this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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I for one am going through quite a culture shock. I always assumed the nature of FOSS software made it immune to be confined within the policies of nations; I guess if one day the government of USA starts to think that its a security concers for china to use and contribute to core opensource software created by its citizens or based in their boundaries, they might strongarm FOSS communities and projects to make their software exclude them in someway or worse declare GPL software a threat to national security.

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 43 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

Yes. There is an extremely arbitrary distinction made between the USA and Russia. Both are known for injecting spyware. China is somehow still okay? It makes no sense.

Not to mention the elephant in the room by not banning another certain country actively committing war crimes.

All software should be safety checked. Where the maintainer is from should be irrelevant.

But the most weird aspect is the timing. Why now and not a few years ago?

[–] FriendBesto@lemmy.ml 17 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

All part of the current US/NATO approved Overton Window, friend.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] FriendBesto@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 weeks ago

Ha. Autocorrect strikes again! Fixed it and Thanks, for pointing it out.

[–] troed@fedia.io 10 points 4 weeks ago (6 children)

There is an extremely arbitrary distinction made between the USA and Russia.

Your world view seems to be highly influenced by propaganda. It's very easy to draw a distinction between these two countries. Let me start with an easy one:

Russia is a dictatorship, the US is a democracy.

[–] Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

US is a democracy

Lmfao

Modern Russia is a shitty liberal "democracy" just as incompetent as the US's

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 9 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I see why some people block lenny.ml. Many there put everything through a high-standard threshold function.

[–] Binette@lemmy.ml 28 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
  1. You're replying to someone from db0

  2. Lemmy.ml is not the only place that believes the US isn't a democracy.

  3. The US is an oligarchy. It's one of the things agreed by philosophers, including my teacher. The current controversy in the left surrounding the elections obviously proves this point.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)
  1. Oops. That’s… interesting.
  2. Maybe, but we at least get to select which oligarchs we prefer. In Russia, you select from Putin, Pootin, and Puteen.
[–] macabrett@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If you think the oligarchs in America are the people up for a vote, you're completing misunderstanding what you're being told right now.

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 17 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

America: we need military bases all over the world to surpress their population and steal their natural resources. This is why Israel must grow to expand our foothold in the middle east even at the cost of a genocide. We also overthrow democracies to replace them with authoritarian dictators when convenient to us.

You: Democracy!

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 17 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

People don't realize that the US founders explicitly modeled their new state on the Roman empire, with an expansionist aristocracy / slaveocracy controlling the state. The debates on this in the federalist papers are very explicit, as is the way they structured its government. Hell even half the buildings in washington DC are modelled after roman architecture.

[–] Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 weeks ago

high-standard

If these mods here actually had high standards they would be banning the shitlibs on this thread

[–] Alsephina@lemmy.ml 28 points 4 weeks ago

Your world view seems to be highly influenced by propaganda. A country ruled by two identical genocidal capitalist parties isn't a "democracy"; it's a capitalist dictatorship.

Any party genuinely wanting to advance working class causes will not be allowed to come to power through it (they won't be funded by the capitalist backers that fund/control the two ruling parties to begin with), and anyone in power that happens to hurt the country's imperial prowess will be disposed of by the ruling parties, the way JFK was assassinated for wanting to abolish the CIA and reducing US troops in the Middle East.

[–] FreydounHosseini@vegantheoryclub.org 27 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

The commenter says as he repeats other propaganda.

The US is not and has never been a democracy. The US is an oligarchy.

Read The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

[–] FriendBesto@lemmy.ml 14 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

At best, it was for a while a Representative Democracy. Where people gave their vote to other people to vote for them.

The fact that most Americans think the US is not an oligarchy, today, is a testament to the power of the State and their corporate media to propagandized their own citizens. It is very rich for them to point to other country's Oligarchies and somehow absolutely fail to see their own. Or worse, call it some weird type of conspiracy to call out or point out reality.

I mean, it is not like it is not obvious if one takes a step back or two and looks at it objectively.

[–] FriendBesto@lemmy.ml 24 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Read about Operation Condor. Its actions, repercussions and number of deaths due to it, and continue to pretend the USA follows Democratic Valuesβ„’. And this is just but one example.

They are just better at PR than most. You are walking proof of it.

[–] Alsephina@lemmy.ml 13 points 4 weeks ago

A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink

"I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says.

"Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them."

The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."

[–] red@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

well yeah, how does us being democracy change the fact that they basically did almost everything that Russia did

[–] troed@fedia.io 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

"basically"

You'll be surprised if you actually challenge your convictions.

[–] 4am@lemm.ee 14 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I did, and I found that the US does WORSE shit than Russia sometimes.

Russia ain’t good. Neither is the US. Get your head out of your ass.

[–] troed@fedia.io 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Heard about what Russia has been doing in the occupied parts of Ukraine?

[–] basmati@lemmus.org 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Heard about what the US did in Afghanistan? US soldiers raped a LOT of children before and after murdering their entire families.

[–] macabrett@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

America JUST exited a decades long war where the only results were death and destruction.

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[–] Arcturus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

Are you sure you want to compare how many wars the US has waged compared to Russia and how many people they've murdered each?

That commenter is doing you a favour by implying it's anywhere close.

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[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

Which one is killing us faster? I'm pretty sure it's the USA. Nice that you get to live in a democracy I guess but that doesn't mean a damn thing to someone living outside the USA and being exploited and abused by it.

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[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago

China is somehow still okay?

China is too important a supplier to the West. Sanctions against them would lead to retaliatory sanctions against the West from China which would be economically devastating.

Obviously they are just as dangerous and as actively involved is espionage as the other world players, but they hold too many cards to risk escalation. The West is also too important to their economy to escalate beyond war games. At least - we all hope so.

[–] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 39 points 4 weeks ago

Those kinds of problems aren't particularly new (PGP comes to mind as an example back when you couldn't export it out of the US), but it's a reminder that a lot of open-source comes from the US and Europe and is subject to western nation's will. The US is also apparently thinks China is "stealing" RISC-V.

To me that goes against the spirit of open-source, where where you come from and who you are shouldn't matter, because the code is by the people for the people and no money is exchanged. It's already out there in the open, it's not like it will stop the enemy from using the code. What's also silly about this is if the those people were contributing anonymously under a fake or generic name, nothing would have happened.

The Internet got ruined when Facebook normalized/enforced using your real identity online.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 24 points 4 weeks ago

Not really, open source projects don't necessarily have to be open to all contributors and I was aware of this already. They have to be open to anyone doing what they want with the code, by definition, which is good, but they don't have to allow everyone to contribute to upstream. I'm not sure if there's any particular defence against this being used in a discriminatory manner, but I do think this effect is significantly mitigated by the decentralised nature of open source and the fact that it's not too uncommon for forks to become preferred over the original, the fact that open source projects rise and fall in popularity, etc.

I wonder if there's some way to manage an open source project so that it's not subject to particular national laws in this way.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 weeks ago

Open source means open source, I never assume anything else from open source projects.

[–] Scorpius@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 weeks ago

Same here. For now it's only barring contributors which won't harm actual users much, but that could change in the future with the precedent this is setting.

What's the point of "FOSS" at that point if it's not so different from corporate products, being similarly vulnerable to sanctions? I could see genuine free software being relegated to piracy communities if it goes that far.

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 13 points 4 weeks ago

Well, in theory open source is immune to all that. However, the country a project is registered at, matters. That's why the RISC-V project, for example, took its headquarters from the US to Switzerland. For that exact reason: so no country could strong arm it, especially since Chinese were the major contributors to the project (Switzerland is not 100% neutral, but it's more neutral than other countries).

[–] drq@mastodon.ml 12 points 4 weeks ago

@Artemis_Mystique No.

It changed my view on how true to their ideas some people are.

[–] DoubleChad@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 weeks ago

Just this one. The philosophy is still there, Linus and TLF have abandoned it with great hubris. I am very disappointed in them.

[–] Someplaceunknown@fedia.io 11 points 4 weeks ago
[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

What happened this time?

Edit, answered elsewhere:

Recently, Linux removed several people from their organization that have Russian email addresses. Linus made a statement that confirmed this was done intentionally. I believe that there was some mention of following sanctions on Russia due to the war. I haven’t looked into the details of it all, so take my analysis with a grain of salt. From what I understand, it sounded like it was only Russian maintainers that were removed and normal users submitting code from Russia can still contribute. Maintainers have elevated permissions and can control what code gets accepted into a project, meaning that a bad actor could allow some malicious code to sneak past. This may have also contributed to the decision since this type of attack has happened before and Russia seems like a likely culprit. The reactions to this change have been varied. Some people feel it is somewhat justified or reasonable, some people think that it means it is no longer open source, and some people think it is unfairly punishing Russian civilians (it is worth noting that that is part of the point of sanctions).

[–] Wutchilli@feddit.org 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Not realy since Open source is most of the time still the best Option, and you cant realy controll Open source since there is always the option to fork Things. (For example If the US decided that China ist a NoNo the Open source Community in EU or India can do what they want since it is not under their jurisdiction)

[–] Artemis_Mystique@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago

but then the project loses momentum, the userbase fragments, opensource projects are fragile as they are mostly volunteer work; I guess the discussion of government threat and overreach towards opensource projects is mostly discussed in the context of cryptocurrencies and other 'disruptive' software

[–] walden@sub.wetshaving.social 8 points 4 weeks ago

It's basically the same as me not installing that Flappy Bird copy because the dev is Russian. I don't trust it, even if the code is available to review.

We also learned a lot about trust with that file zip software a year or so ago. I don't remember the details of that, but open source doesn't automatically mean secure.

[–] Trent@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 weeks ago
[–] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 weeks ago

This shows that no open-source project can really be directed from the US, or if they are then a fork should exist and be maintained by BRICS citizens who are obviously viewed as lesser, at least in the Linux project.

[–] crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 weeks ago

No, only of Linux

[–] JustAnOrdinaryCreep@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Certain Open Source movements are pure bigotry and opportunism, the Linux Kernel / The Linux Foundation for example, so it doesn't really make me wonder.

[–] Dr_Vindaloo@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 weeks ago

Yes. I always thought of sanctions as being finance-related, meaning you can't transact with sanctioned groups. I figured it couldn't apply to decision-making/membership in non-profit organizations (that it might somehow violate "free speech" or some shit). Finding out this is not the case is terrifying and one more reason to hate the US (not that we needed more). This might disincentivize some people to contribute to FOSS.

[–] kyub@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 weeks ago

I get that it's a nice daydream to think of open source projects as existing in some kind of independent, ethereal vacuum just because the code is out there and accessible from any place on Earth. But every software project is (mostly?) dependent on the jurisdiction in one country, in this case it's the US, and so their laws about sanctions and so on apply. And yes, this means that unless conflicts/wars between nations happen to cease, that we will eventually have completely separated blocks of politics/culture/military and also IT. Globalization is over. China will have their own stuff, Russia will have their own stuff, and US+EU will have their own stuff. And none of those countries should continue using high-tech products made by the other because they could be sabotaged and it might be hard to find, so it's best to not use them at all and just cook your own stuff. It's unfortunate, but bound to happen in the current state of the political world.

[–] notTheCat@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 weeks ago

Yes, bad actors can exist everywhere, it doesn't really help anything but fragment the project and harm it, do we need multiple directed forks ? Fuck no it will be best if everyone can monitor and contribute, I kind of think of it as they do peer reviewing in research and shit, it's always better when more people can view it, that will leave less room for biasing and frankly detect bad actors easily

[–] frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 weeks ago

There was more drama? I didn't even notice. They're always doing drama.

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