From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
Linus' thread: (CW: bigotry and racism in the comments) https://social.kernel.org/notice/AWSXomDbvdxKgOxVAm (you need to scroll down, i can't seem to link to the comment in the screenshot)
One great thing about about software is you don't have to agree with or care about what the creators thoughts and beliefs are, software is at the end of the day just software.
Doesn't get any less political than that.
I create software by myself and disagree. First it's very political where and for whom I choose to develop software. Second, software is always made for a purpose and the purpose can be indeed (and is) very often linked to political or social cause. E.g. a software which only purpose is to harm people, say for controlling mass destruction weapons is in my point of view a very political software
Its not though, typically software exists to serve a basic function at its core, and it could be used or contributed to by anyone for any number of things.
You are thinking of software as if it exists in a vacuum. Software that is libre is a political statement. Software that is proprietary is also a political statement. Lemmy choosing to be decentralized/federated/interoperable is also a conscious political decision just as Apple chose to create its own proprietary ecosystem instead of caring about interoperability.
You can grow potatoes for political reasons too. Everything a human being does might be politically motivated, but that doesn't mean potatoes are political.
Anyone can take that same software, that was created as a particular political statement, and use it for the completelly opposite political reasons to make a completelly different political statement. Just the same way as many have used songs in contexts that are completelly politically opposite to what the original author of the song intended.
In the end, the only thing that's political is the goal/purpose/motivation of an action, not the result of the action. No piece of software/hardware/thing is political when you dettach the artist from the art and just see it for what it is, regardless of what the author might have wanted you to see it as.
That's true. It's the human element that creates the political attribute.
I disagree. Of course it's political to some degree. It might not really make a difference whatever a software's authors stance on gun control is as it's not directly related to the software. But of course the political beliefs of a person might influence the product itself when it's more related like for example the licensing. FOSS software enables the user of a software to effectively maintain ownership of their own device which is 100% a political thing.
That's an entirely different domain of politics in my mind, my point was there's no reason to focus on what divides you from the creator when 9 times out of 10 the software itself is unrelated and contributed to by thousands that all have differing opinions on the same topic.
No need to try and find issues where there aren't any.
It really isn't though - no-one dared touch ReiserFS after the creator became a wife-murderer even though it, supposedly at the time, it was quite the piece of advanced code.
Was referring more to people trying to politicize software and push them into political movements they're unrelated to. Open software is at is core free and as such anyone with any political leaning could use it or contribute to it and no one would know, and no one should care.
Now, what one considers free is political. You cannot decouple reality from politics, and the free software movement is just one very specific example how political this really is. It's also these communities that generate politival movements that you may see as unrelated to the pieces of software in question.
Free software is, at its core, about the users having control over their own use of the software - the software isn't controlled by some owner and licensed by the users, but instead all users have equal ability to understand and use the software. If you consider communism to be political, then free software is political, because free software is communism in its purest form.
He's called Hans Reiser 🙂
Fixed
It being quite the piece of advanced code might have been a big factor in why no-one dared touch it once the creator himself essentially shut down maintenance for the whole thing as he was trying to pay for his legal fees.