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


From: Jacob Hrbek
Subject: Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2022 16:01:42 +0000

> "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal purposes."

Freedom Software (Free Software) is based on the principles of Four Freedoms of Franklin D. Roosevelt namely:

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom of worship/religion
3. Freedom of want
4. Freedom from fear

Which is basically 1:1 copy of Four Freedoms of Free software with just changed wording to apply for computer science.

It's just fucking crazy to argue that us writting a software for the russian army is somehow a "good thing for freedom" when all rules of freedom are being shelled with cluster bombs in ukraine at the time when even the definition of neutrality (SWITZERLAND!!) joined up on the sanctions.

One thing is people using free software to do crimes in the world like allegedly Pink Panthers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_Panthers] using it for organized crime and the other state-sponsored terror projected to cause 1 000 000 civilian death including children, newborns and since few hours ago even _UNBORNS_ (https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=RI01f-YRUdY) that could escalate into a WW3.

The history will remember you for the actions that you've taken today, because everyone in the Free Software movement has a major role in the capability of russian military in this war [https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-to-replacing-windows-with-astra-linux].

On 3/9/22 19:03, Erica Frank wrote:
This makes no sense.

"Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal
purposes."

First, the practical side: Savannah, Github, and Sourceforge are not the
only sources. There are distributors, small and large, all over the web. If
the big three stopped hosting it, or blocked downloads, other ones would
pop up quickly. This happens even for pirate sites - did the end of
Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa end unauthorized music downloading? Once the
code is out there, there's no putting it back under lock. If the free
software community wanted to prevent the software from being used for evil,
that needed to be folded into the original license, not added decades
later. This is hardly the first war, nor the first horrifically oppressive
political action, since the free software movement began.

More importantly: Any restrictions on distribution or use will hit
marginalized communities first and hardest. This is *always* what happens
when "morality" laws are introduced - the goal is to restrict or end
corruption, but the result is crackdowns on the people who are easiest to
find and punish. The penalties hit the people who don't have resources, not
the ones who are causing the problems.

You think the Russian government and military orgs can't operate VPNs? It's
the everyday citizens, ones who oppose the war, who would be hurt by "no
downloading from Russian IPs." Hell, if they need to, Russian gov't agents
can travel to other countries, buy a new laptop, and download anything they
want. There is no type of restriction on access that is going to hurt the
Russian government and military more than it hurts the average user, who
had no choice in the war.


On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 8:23 AM Félicien Pillot <felicien@gnu.org> wrote:

Le Tue, 8 Mar 2022 23:50:45 +0100,
Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> a écrit :

This is not cooperating with community and society, it's mass
murder by complacency and sooner we take action on this the sooner
the russian gov will have issues getting updates for GNU and FSF to
contribute to the non-fascist side of this war.
Freedom 2 is necessary to help others with the purpose of making
society better, but it absolutely is not and has never been limited to
that: you can choose whom to help (by giving copies of the software to
those people) regardless of their intentions.
When you say "you" a.k.a. the distributor of the software, it means:
those who host online the source code and binary packages, from the
forges and cvs repositories to the GNU/Linux system distributions.

So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and
Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia.

WDYT?
--
Félicien Pillot
2C7C ACC0 FBDB ADBA E7BC  50D9 043C D143 6C87 9372
felicien@gnu.org - felicien.pillot@riseup.net
_______________________________________________
libreplanet-discuss mailing list
libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

    This makes no sense.
    "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal
    purposes."
    First, the practical side: Savannah, Github, and Sourceforge are not
    the only sources. There are distributors, small and large, all over the
    web. If the big three stopped hosting it, or blocked downloads, other
    ones would pop up quickly. This happens even for pirate sites - did the
    end of Napster, Limewire, and Kazaa end unauthorized music downloading?
    Once the code is out there, there's no putting it back under lock. If
    the free software community wanted to prevent the software from being
    used for evil, that needed to be folded into the original license, not
    added decades later. This is hardly the first war, nor the first
    horrifically oppressive political action, since the free software
    movement began.
    More importantly: Any restrictions on distribution or use will hit
    marginalized communities first and hardest. This is always what happens
    when "morality" laws are introduced - the goal is to restrict or end
    corruption, but the result is crackdowns on the people who are easiest
    to find and punish. The penalties hit the people who don't have
    resources, not the ones who are causing the problems.
    You think the Russian government and military orgs can't operate VPNs?
    It's the everyday citizens, ones who oppose the war, who would be hurt
    by "no downloading from Russian IPs." Hell, if they need to, Russian
    gov't agents can travel to other countries, buy a new laptop, and
    download anything they want. There is no type of restriction on access
    that is going to hurt the Russian government and military more than it
    hurts the average user, who had no choice in the war.

    On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 8:23 AM Félicien Pillot <[1]felicien@gnu.org>
    wrote:

      Le Tue, 8 Mar 2022 23:50:45 +0100,
      Valentino Giudice <[2]valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> a écrit :
      > > This is not cooperating with community and society, it's mass
      > > murder by complacency and sooner we take action on this the
      sooner
      > > the russian gov will have issues getting updates for GNU and FSF
      to
      > > contribute to the non-fascist side of this war.
      >
      > Freedom 2 is necessary to help others with the purpose of making
      > society better, but it absolutely is not and has never been
      limited to
      > that: you can choose whom to help (by giving copies of the
      software to
      > those people) regardless of their intentions.
      When you say "you" a.k.a. the distributor of the software, it means:
      those who host online the source code and binary packages, from the
      forges and cvs repositories to the GNU/Linux system distributions.
      So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and
      Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in
      Russia.
      WDYT?
      --
      Félicien Pillot
      2C7C ACC0 FBDB ADBA E7BC  50D9 043C D143 6C87 9372
      [3]felicien@gnu.org - [4]felicien.pillot@riseup.net
      _______________________________________________
      libreplanet-discuss mailing list
      [5]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
      [6]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
      s

References

    1. mailto:felicien@gnu.org
    2. mailto:valentino.giudice96@gmail.com
    3. mailto:felicien@gnu.org
    4. mailto:felicien.pillot@riseup.net
    5. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
    6. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
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libreplanet-discuss mailing list
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--
Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine

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