Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[Aaron Wolf]

You might also focus on how Russia uses concepts from political 
philosophy, technology like wheels and guns, and can we stop them from 
having access to that stuff?

It does seem that restricting various actors from having technology to 
do harm is a sensible idea. But who gets to control that discrimination? 
It ends up being a matter of wanting the good-guys to just be in control.

Software freedom works against such power, and much of the time that 
means it undermines the power of bad actors to do harm. But it also 
means we don't reserve power to discriminate against bad actors.

The means of engaging with Russia aren't through some way of blocking 
their access to free software. Rather than just make this a 
philosophical debate, the practical answer is "NO, we do NOT have the 
power to stop Russia from using free software". We are not the powerful 
rulers of software access. That is not a capacity we have.



On 2022-02-24 00:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
> Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war with
> free software being used across russia and in the government thus
> playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.
>
> Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to our
> software?
>
> --
> Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine
>
>
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