<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 10:41 AM Tobie Langel <<a href="mailto:tobie@unlockopen.com">tobie@unlockopen.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div>On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 02:11 Russell Nelson <<a href="mailto:nelson@crynwr.com" target="_blank">nelson@crynwr.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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<div>The fact that "ethical" software has no
place at OSI? Well, it doesn't. If it did, then she would have been
elected.</div></div></blockquote><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div><div><div dir="auto">With all due respect, I really feel like this is the wrong framing. If the OSI wants to be representative of the open source community—which it must if it wants to be legitimate—it can’t just ignore a concern that’s become mainstream* among open source practitioners.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The other Russell and I seem to believe that it is the new group that has framed the problem wrong.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I believe they are dismissing those of us who already thought of, discussed, and dealt with this concern that regularly resurfaces. While there are specific personalities that are new at the moment, the concern is not.</div><div><br></div><div>I am not saying this to dismiss the concern, but to try to get the new group of people to stop dismissing the rest of us.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I am someone who has strong political views, and right from when I discovered the Free Software movement in the 1990's I believed and continued to believe that FLOSS licensed software is already the most ethical source (IE: ethical sourcing) of software. The fact that it has a "free as in free speech, not free beer" as the core of software freedom, meaning you only believe in this freedom if you will protect it for your enemies as much as your friends, is critical for what makes it ethical.</div><div><br>What I believe is needed is an education campaign to better explain why OSI and FSF licenses (with IMHO a few exceptions) are already ethical source, and why encouraging software authors to discriminate against people or organizations they disagree with politically is counterproductive to their own stated goals.</div><div><br> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div dir="auto"> Note I’m not saying: “change the OSD to allow ethical licenses,” I’m saying “work hand in hand to account for the concerns of the broader community to find reasonable solutions that meet those concerns.”</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>We have already accounted for those concerns, if only people were open enough to listen.</div><div><br></div><div>What it requires is that each person that discovers this concern be willing to discuss and learn from those who have already dealt with the concern. To believe that each new person that discovers the concern must be accomodated is to entirely dismiss the majority who believe they have already dealt with the concern, and have already rejected the claimed "solution" of empowering software authors to discriminate based on their personal political views (which, BTW, is the same thing as their personal interpretation of "human rights" given that is not a deterministic concept).</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div dir="auto">* For scale, the twitter poll I ran earlier this year from my personal account had more respondents in favor of a Hippocratic-like license than there are OSI members (and roughly twice as more than OSI members that voted). </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I assume you realise that these two numbers can't be compared as they aren't related. I seriously doubt those responding to your poll have given open source as much thought as the members of OSI, and I'd be curious to see the wording of the question. I bet I could word a question that would get the vast majority of US citizens to apparently approve of all the activities of ICE -- I don't personally approve, but that is largely irrelevant.</div><div><br></div><div>Note: I care deeply about open source, and have been advocating for supporting policy for decades (politicians, bureaucrats, etc), but I'm not currently a member of OSI.</div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"></div></div></div>