sooner we take action on this the sooner > > the russian gov will have issues getting updates for GNU and FSF to > > contribute to the non-fascist side of this war. > > Freedom 2 is necessary to help others with the purpose of making > society better, but it absolutely is not and has never been limited to > that: you can choose whom to help (by giving copies of the software to > those people) regardless of their intentions. When you say "you" a.k.a. the distributor of the software, it means: those who host online the source code and binary packages, from the forges and cvs repositories to the GNU/Linux system distributions. So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. WDYT? -- Félicien Pillot 2C7C ACC0 FBDB ADBA E7BC 50D9 043C D143 6C87 9372 [3]felic...@gnu.org - [4]felicien.pil...@riseup.net ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [5]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org [6]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus s References 1. mailto:felic...@gnu.org 2. mailto:valentino.giudic...@gmail.com 3. mailto:felic...@gnu.org 4. mailto:felicien.pil...@riseup.net 5. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org 6. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Which makes absolutely no sense. It's not the job of the FSF to side with Ukraine, or in general to take a side in wars. Those that support the FSF can have any opinion about any topic unrelated to free software and their money and support shouldn't be used to take a stand on separate issues. But even if it did take a stand on this (it's still not clear to me why access to free software is any more of a concern than access to anything else, and access to anything else is being regulated through sanctions which are decided by governments), it would fail. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone who supports Russia, or who simply disagrees with restricting access to software, from mirroring all software programs distributed by the FSF, and any free GNU/Linux distro. As for Debian, it has a social contract: https://www.debian.org/social_contract I believe that not distributing software to a particular part of the world that was using their software before would be against paragraph 4. First, free software is a priority. Not any other political stance. So trying to support Ukraine by reducing free software access in Russia goes against this principle. Second, and more importantly, users are a priority. So preventing Russian users (not just individuals, but companies and government agencies too) from accessing updates to software they use goes after that principle. Some would argue that Debian should take a stand in this because people in Ukraine are users too, but that would be a terrible argument. The intention of that paragraph and the meaning of the word "user" are obviously such that users are a priority *as such* (i.e. because they are users, and are helped by Debian as users). Otherwise, the mission of Debian could simply be "we make the world a better place". None in good faith would ever support such an organization because you can't know what you are actually supporting. An organization which does whatever the person in charge thinks is good, regardless of topic, regardless of what the organization promises, is a fundamentally corrupt organization. The same applies to the FSF: preventing access to free software in Russia would in no way help software freedom, nor would it help free software users as such, and thus it's not something the FSF should do. ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Le Tue, 8 Mar 2022 23:50:45 +0100, Valentino Giudice a écrit : > > This is not cooperating with community and society, it's mass > > murder by complacency and sooner we take action on this the sooner > > the russian gov will have issues getting updates for GNU and FSF to > > contribute to the non-fascist side of this war. > > Freedom 2 is necessary to help others with the purpose of making > society better, but it absolutely is not and has never been limited to > that: you can choose whom to help (by giving copies of the software to > those people) regardless of their intentions. When you say "you" a.k.a. the distributor of the software, it means: those who host online the source code and binary packages, from the forges and cvs repositories to the GNU/Linux system distributions. So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia. WDYT? -- Félicien Pillot 2C7C ACC0 FBDB ADBA E7BC 50D9 043C D143 6C87 9372 felic...@gnu.org - felicien.pil...@riseup.net pgpfsP9HErxaO.pgp Description: Signature digitale OpenPGP ___ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
