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Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

While I am personally disgusted with what transpired with node-ipc and am also completely gutted and outraged at Russias violent invasion of Ukraine - I don’t like the idea of us trying to “tone police” open source projects. If some idiot maintainer wants to pull a stupid stunt like that they should have the right to do so. In my view it’s the software equivalent of “hate speech” which, while vile, should be protected.

This could quickly devolve into a nasty slippery slope where people who simply disagree with a direction of an open source project try to strip it of its licenses or eject it from various package managers.

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>I don’t like the idea of us trying to “tone police” open source projects. If some idiot maintainer wants to pull a stupid stunt like that they should have the right to do so. In my view it’s the software equivalent of “hate speech” which, while vile, should be protected.

I don't understand your characterization of this issue as "trying to “tone police” open source projects". In this case it's quite likely breaking the law (ie. CFAA), and for good reason. It's one thing to start a website with racist content. It's another to actually damage people's property. Not even US, home of the most liberal free speech laws (at least when it comes to "hate speech") allows this.

He has the legal right to, of course. And that right won't be stripped from free software ever. He also has the freedom to be called a dumbass who is harming open source on a massive scale.

"Hate speech" (which I don't really agree should be protected in the first place) does not have the capability to cripple infrastructure and destroy personal data. This is an act of property damage and should be prosecuted as such.

Trying to paint this as "tone policing" is completely ridiculous.

This is a false comparison. Speech is not software in the sense it can't harm critical infrastructure as malicious software can. And by the way, malicious code violates most OSS licenses because they are not made "in the hope that it will be useful".

The modern OSS scene where people file DMCA notices and other legal actions against forks because, well, because, does not jive with that view.

1. I agree, as much as I think the maintainer of node-ipc is a flipping idiot and should be given an atomic wedgie, it's their project to do with as they wish.

2. That being said, forking a project due to maintainer disagreements is a time-honored open source thing to do.

3. The last point you made is already happening on both sides of the political aisle.

Conclusion: Maybe software being political isn't a great thing, but that's what everybody chose, and that's what everybody gets to live with. I am looking forward to the +NOPOLITICS licensing clauses.

E: Bring on the downvote brigade, I'm just happy knowing that in the end this too will inevitably burn itself out.

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