Re: On the good neutrality of free software

[Lorenzo L. Ancora]

Denis Carikli (Replicant) <GNUtoo@cyberdimension.org>:
> If you see politics as a system that regulates the interaction between
> people and the world we live in, you can see every interaction between
> humans beings and with the world as political.

Politics are the activities of the government, members of law-making 
organizations, or people who try to influence the way a country is 
governed and, by extension, someone's opinions about how a country 
should be governed: in this thread I am referring exclusively to 
statements that fall within this classic definition and are therefore 
clearly political and designed to have a political impact.

> In a more narrow sense, free software itself is political as it takes a
> stance on Freedom, so it wouldn't be a good idea to reject all
> free software if we use "political" in that sense.

The line of thinking you are expressing tends to justify using software 
for purposes other than solving end-user problems, which obviously turns 
software into a political tool.

By the way, at a first glance your paragraph looks true ("IF (A AND B) 
THEN C") but analyzing it for a few minutes reveals some incoherence. 
Let's see why.

""free software itself is political as it takes a stance on Freedom""
Why Freedom is in title caps here? mmmhhh
There are many types of freedom and personal freedom does not 
necessarily correspond to political freedom. In other words, you are 
oversimplifying the concept of freedom, which is not unitary and is not 
absolute.

In addition, you are implicitly classifying people into an arbitrary 
group, because you are giving by assured that all who publish/develop 
free software are part of the free software movement or related to the 
FSF or to GNU. This is obviously false, because a developer could choose 
a free/open development model with the exclusive ending of quickly 
boosting software popularity or only to reduce the development costs or 
even for the simple satisfaction of sharing and networking, without any 
political aim. Countless are the individuals who share their code due to 
social pressure or with simple social aims.

So, developing free/libre/open-source software does not automatically 
imply taking a certain political stance, it only means using certain 
development models and/or certain licenses to accomplish the act of 
software development in a certain way. Hence, while we can say that 
certain free software developers use/abuse free software for political 
endings, free software itself cannot be associated to a political stance 
more than an hammer could be associated to carpentry.

> A lot of free software games have that kind of "politics" and/or
> "political messages" in them. It's also up to the people using and
> working on free software to define what kind of games we want. Though
> it also requires time to work on that. [...]

Here we are referring exclusively to software tools.

Games are not software but works of art. In fact a game is not aimed at 
solving any specific problem for the end user.
In a game, the source code is like the frame of the canvas for the 
painter and is therefore a mere necessity, because the same plot could 
be expressed through a film or a story in the same way that the painter 
could instead paint on a wall or on the human body. The source code is 
never the main element of a game development project, instead the 
assets, the animations and the plot are.
When writing a story, refraining from politics is nearly impossible, 
because a story must have a teaching of some sort to be entertaining. As 
a direct consequence, all games which feature a complex plot have an 
high probability of featuring politics and yet they are not political 
software, because they are works of art, which are historically 
dependent from/interleaved with politics.
In my opinion, the political stances expressed in games are relevant 
only when the authors of the game personally express their IRL political 
views.

To be clear, is the same situation of a book: the views expressed by the 
characters are not necessarily those of the book author. This is why 
sometimes book authors are difficult to interview or are elusive during 
interviews, so as to avoid tainting their writings with "real" politics.

> Personally I'd love to see very low tech games with moral choices given
> to the player, that model very closely real life situations, though I've
> no time to work on that, and I'd need to team up with people that
> are expert on specific situations in which these moral choices arise.  As I 
> understand, that kind of games have been used by associations
> to form people to deal with serious issues like harassment at work for
> instance. So that kind of games are at the same time very political,
> but they are also a very practical tool to produce positive social
> change.

I'd like too to see more of these games, I find them amusing.
Yet I'd like to clarify that morality and politics are different things.

There are many different definitions, but something important is:

* morality cannot be defined by politics while ethics can;
* ethics cannot be defined by religion while morality can.

When a game prompts you for a choice:

* NPC "Sleeping Nazi": zzzZzzzZZzzZ;
* PC "Policemen": KILL/ARREST/IGNORE?

...it is really making lever on your personal morality: ethics say that 
killing the Nazi is wrong (because everyone deserves a fair trial) but 
the person's own morals could say otherwise.

Morals often ignore the means in favor of the goals; ethics take care or 
both goals and means; politics impose the most currently advantageous 
ethics; religion (along with similar social constructs) imposes a 
certain set of historically acceptable morals. However, morals are 
always ruled by subjectivity and change quickly.

The issue of politics in software are an ethical issue, because 
exploiting software for politics is unethical yet not necessarily immoral.

> Beside games, another area that affects politics directly is software
> required to run cities or countries, or even for political parties. And
> in any case having that software being free looks useful in most
> situations, even if you are against the institutions using it or its
> goals.

I see no issue here, because the software would have no side ending at 
all. There is nothing wrong in a software explicitly designed for a 
certain political ending or to support a certain nation. I think in this 
case it would even be acceptable to see the owners - but not the 
developers - making political statements, because those would be the 
statements of politically exposed persons, hence ethically acceptable 
(it is normal for a politician to write of politics and people and 
governments already expect that).

> And you can also use the same software being developed and/or used for
> very different goals. For instance software to work on legal documents,
> by adding comments and commenting on parts of the texts could be made
> for making (specific) laws, or for a political party, but it could also
> work for work on free software licenses (like updating the GPL),
> work on public statements, or even to write a book.

The forks would acquire political side endings by increasing the 
popularity of the original software which was created with political 
purposes. The only ethically correct way towards end users would be to 
create a fork on a different platform with a totally different name from 
the original project and then purge all political references from the 
source code. Anyway, there is nothing wrong or political in reusing a 
certain algorithm, the issues could arise only with source code.

> Software like Tor also works precisely because very different groups of
> people use it. And I bet that opposed groups also do use it [...] > In all 
> theses cases, and even if the software itself does not contain
> any political messages, merely the fact that it's developed for a
> political goal can convey political messages.

The dark web is a gray area on an ethical and moral level, but on a 
political level its hated, because the State has an interest in 
controlling citizens and will always be against the dark web. I would 
say that Tor can be loosely associated with an anti-statist or anarchist 
position which, being inevitably present in any nation, cannot easily 
cast a shadow on the free software community. I see no issue in Tor.

> Tor for instance Tor tries to convey positive political messages about
> privacy, and human rights for instance, and it seems that they are also
> working to make Tor and its community inclusive.
> And while not everybody uses Tor for these goals, I think the impact of
> the political message it convey is still strong, and it steers the
> community and the usage of Tor toward positive goals.

The Tor Project Inc. corporation supports anonymity, but it doesn't care 
of the consequences: like many companies, it does its own economic 
interests, regardless of "good" and "evil". This is normal and expected.

Tor is abused every day to transfer child pornography, for terrorism, 
stalking, discrimination, assassinations and for illegal transactions 
(drugs, exotic animals, guns, ...), situations which could clearly have 
a strong negative impact on society. You only need to browse the onion 
network for 1 hour to realize it is both very useful and very dangerous.
From time to time I do it, for personal curiosity, and I'm always 
amazed of people's creativity, malice and cleverness.

Supporting the development of Tor is a good idea, convincing yourself 
that the consequences are exclusively positive isn't. For the same 
reason the attached political message isn't neither good nor bad, it 
just makes the interest of whom might need that software.

> And Given the impact that free software has on the world, I am
> advocating precisely for the opposite, that is bringing in more
> political consciousness in the people that contribute to free software
> projects and in free software users in order to get positive changes.

"Positive changes" is a relative concept. Anything related to politics 
falls into a grey area for me, because all humans - with the notable 
exception of saints - always do their own interests either directly or 
indirectly: nobody is really capable of expressing a really selflessness 
political opinion. A political opinion aims at making the interest of 
someone but inevitably damages someone else, so it is something which 
must be expressed actively and with strong contextualization to reduce 
collateral damage.
Software development is not a political act, it is a 
technical/economical/intellectual act aimed at solving an issue of the 
end user.

While political consciousness is good, I'd rather not want to see free 
software exploited for political endings. I see that as a form of 
corruption which should be carefully avoided.

If someone wants to express political opinions, a blog is a more 
appropriate place than free software websites and repositories. :-)

Quiliro <quiliro@riseup.net>:>>> I think that every action is political 
and non-neutral.  The only way
> > > something can be non-political and neutral is that it is accepted by all
> > > involved parties.  Taking a neutral position otherwise is favouring the
> > > most powerful party.  So it is also partisian, non-neutral and
> > > political.  Advocating free software is political and partisian
> > > (non-neutral) because it decides based on policies and favours one party
> > > (free software distributors) over others (non-free software
> > > distributors).  Deciding not to criticize China or to block Nazi
> > > propaganda are both equally political and definitively partisian.
> > If an action results in the good of the majority of the community then it is 
> > ethically correct, otherwise it isn't.
> > Self-control is the keystone of civility and the obvious solution to your 
> > dilemma is to simply stay professional, literally stay true to the developer's 
> > role, for the benefit of the majority.
> > Matter aside, in reality advocating free software won't lead to the demise of 
> > non-free software, because it creates competition and allow for the 
> > uncontrolled diffusion of algorithmic knowledge. Nobody escapes the laws of 
> > economy.
> > However, it is always nice to "fight naively for some good ideals": there are those who fight to bury non-free software for the good of the few and those who fight to support free software for the good of the many. Two ways of seeing the world of equal dignity and value, yet both will go down in history in very different ways. 
> A majority rule is not fair for the minority.  Free software does not
> hurt the minority (non-free software owners).  It just prevent the
> owners of software from controlling the users.  That is different from
> choosing the good of one over the good of the other. [...]

You just wrote that a majority rule wouldn't be fair for non-free 
software owners. Is that what you really intended to write? :-/

By the way, your entire answer seems rushed and at traits unrelated to 
the quoted text, like you didn't write it carefully. Sent a draft by 
mistake? Feel free to try again, taking your time to express something I 
could give a meaningful answer, there is no need to haste, probably I'm 
the most patient person here. In particular, saying that something is 
subjective is of minimal aid for the topic at hand and cannot justify 
anything, so you might want to further elaborate on that.

> Your signature restricts the freedom to publish what you write.  That is
> not a protection against anything.  It a restrition.

Yes, in a certain sense it is. This annoying email signature is used 
everywhere, with small changes, it isn't something only you receive.
When I want something to be reshared I write it explicitly using a 
dedicated digital signature required by my government, in part due to 
personal preference, in part because of the weird legal requirements 
expressed before. Anyhow, it is only a detail, don't get yourself too 
much stuck on it. :-)

David Hedlund <public@beloved.name>:
> I enjoyed your discussion about the topic, so I just wanted to share
> this to give you more ideas. I apologize that I did not express my
> intention. However, I don't have time to participate in this discussion
> since I'm overloaded.

Ok pal, no problem. As always, you're too much kind.
I hope your work will soon be eased.

Best regards,
Lorenzo


Il 25/08/21 23:58, Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli ha scritto:
> On Wed, 25 Aug 2021 20:59:14 +0000
> "Lorenzo L. Ancora" via <directory-discuss@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > David Hedlund <public@beloved.name>:
> >
> > > A side-note about the legality, there are license exceptions for GNU
> > > GPL-based licenses[...]
> > Sure, but I honestly can't understand what this has to do with the
> > thread. In the case discussed, editing the license is useless.
> >
> > It is simply that, in my opinion, the FSD should reject programs made
> > by developers who have political and not
> > scientific/economic/technological goals. I see accepting their
> > products as a form of corruption or at least strong incoherence,
> > regardless of the license.
> If you see politics as a system that regulates the interaction between
> people and the world we live in, you can see every interaction between
> humans beings and with the world as political.
>
> In a more narrow sense, free software itself is political as it takes a
> stance on Freedom, so it wouldn't be a good idea to reject all
> free software if we use "political" in that sense.
>
> In the first message of the thread, you wrote:
> > If I hide political messages in my code, am I writing an algorithm or
> > a political pamphlet? The answer is not obvious, but as you know I am
> > a simple person: an algorithm decays to a political pamphlet when
> > political thoughts are a direct consequence of reading it. In the
> > same way a software tool decays to a tool of propaganda when the end
> > user is forcefully exposed to political messages during any step
> > required to use it.
> A lot of free software games have that kind of "politics" and/or
> "political messages" in them. It's also up to the people using and
> working on free software to define what kind of games we want. Though
> it also requires time to work on that.
>
> GNU/Linux distributions can even choose what software to package and
> not to package or to modify if needed. Many already have to choose if
> they want to resist unjust laws banning software to remove DRM for
> instance. So the distributions have to take political decisions anyway.
>
> As for games, we can also modify the existing ones upstream and/or
> create new ones if needed with the politics we want in.
>
> For instance the use of violence or non-violence or how violence is
> portrayed in the game is an area where some games took political
> decisions.
>
> Personally I'd love to see very low tech games with moral choices given
> to the player, that model very closely real life situations, though I've
> no time to work on that, and I'd need to team up with people that
> are expert on specific situations in which these moral choices arise.
>
> As I understand, that kind of games have been used by associations
> to form people to deal with serious issues like harassment at work for
> instance. So that kind of games are at the same time very political,
> but they are also a very practical tool to produce positive social
> change.
>
> I'd also like to have more accurate simulations games of political
> systems, and many things related to narrow or broad sense of politics,
> but the games would need to be really well informed and not misinform
> people, and that's probably hard to do.
>
> Beside games, another area that affects politics directly is software
> required to run cities or countries, or even for political parties. And
> in any case having that software being free looks useful in most
> situations, even if you are against the institutions using it or its
> goals.
>
> And you can also use the same software being developed and/or used for
> very different goals. For instance software to work on legal documents,
> by adding comments and commenting on parts of the texts could be made
> for making (specific) laws, or for a political party, but it could also
> work for work on free software licenses (like updating the GPL),
> work on public statements, or even to write a book.
>
> Software like Tor also works precisely because very different groups of
> people use it. And I bet that opposed groups also do use it.
>
> In all theses cases, and even if the software itself does not contain
> any political messages, merely the fact that it's developed for a
> political goal can convey political messages.
>
> Tor for instance Tor tries to convey positive political messages about
> privacy, and human rights for instance, and it seems that they are also
> working to make Tor and its community inclusive.
>
> And while not everybody uses Tor for these goals, I think the impact of
> the political message it convey is still strong, and it steers the
> community and the usage of Tor toward positive goals.
>
> As for discrimination against people, the law in many countries already
> prevent that, and many communities already took stances against
> discrimination.
>
> So I guess that if free software containing discriminatory messages is
> found and/or becomes an issue, we could then filter it out, for instance
> in distributions and/or in the free software directory, based on
> discrimination alone and not political statements.
>
> And Given the impact that free software has on the world, I am
> advocating precisely for the opposite, that is bringing in more
> political consciousness in the people that contribute to free software
> projects and in free software users in order to get positive changes.
>
> With that we could achieve things that go way beyond nonfree licenses
> that forbid the use of software under these licenses to groups that do
> things that the license is against (like violating the human right
> conventions for instance).
>
> Tor, secure scuttlebutt, kiwix, Wikipedia, osmocom, and many other
> projects do have political impact.
>
> And for some them it might be precisely because, in addition of being
> free software, the people working on them wanted positive social
> changes and thought about it and worked to make it happen (instead of
> working on projects without political goals and just picking a license).
>
> Denis.

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