[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Russell McOrmond]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2020 at 9:18 AM Tobie Langel <tobie at unlockopen.com> wrote:

> I've pointed to a twitter poll answered by 1200 people  and a blog post of
> a fairly influential figure in the web space as evidence of interest in
> these issues. Others on this list have pointed at the result of the OSI
> election to show the same. I'm yet to see evidence of the opposite.
>

I would be interested to actually see the poll question.  All I've seen
offered is one possible interpretation of a question. It is possible that I
might have answered in a way that clarifies that I have an interest in
these issues -- and my interest in these issues is exactly why I strongly
oppose the proposed tactics as I believe them to contradict the stated
goals.


I'm sorry, but being concerned with the ethical impact of technology in
> general and open source software in particular doesn't make me a "proponent
> of ethical source," whatever that means. Again, if you choose to engage
> with my emails and wish to start a conversation, please address what's
> written, not what you believe I "seem to prefer" or write "as a proponent
> for ethical source."
>

As someone who has been concerned with the ethical impact of technology for
decades, longer than the term "open source" has been used in the
software field, I agree with Nigel that the most vocal proponents of using
software licenses to bypass the political process, and to incorrectly use
the term "open source" to the point it would no longer have any useful
meaning, have been quite rude and dismissive of others.


While I'm not suggesting that all the proponents of modifying or bypassing
the OSD in order to allow politically motivated discrimination to be called
"open source" are left-wing, I will still point to this humorous while
informative video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lcYP_zOOXg  (I'm
socially liberal, so get called a lefty on social issues, but didn't need
this boot-camp).

One theme is critically important: that questioning methods should not be
claimed to be a question of the goals.

Your answer suggested that you believe those who are opposed to what the
"ethical source" group are trying to do aren't "concerned with the ethical
impact of technology in general and open source software in particular".
In my mind the opposite is true, as those who want open source values
(especially non-discrimination) to be embraced by everyone (including their
political opponents, domestic or foreign) are to me the ones already
working toward reducing the negative impacts of technology and software
license agreements.

-- 
Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>

"The government, lobbied by legacy copyright holders and hardware
manufacturers, can pry my camcorder, computer, home theatre, or portable
media player from my cold dead hands!" http://c11.ca/own
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20200322/ebed200a/attachment-0001.html>