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Comment by imwillofficial | Hacker News Reader

“It is impossible for libre software to force updates”

This isn’t even close to being true

If it did you'd just build a version with the offensive code removed?

Ah yes. I have the time and the knowledge to "just" remove that code and "just" build that version. When even the simplest libraries can't usually be built using the instructions the authors leave for them (if they even do that)

You don't have to remove the code, you can just pin the version you're using and go for quite some time (sensitive to security context). Most builds are pretty easy to do with 5 minutes of following instructions or whatever build tool. I did this exactly thing with termux (an app I relied on) when they removed sending sms due to a google rule change.

Also, you only have to do it if you're the only one left. Chances are very good that there are others in the community that may step up wholly or in part. Sure the risk is non-zero, but the point of freedom is that you could if it came to that.

Maybe you don't, but somebody else does.

If you have the skills. The large majority of humanity does not

That's like saying that hardware should be only repairable by vendor because majority of humanity doesn't have skills to fix it themselves.

That's not even close to what they said.

They said, you can do it "if you have the skills" and that "the large majority of humanity does not" have these skills.

That's literally what they've said. They imply that having ability to change something is useless, because only a minority can leverage it.

It's a bit like saying 'let them fly on private jets' and someone pointing out that only a few people in the population can afford it. Doesn't imply that private jets are useless, just that their use is limited.

Do you have access to private jet? Because everyone has access to, for instance, Atom source code. Even if they can't use it.

Everyone has access to private jets, even if they can't afford them.

https://www.avbuyer.com/aircraft/private-jets

Anyone with access to a computer (a prerequisite to use software in this context in the first place[0]), also has access to the tools to learn to perform these actions.

Pretty sure most people don't have the ability to teach themselves to fly a private jet and then walk up and take off.

[0] Setting aside phones/mobile. Yes they exist, yes they're important. No they're not relevant to this thread.

Any evidence to back that up?

I think Gnome / GTK is a good example. Famously, the Budgie Desktop Environment will have to be rewritten on top of Enlightenment because they don't like the GTK 4 changes. So now they're forced to go to a different widget system. [1]

[1] https://joshuastrobl.com/2021/09/14/building-an-alternative-...

Its a technical decision. Nobody is forcing them to do anything.

Sure, that's a good example of something else, but do you have any examples of any forced updates?

Your use of "forced" is interesting, because to me that doesn't sound like "force" at all, rather a "we don't like this thing so we're moving" which is a free choice for technical reasons.

Force to me is like what Amazon does with kindles. If it connects to the internet, it will update to the latest version whether you want it to or not. If you don't connect it to the internet, you can't use it.

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