Ethical source is hot garbage (2021)
3 points by lr0
3 points by lr0
This post doesn't go into much detail about why neutrality is good, why the ability of anyone to fix their printer is more important than Coraline's concerns, or anything like that. I didn't get into free software because of some sort of dedication to neutrality, but because I thought it might help achieve social outcomes I wanted, or at the very least make life more annoying for the evil tech companies that were emerging then and are dominant now.
It didn't work. Maybe neutrality isn't strong enough for the world we live in today. Or maybe not, I guess we can't know, but I increasingly find myself thinking that the software freedom movement is out of time. Nobody else is playing that game any more. Even copyleft software might as well be a gift to the corporations at this point. I am open to the idea that we do, in fact, need to make moral judgements about how software can be used.
The post doesn't argue that "neutrality is good":
There is, of course, a place for ethics in open source development. Software development cannot be culturally or ethically neutral, as it necessarily engages with people and society. However, these issues can be, should be, and are addressed elsewhere within the community structure.
and
The basic problem OES tries to solve is a real one, and preventing abuse is a thoroughly admirable goal, so long as it can be done well.
It doesn't even attempt to propose where that "elsewhere" is or how solving the problem "can be done", though…
The main purpose besides arguing that licenses are the "wrong tool for the job" seems to be a general critique of the Ethical Source folks, whose conduct was questionable at times. As in: Even if you want to put some kind of policing against evil in place (however that would work), these folks are enough trouble to look elsewhere.
IMHO: The less said about Ehmke and her gang, the better. Luckily they faded into obscurity so I kinda wonder why they had to be dug out again.
"I want the freedom to use this software however I want" and "tolerance of intolerance brings us inevitably to fascism" are two absolutely true statements that express the political tension in our modern society.
Coraline is making a good faith effort to protect out groups and fix the latter issue of tolerance enabling fascism in open source.
Wow, that's a blast from the past. I didn't hear about “Ethical Source” movement for years, but it was a very dividing and hot topic in mid 2010s (at least in my bubble).
On this article, I don't like how they lump Open Source and Free Software together -- the former is philanthropy towards corporations while the latter is egoism, as in - I egoistically lock all derivative works so I can look into them, reuse them and incorporate them (and I think that it is a good thing).