Re: About SWH, let avoid the wrong discussion

[MSavoritias]

On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 13:51:17 -0700
Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@debian.org> wrote:


Hey,

I am really tempted to just write this off as a bad faith argument (which it 
mostly is) but either way i replied some things more down because I am trying 
to believe you are 
arguing in good faith.
If its not a bad faith argument, please consider the time and place and the 
context of things before arguing next time.

> On 2024-06-21, MSavoritias wrote:
> > On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 09:51:30 -0700
> > Vagrant Cascadian <vagrant@debian.org> wrote:
> >  
> >> On 2024-06-21, MSavoritias wrote:  
> >> > On Fri, 21 Jun 2024 11:46:56 +0200
> >> > Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr> wrote:    
> >> >> Am Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 12:12:13PM +0300 schrieb MSavoritias:    
> >> >> > and as I mention in my first email I want to apply social pressure 
> >> >> > and make it clear to package authors what is happening so we can move 
> >> >> > to an opt-in model.      
> >> >> 
> >> >> Well, the opt-in model is in place: As soon as I put my code under a 
> >> >> free
> >> >> license on the Internet, I opt in for it to be harvested by SWH (and 
> >> >> anybody
> >> >> else, including non-friendly companies and state actors).    
> >> >
> >> > That may be how you have understood it but that is not how most people 
> >> > understand it.
> >> > See for example mirroring videos that creators have made online, or more 
> >> > recently some activitypub software harvesting posts for a search engine. 
> >> >    
> >> 
> >> I think the fundamental difference is that such videos or activitypub
> >> posts are not necessarily released under a license that *expressly*
> >> permits sharing.
> >> 
> >> In most cases, those posts and videos are often released without any
> >> license at all, and the person retains the legal, social, moral and
> >> ethical rights to decide how that content is shared if at all. (I am
> >> speaking with those terms in the "plain" english sense, although they
> >> may have specific legal meanings in some contexts)  
> >
> > Its not actually. License doesn't matter to fediverse communities (I am 
> > talking ones that are part of the BadSpace here)
> > It is a social issue and treat accordinly. As in defederate (dont 
> > assosiate) with people who dont respect your community rules.
> > Laws, and licenses have nothing to do with it.  
> 
> What is a license other than an explicit set of community rules
> pertaining to the community around which that license is relevent
> (e.g. a specific piece of software)?

A license is a state instrument that compels somebody to do something otherwise 
they may get taken to state courts and have violence used against them by police
> The simplest definition is "A license is a promise not to sue", because a 
> license usually either permits the licensed party to engage in an illegal 
> activity, and subject to prosecution, without the license
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License

You may equate license as social rules but outside of FSF and/or GNU nobody 
else really does. I havent seen it used anywhere like this.
Also nobody is using licenses as social rules (not Gnu, not Guix, not Debian) 
nobody really. And GPL would make a horrible community anyway because it doesnt 
say anything about racism or sexism for example.

> >> With something released under a Free Software license, calling someone
> >> an "asshole" simply for using the permissions granted by that license,
> >> by the very person who granted those permissions, starts to feel a bit
> >> like a baited trap and honestly, maybe outright duplicitous. Certainly
> >> rude, at the very least.
> >> 
> >> Again, that is different from some arbitrary post or video or cat
> >> picture on the internet, which more likely than not has no explicit
> >> permissions granted.  
> >
> > See about fediverse again. Its understood socially to be a bad thing not 
> > legally.
> > Because after all mostly nobody has the time and money for state laws to 
> > work.  
> 
> If I tell you "go ahead and do X with this cool thing I made, as long as
> you respect Y, forever, honest" and then you say "stop doing X now, I
> take it back because Z" ... that might come across as socially
> inappropriate weather there are laws involved or not; the law is
> irrelevent as far as I am concerned.

What somebody "tell you" is not only the license. You may try to make it 
simpler to make your life easier feel free.
But what "somebody told you" is literally that. Just ask the person :) Anything 
else is pretending its all good to yourself.

> Of course, context matters; maybe Z is something nobody had ever thought
> of before, and it is a surprise to everyone... and maybe even pretty
> undesireable. Maybe Z is a pretty arbitrary whim... and everything
> in-between. Maybe, just maybe, there is a big ambiguous grey area or
> even a gray area...
> 
> A license is just a social arrangement, a codified set of social rules,
> promises and expectations, just because it has some codified legal
> enforcement mechanism does not change that. Obviously, due to systematic
> power imbalances, it is probably different than breaking a promise to
> meet someone for a picnic tomorrow afternoon.

Its an legal agreement on a specific thing yes. Specifically it deals with code.
But we don't deal with code everyday. We deal with people writing code. And 
surprise everybody has their own wants and needs.
So no you can't make your life easier by only following a legal document and 
ignoring the human factor in it.

And the human factor is talking, CoC, Community Guidelines, Community rules, 
social rules etc. SWH learned this the hard way with the trans incident 
recently.

> >
> > That is all well and good but sadly Free Software says nothing about
> > social rules.  For example what is Guix supposed to do when racists
> > come in the chat?  or what if there is a hostile fork with the same
> > name and submits itself for Guix inclusion?  or what if like a few
> > months ago you have a trans person saying in the mailing list that you
> > deadnamed them? Do we not change the software even if FSF free
> > software says we can do whatever we want?
> >
> > I doubt the last case would go well with a lot of people in the Guix
> > community.  These are just some examples that Free Software can't
> > solve for better or for worse. So it is up to social rules to decide
> > what to do.  
> 
> Sure, this is why we have a whole toolbox with things like a code of
> conduct, documentation, and mailing lists to discuss and hash these
> things out when something unforseen comes up...

Exactly yes. You can't build a community on Free Software after all :)
community as in: How do people collaborate and coexist in a safe space.

> > That is to say I agree we need collaboration and shared commons and
> > such. But to create said collaborations we need to create safe spaces,
> > protect people, value consent.  
> 
> I agree, though still might come to different conclusions (or lack
> thereof) about how exactly to achieve that.

Different ways to achieve that is fine and more than welcome.
What doesn't help is questioning that we need these, CoCs dont matter or 
debating on the definition of words.
I would have welcomed more of the former than the latter in this thread. (which 
is not what i got.)

MSavoritias

> live well,
>   vagrant