OSOS: Block China from Using Open Source

by daenz • 7 years ago

8 11 7 years ago

No, just no. I want Open Source to be a true meritocracy, irrespective of creed, race, identity, country, etc. I think I am not alone in that.

If we start using Open Source as a political weapon, we've let the genii out of their bottles, and can never put them back - we will have forever changed how non-developers use Open Source.

Projects could then start asking things like "Are you pro-life?", "Are you pro-choice", "Do you support impeachment?", "Do you support making America great again?".

Taken to the extreme, projects could become Pro-X and their stance used as campaign advertising fodder (e.g., Apache powers X% of the world's web, and they stand behind candidate Y), users choose a project not because it is the best technically or fits their need the best, but because it supports their favorite cause, or because it echoes their favorite rallying cry of protest.

We would also ensure Open Source will not, can not, be used on government programs. Government programs are not allowed to show favoritism to any vendor or support any political cause or candidate. If a specific Open Source project supports a particular cause or candidate, then choosing to use/contribute to that project could be construed as favoritism, and many program managers will shy away from even the hint of the appearance of favoritism.

Please do not support OSOS, or anything like it. Please do spread this caution far and wide.

heraclius2• 7 years ago

I think this is an important concern. Two possible responses follow, though I don’t think that they are entirely adequate.

First of all, it’s not obvious why we should only consider technical concerns—perhaps reduced performance is a price worth paying. One might even say that technical performance is useless as a metric per se; technical performance is useful insofar as it works for good ends, which is exactly the sort of norm OSOS would work towards.

Second, it is possible to endorse some norms as above concerning who should use software without endorsing all possible norms, in the same way that we have a nonzero number of relatively uncontentious free speech restrictions (e.g., don’t shout fire, etc.) Now, whether OSOS is something that can be justified in a similar fashion is yet to be seen, but it is certainly worth trying.

heraclius2• 7 years ago

I share the author’s concern about the spread of the party’s totalitarianism. But one should think very carefully about whether this sort of action is productive, and I do not see anything like the level of reflexion that would be sensible in thinking about this; I hope that if this takes off such discussion takes place before, perhaps here.

A small contribution, then:

1. Open source components of VPNs help the spread of democracy, but wouldn’t work under OSOS.

2. Norms on communities like GitHub at the moment also exist in China because programmers will have to use GitHub (for example); now communities that will comply with CCP-imposed norms will spring up to replace them. And the Chinese market is pretty big.

verdverm• 7 years ago

How does this compare or relate to the wave of projects moving to source available?

How about the Chef / ICE debacle which found support here?

robjan2• 7 years ago

The Chinese people and Chinese government are different things. Why arbitrarily punish all of the citizens and organisations of one country?

Additionally this would punish anyone visiting China including humanitarian organisations and diplomats.

williamstein• 7 years ago

Please no. My favorite new library https://ant.design/ is a contribution to open source from China.

robjan2• 7 years ago

A significant number of contributions towards React (Native) and its libraries are from China. The ecosystem would be worse off if OSOS were included.

laike9m2• 7 years ago

How about "ban Trump supporters from using Open Source projects", would it be nicer?

See, this type of thing can be abused easily.

simonblack• 7 years ago

Easy fix. Download the program-source and then remove the China-block from the source. Next!!

Who decides who is 'not allowed' to use the open-source program? It's a silly concept, and very open to political abuse.

est• 7 years ago

Judging developers by origin of country is the same as judging people by color. This is hate speech.

laike9m2• 7 years ago

OSOS: Block China from Using Open Source

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