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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

You can, but if the exact quote in the GP is correct the claim is claiming the software is "gay, trans and anti-colonialist" and asks you not to use it. Why use a license that is designed to be politically neutral and then ask some people not to use it?

What I can see is a fairly clear indication that they do not want contributions from people whose politics differ from theirs. I would also question whether government funding of a project with political policies about who can participate is appropriate. The political stance is also rooted in a particular culture so is unwelcoming to people from other cultures.

Of course people can political views and preferences, but they presumably have some aim in mind when making that statement in the README. What is that aim?

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A license designed to be politically neutral?

The GPL variants are the antithesis of politically neutral.

Only insofar as political neutrality is interpreted by the modern polarized political factions as a political stance.

The GPL "tolerates" conflicting political opinions, which used to be closer to the norm and thus not political.

The GPL mandates that if you modify and distribute GPL licensed software, your derivative work must also be free and open-source. This ensures code cannot be made proprietary.

Other than that, there is no expectation of political stance.

Only in the current ultra-modern age, has politically neutral devolved to meaning that you must agree with me on 99.99%.

>Why use a license that is designed to be politically neutral and then ask some people not to use it?

Because you can have preferences while not restricting legal rights.

If $CONDITION, then please don’t use this software might be construed as a legal restriction.

> What I can see is a fairly clear indication that they do not want contributions from people whose politics differ from theirs

This is the same FSF that in the past has refused contributions from people whose politics include "I would like this software to run on my windows/apple/other proprietary platform". They're extremely political.

When did this occur? I am a GNU maintainer, and have never heard such a thing from the FSF. The GNU Coding Standards and other similar texts leave the decision to support non-free platforms up to the maintainer.

It was an emoji solution for Emacs that only worked on Mac. RMS basically said:

"If the point is to promote Free Software, we do ourselves a disservice by making our Free Software work better on a proprietary system than a Free system. Let's include this support when it works on the Free platforms as well."

FSF is political, but only about Free Software. Their goal is to promote it, and I think RMS has shown very clear thinking in this regard. I don't love the decision/outcome (someone did work to make something better and it was rejected), but I get it in service of the larger goal.

To flip the pschology, you could imagine a world where Emacs did way more awesome stuff on Windows and Mac, and the ensuing HN discussion where the obvious snipe appears a dozen times: "lol they keep talking about free software but their own products work better on windows lol".

FSF is not political in the sense that they won't forbid you to use their software or otherwise blacklist you even if you are against free software, or if you're far left or far right. They are only political in the sense that they have a goal. If that's how you define "political" then the word is somewhat meaningless.

They won't take contributions not aligned with their goals but won't block you from sharing your contributions in the spirit of free software.

It was a while ago (20-ish years?) and I'm forgetting the details, but it was RMS and I think the package was emacs.

But... that software (reaction) is not written by the FSF? They just use it

1. GPL is extremely and intentionally political 2. anti-colonialism is not a trait of culture 3. the state of being gay/trans is not political 4. culture != politics 5. is != ought

Of course people can have their preferences, but presumably that reaction implies "gay/trans anti-colonialist" ought to be a problem for some "political/cultural" groups?

What is the aim of that?

My read is that the authors are signalling their community is a "safe space". I don't think they're trying to exclude particular cultures, trigger people, or otherwise cause problems.

You can always ask anyone not to use anything. Doesn't mean they have to listen, but you can still ask.

Because signalling has replaced real virtue.

I'd like to suggest that this messaging is actually the inverse of virtue signaling, I.E. "icky signaling" for snowflakes. Keeps people at bay who are icked by the message.

The aim is to reduce the number of users of the software who are uncomfortable with those who are gay, trans, and/or anticolonial, probably because dealing with such people is a heavier burden than the other kind.

You wouldn't know my stance on the matter based on a pull request, especially not if some author didn't plaster it all around their profile.

Then you don't care. People that care tend not to do a PR.

How would a you even know whether a user was uncomfortable with any of those things? Why would someone with a particular political stance be a heavier burden on maintainers? How would you even know how someone felt - if someone reports a bug it is highly unlikely they are going to add something like "I am uncomfortable with gays" are they? Nor is it going to be in the comments in contributed code. It sounds more like that the maintainers are uncomfortable with people who are not like themselves.

You seem to be drastically overcomplicating this. They are asking people who are uncomfortable with it to not use it. The people who are uncomfortable with it are the ones deciding, nothing at all in there implies that they are deciding who is uncomfortable.

Seems like it might be working!

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