From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Linus' thread: (CW: bigotry and racism in the comments) https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSXomDbvdxKgOxVAm (you need to scroll down, i can't seem to link to the comment in the screenshot)
Honestly I don't understand this kind of argument. Linux is political: compare it to its alternatives, look at the license it's released under, and so on. Lemmy is the same way. Lemmy even has a section in the manual about how it's fundamentally political: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/users/07-history-of-lemmy.html
The motivations for creating open source software can be political, but the product itself is apolitical. Programming code is pure logic and has no opinions.
I don't even really believe that software licenses are inherently political. All they do is permit/restrict specific rights to attribute, use, modify, reproduce, distribute, etc. the code. The only real political position I could see against software licenses is one that doesn't believe in protecting intellectual property rights. So if we're going that far, I will tacitly agree that software licenses could potentially be considered political, but not in a very meaningful sense IMHO.
Can you explain to me how, for example, Stuxnet is apolitical?
Can you explain how these restrictions/permissions are apolitical?
Stuxnet itself doesn't care whose centrifuges it destroys (in fact it doesn't care or have an awareness that it's destroying anything at all), it does what it's programmed to do and is deployed to do by people with political goals. It's not the same thing as Stuxnet itself being political.
I did say that I could conceive of one way that software licenses could be considered somewhat political if one's politics reject the validity of intellectual property. But then again, the software licenses are also not the code itself. If one doesn't believe in the concept of intellectual property, one is free to accept whatever risk is involved with breaking the license and using it anyway. The software doesn't care who's running it.
I know this is all somewhat pedantic, but I pretty firmly believe no software is inherently political. At least maybe not until we have a computer system that achieves some form of sentience and its operating instructions are subject to its own will.
I don't think this is pedantic at all. This is a pretty reasonable perspective, but I'm not quite sure yet if I agree or disagree.
What are your thoughts on the death of the artist? I feel like the intentions have some kind of value in all art (or software in this case). It is yet another thing I am fuzzy on.
Lol. I don't think you know what political means.
I actually do know what political means. Care to explain why you think software licenses are political instead of laughing at what I consider to be a completely reasonable statement?
If you need it explained to you, then you don't know what political means.
I'm actually perfectly in agreement with both of those statements 🤷
Dang. I wish I could see what this said.
It was something like this,
except it was written in a way that was more annoying to read.
Edit: I'm assuming reposting the content is fine since the modlog showed that this user was banned and had their messages removed for reasons unrelated to this particular comment.