I for one am going through quite a culture shock. I always assumed the nature of FOSS software made it immune to be confined within the policies of nations; I guess if one day the government of USA starts to think that its a security concers for china to use and contribute to core opensource software created by its citizens or based in their boundaries, they might strongarm FOSS communities and projects to make their software exclude them in someway or worse declare GPL software a threat to national security.
Well, in theory open source is immune to all that. However, the country a project is registered at, matters. That’s why the RISC-V project, for example, took its headquarters from the US to Switzerland. For that exact reason: so no country could strong arm it, especially since Chinese were the major contributors to the project (Switzerland is not 100% neutral, but it’s more neutral than other countries).
Not really, open source projects don’t necessarily have to be open to all contributors and I was aware of this already. They have to be open to anyone doing what they want with the code, by definition, which is good, but they don’t have to allow everyone to contribute to upstream. I’m not sure if there’s any particular defence against this being used in a discriminatory manner, but I do think this effect is significantly mitigated by the decentralised nature of open source and the fact that it’s not too uncommon for forks to become preferred over the original, the fact that open source projects rise and fall in popularity, etc.
I wonder if there’s some way to manage an open source project so that it’s not subject to particular national laws in this way.
It’s not decentralized on the level of project development, the visible proof of which is what we’ve seen happen.
How many times have you seen two branches of a significant project to coexist with comparable popularity?
I wonder if there’s some way to manage an open source project so that it’s not subject to particular national laws in this way.
Yes. Pseudonymous software development. I’ve seen Ross Ulbricht’s name today, so we also know the risks.
Naturally this is closer to some underground warez than to copyleft, because the legal ways of protecting copylefted information against appropriation will not be available. A different paradigm.
Hasn’t changed my view much. I already knew Linux was a company that has a legal presence in the US and so would be subject to their laws. The only real surprise is that it’s taken so long to action this particular set of sanctions.
I do think the announcement was poorly handled - it should have been explained either before or immediately afterwards to cut back on the conjecture. The git notice only said that these contributors’ names had been removed from the credits, not that they’d been stopped from contributing completely. Any company, including Linux, that does something they know is going to be contentious like this should bloody well get ahead of that curve and put the facts out.
The world is at war. It’s not a bloody world war as we’ve seen before, but it is nation against nation by other means. FOSS is used so widely it is absolutely a target and nobody can be so idealistic that they cannot see the conflict, nor not know that it’s constantly being attacked. Where you live does matter. I wish that wasn’t the case - I truly do, but it’s naive in the extreme to pretend otherwise.
This wasn’t a decision made based on sanctions, it was just an excuse given but no actual evidence of Linux being required to act on them was ever given.
Why do you think Linus is not being truthful?
Other countries are similarly sanctioned, and hundreds of maintainers from those sanctions are still there. So the sanctions thing is absolutely just an excuse.
What Linus just did to Russians is scaring a lot of people right now, who are probably wondering if they should keep working in association with a project which has just demonstrated its unreliability.
Because of the tone he used when making his announcement and the white nationalist references to the Finno-Russian historical squabbles
There was more drama? I didn’t even notice. They’re always doing drama.
Yes. I always thought of sanctions as being finance-related, meaning you can’t transact with sanctioned groups. I figured it couldn’t apply to decision-making/membership in non-profit organizations (that it might somehow violate “free speech” or some shit). Finding out this is not the case is terrifying and one more reason to hate the US (not that we needed more). This might disincentivize some people to contribute to FOSS.
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It changed my view on how true to their ideas some people are.
No.
It wasn’t a culture shock but it made something obvious that sometimes gets forgotten. The “Open” just means that one can look at the source code and copy it to make a new version. There is no obligation of the original creators to support things outside of what they want/can do.
Of course. It’s still just a software project.
Nope. Politics is part of being open source.
As for US strong arming you don’t have to be a US company for them to do that. RISK-V and ASML have been targeted by them in the past to prevent Chinese use.
RISK-V and ASML have been targeted by them in the past to prevent Chinese use.
reading the broad points regarding RISC-V, I think my worst case scenario is apparently just the present day.
i’ve been contributing to open source for a year or so now and i’ve found the politics of projects affects contributions greatly
I think the prestige of “maintainers” and contributions/control are what is being torn down. Anyone anywhere is still welcome to contribute, they are simply limited from direct control. They can still fork at any time, anyone can. Getting people to follow your fork is another thing entirely, and your open source code will still likely be incorporated directly or indirectly. The only thing that has changed is the misguided prestige that has grown around the project and is not a required or relevant part of the project as a whole.
No
This shows that no open-source project can really be directed from the US, or if they are then a fork should exist and be maintained by BRICS citizens who are obviously viewed as lesser, at least in the Linux project.
Just this one. The philosophy is still there, Linus and TLF have abandoned it with great hubris. I am very disappointed in them.
I’m thinking about that conspiracy theory of Linus having been made an offer one can’t refuse, when some time ago he took a vacation and returned with news about seeing the error of his ways.
It almost coincided with Stallman being canceled for one of his usual highly socially unacceptable, but in principle consistent opinions. With most of the attackers being frankly some new random corporate-associated people, not very active in real communities.
Maybe I’ll re-read J4F and compare Linus from there to these events. Canary and all.
EDIT: Before you downvote this for the mush in my head (thx Linus) propagating conspiracy theories, offers one can’t refuse are not exactly an impossible thing. And WWII radio games, where, having captured an enemy station’s operator, one of the sides could either imitate their style in transmissions or just force them to transmit what it wanted.
I mean he has accepted a position as a luminary at the x86 ecosystem advisory group the most dominant and proprietary instruction set ever formed by companies with vested interest to keeping it in use and prevent competition (RISC-V & ARM) from catching up.
Unfortunately no.
I remember the selinux controversy and the nsa trying to slip bad algorithms in.
