Re: On the good neutrality of free software

[Lorenzo L. Ancora]

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.

Remaining truthful to your ideals is a concept that goes beyond free and 
non-free. Your ideals are (or at least should be) to support the free 
software community and that also requires protecting its reputation and 
preventing it from being exploited for unrelated endings.

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.

> By the way, your signature:
>  All messages from/to this account should be considered private.
>  Messages from/to newsletters should not be reshared.
>  TZ: Europe/Rome (Italy - CEST).
>
> If you send a message to a mailing list or to a newsletter, it is
> practically impossible and also undesireable to avoid it from being
> reshared.  Besides the unacceptance by most people of your policy
> (including me), your message is very much political (except for the time
> zone, which seems a very nice area).

Italian law is the most complex (and illogical and weird) in the world.

The purpose of that signature isn't to protect me nor express a 
political message, but to protect you from the innumerable quibbles of 
Italian law: digital correspondence is considered equivalent to personal 
paper correspondence and sharing/opening/refer to an email w/o the 
explicit permission of its author is a serious criminal offense punished 
with 3 years of jail.
Even with an implicit/explicit consent to forward it, you would also 
need a document signed with an advanced digital signature (digital smart 
card/certificate owned by each Italian citizen to replace OpenPGP/GnuPG 
for many operations) or anyhow a permanent document where I authorize 
the publication of my personal data, otherwise you will be obliged to 
censor any personal information - and the email address - in the email 
before doing anything with it. Another important quirk of emails from 
Italy is that I can, at any time and for any reason, ask and obtain the 
permanent removal of any personal data published online or even reshared 
privately, including attachments, email addresses and any kind of (even 
indirectly) identifiable information. Regardless of the permits, if 
there is a reputational or occupational damage - even potential - I can 
also obtain a compensation proportional to the number of potential 
readers and the "intent to damage the reputation" is considered an 
aggravation for both the compensation and the jail.
Yes, that could happen for a simple email. Absurd.

The law here is so slow and expensive that we prefer to prevent any 
problems in any possible way, because the very slow and very expensive 
process is a pain for everyone. International agreements? Triple pain.
If you ask any Italian about Italian law they will tell you the same 
thing: stay away from it at all costs, employing any amount of 
bureaucracy required to do so, because without the right hooks it leads 
to doom. :-)

Regards,
Lorenzo

--
All messages from/to this account should be considered private.
Messages from/to newsletters should not be reshared.
TZ: Europe/Rome (Italy - CEST).

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