Re: On the good neutrality of free software

[Lorenzo L. Ancora]

(I saw your answers refer to Dr. Stallman-related propaganda but, as I 
follow a strict policy of truth, I won't express my opinion while he's 
putting many efforts in reestablishing his reputation. Time is not ripe. 
There is a long standing tacit respect between us, so anything you read 
is totally unrelated to him.)

First, a note for Ade Malsasa Akbar <teknoloid@gmail.com>:

> This is crystal clear. Thanks for explaining everything, FSF members.

I've never asked a question, so there's nothing they can explain, nor 
does there subsists any kind of subordination or officialism. This, 
then, is only a discussion about an opinion of a passerby. Please treat 
it as such. :-)

Then, an answer to Michael McMahon <michael@fsf.org> and J.B. 
Nicholson-Owens <jbn@forestfield.org>:

> If a free software program contains political messages and someone does not agree or want the political messages, they could fork the project and remove unwanted content as it is free software.  This is very different from proprietary software where the four freedoms are not present.  Political programs are not equal to proprietary software. The program in question does not have automatic updates. This is not a licensing issue. 

As you may all already know, a free software license does not suffice to 
make a software free, because the 4 freedoms must not be respected only 
'de iure' (by law) but also in practice, by not making the software 
impossible or highly inconvenient to redistribute. This applies to all 
potential users, not just those belonging to a specific country.

Forking a software is useful to fix a bug, but it can hardly prevent the 
development of a social issue or the spread of an existing one.

The only purpose of a software is to solve an issue or satisfy a need of 
the end user. Hence, embedded political messages are by definition an 
anti-feature with the side effect of cutting out part of the world 
population from the 4 freedoms, because the users of certain countries 
may face legal punishment for resharing, displaying publicly or even 
viewing privately those messages.

I think free software should not be corrupted to become a political 
medium, because part of the users/contributors will inevitably be 
subject to an unfair disadvantage.

If you write a software with the explicit - declared - intent of doing 
politics, then there is no issue. For example, if Trump or Kim or Draghi 
distribute a political software there is absolutely nothing wrong, 
regardless of the development model. This is because the political 
association is immediate, obvious and endemic of the related user 
community. Such applications are built for politics and their purpose 
remains coherent for their entire life cycle, until obsolescence.

However, if you write a neutral software, wait for its diffusion, and 
then add a political, racial, sexist or offensive message, then you are 
not only being unprofessional but you are also violating the freedom of 
all users/contributors.

This violation of the user's rights occurs when developers or end users 
are forced to view the message and is further propagated with each 
public fork. In modern code management environments, where forks can be 
updated automatically and created with a single mouse click, the effect 
is multiplied, especially if the message is hidden because - let's be 
frank - nobody reads the entire code base unless explicitly tasked to do 
so or when the software in question is very small.

When a developer forks the application, even if the message is removed 
downstream, such fork will increase the popularity of the upstream 
software and therefore also of the message that is forcibly associated 
with it. Thus, while the four freedoms are guaranteed, they are viced by 
this unfair imposition. Indeed, as you said, this is not equivalent to a 
proprietary application but, I add, neither it is better than a 
proprietary application or even qualitatively equivalent to neutral free 
software.

In my opinion, political software is always unethical, with the only 
exception of applications created and published from the beginning with 
a declared political intent. In such vision - which I know well does not 
meet your immediate interests - allowing a politic software in the FSD 
is an immoral act, equivalent to selling part of the dignity of the 
community in exchange for ephemeral popularity. Note, I am not saying 
you are voluntarily changing the original purpose of the FSD, I am only 
describing the consequences of naive action as I personally see them.

> I don't think it's possible, desirable, or necessary to believe that we can separate so much of what we do from politics. 

Yes, I agree on the fact that it is impossible to separate daily 
activities from politics, but one thing is falling into politics 
unintentionally (it happens all the time) and another thing is doing 
politics through a software.

> Software licensing is partially a political choice; the questions licenses 
> raise are important questions even if you view them as political and wish 
> (somehow) to avoid political issues.

One might think software licensing and, really, any kind of licensing 
has something to do with the law, hence politics. I think this 
reflection right but incomplete, because it does not take into account 
the intentions of the individual or of the company. For example, when a 
developer creates a software and adds a license, behind this choice 
there are many aspects, not only politics:

(random order)
0. what are my economic interests? -> do I need to earn something?
1. what is my environment? -> do I need to satisfy peer pressure?
2. how long is the expected life cycle of this software?
3. what is the best development model to reduce my risk factors?
4. is it convenient under the law of my country?
5. is it convenient under the European/international law?
6. later on, how could I extend the software to make it profitable?
7. what happens if/when a competitor raises on the same market?
8. do I need to gain popularity? -> do I need to exploit politics?
9. what could be the opinion of my coworkers? -> use an alias?
10. ...and so on.

As you can imagine, all these points have an heavy impact on the 
licensing choices. In the case of a company, the list is far longer and 
depends on its structure (in corporate, each SBU has an impact).

I don't think politics is more relevant than the other factors and I 
doubt it needs more attention. Instead, it should remain implicit if not 
hidden, to preserve the reputation of the project and the serenity of 
its contributors. Consequently, a developer should think thrice before 
turning years of hard intellectual work into a political tool, because 
it does not bring any advantage and attracts negative attention, fueling 
the dangerous preconceptions of the masses, weakling their trust in the 
movement, penalizing some with the long term advantage of no one.

> It's also telling what people accept in non-free software discussions -- silently accepting non-freedom is taken to be right and proper non-political talk but raising a lack of software freedom is framed as an unwelcome political intrusion. 

Some people simply has no interest in software freedom. Some people 
simply never had interest in being free. Yet, all people feel doubt.

Imagine a person walking into the church and screaming that there is no 
God. The reactions will be more disparate but, given the environment, a 
very high average of negative reactions is to be expected. Then, I would 
say that expulsion or ostracization is not immediate, but it is inevitable.

There is no difference between you trying to convince users that 
software should be free, the man trying to convert churchgoers to 
atheism and me in this discussion. It is always the same model with the 
same dynamics, only the environment changes.
However, one thing is certain: in all three situations the agent plants 
the seed of a new truth in the subjects who read or hear his words. 
Therefore, the goal is not to achieve immediate success, but only to 
instill the right doubt, because doubt is the only real engine of 
intellectual growth.

> "No matter the contents of the political message, software and politics should remain separated and if a software has become a political tool you should reject it" reads to me as self-contradictory. If "software and politics should remain separated" then I can continue to use a program someone else used to convey a message I don't like. Nothing about one person used that program taints how I use the same program. 

At first this sentence seemed plausible, but then I realized it contains 
an involuntary logical fallacy: you are affirming that my words contain 
a contradiction, but you are taking into consideration only a fraction 
of them and you are also restricting their scope.

It is like a sniper who shoots at a wall 10 times, only after draws the 
target around the most tight group of holes and then yells "look at how 
precise I am!".
The conclusion does not reflect the truth.

Let's fix that:

A = "No matter the contents of the political message, software and 
politics should remain separated"

B = "if a software has become a political tool you should reject it"

C1 = "I can continue to use a program someone else used to convey a 
message I don't like"

C1 is partial, because you use the term "use", but you should also add 
"share", "develop" and "link to"; you should also replace "someone else" 
with "the original developer" and "message" with "political message":

C2 = "I can continue to use, share, develop or link to a program the 
original developer used to convey a political message I don't like"

Now that we have a logically valid conclusion, let's test it:

[(A AND B) => C2] = TRUE?

...is inevitably false, because A AND B cannot imply C2.
In fact, you cannot continue to use, share, develop or link to a program 
the original developer used to convey a message you don't like, because 
if a software has become a political tool you should reject it.
Actually, the "I don't like" part is superfluous, because there will 
always be someone in the community who does not like the message; 
furthermore, if a non-democratic nation does not like the message, all 
its citizens (who could potentially be involved in the project) are 
forced to not support it, talk about it, share it and so on and hence 
suffer an unfair disadvantage caused by the message.

> > [...]such individual does not have the needs of end users at heart but only his
> > own notoriety and therefore could concretely engage in immoral activities in
> > future, like inserting malicious characteristics or conveying controversial if 
> > not
> > dangerous messages. 
> I don't think we should conflate speech you disagree with with a privacy violation or remotely-exploitable bug. 

Again, a logical fallacy, but this time you added it voluntarily. :-)
Luckily this is simpler: you truncated the original message, making it 
easy to attack. A straw man fallacy.

Let's prove it in a second. I wrote:

"A software has the sole task of solving a user problem and any 
functionality that is bound to cause further problems is by definition 
an anti-feature. Free software relies on the community that supports it, 
and if its author has behaved unprofessionally for years, abusing the 
popularity of his/her software for his/her own personal endings, it 
means that he/she has ignored the needs of the end users and the will of 
his/her collaborators, therefore it is legitimate - if not morally 
binding - to consider that such individual does not have the needs of 
end users at heart but only his own notoriety and therefore could 
concretely engage in immoral activities in future, like inserting 
malicious characteristics or conveying controversial if not dangerous 
messages."

So, we are not judging a "speech you disagree with" but instead:

1. "A software has the sole task of solving a user problem and any 
functionality that is bound to cause further problems is by definition 
an anti-feature.";
2. "author has behaved unprofessionally for years, abusing the 
popularity of his/her software for his/her own personal endings"

...and those two are far more difficult to attack, because the first 
proves the other, making the whole paragraph true.

Nice try tho. :-)

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