Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[Jacob Hrbek]

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Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war with
free software being used across russia and in the government thus
playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.

Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to our
software?

--
Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine


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

[Devin Ulibarri]

On 2/24/22 03:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
> Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war
> with free software being used across russia and in the government
> thus playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.

What the FSF is taking action on immediately is abiding economic
sanctions against Russia. This effects distribution of shop orders and
membership cards, for example.

> Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to
> our software?

We are working within the legal frameworks of this evolving situation,
and will seek legal advice when necessary. The details are complex
given the very nature of free (as in freedom) software.

In short, the FSF is taking the situation seriously. Thank you for
raising the point.

Thank you,
Devin
-- 
Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
Free Software Foundation

Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom: https://my.fsf.org/

US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us through
the Combined Federal Campaign. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/

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

[Devin Ulibarri]

Hi,

Jean Louis:
> Overall do not forget Freedom 0 -- all people are free to use software
> as they wish.

Yes, and I take it somewhat as a given that most people subscribed to
the list already know this, and its implications.

That being said, the economic sanctions affect distribution of
membership cards and shop items to Russia -- as they would for any other
US organization at this time.

Best,
Devin

-- 
Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
Free Software Foundation

Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom: https://my.fsf.org/

US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us through
the Combined Federal Campaign. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/

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

[Aaron Wolf]

Oh ABSOLUTELY, 100% support your suggestion!

There is NO conflict between software freedom and making political 
statements!

It is perfectly sensible for anyone, including FSF or individual 
projects or developers, to make a strong public statement condemning 
acts of war and stating explicitly that we do not support the use of our 
software by the Russian military, even though their use is legal.

I think it makes complete sense for anyone who makes free software or 
any other resources to go ahead and make political statements. It's 
still free software if it includes a note saying "I don't want anyone to 
use this in support of war or violence" or any similar sort of political 
statement. It's not a license, it's not discrimination through legal 
power, it's just a message on a human level.

Acknowledging that we don't have the power to stop the use of software 
and don't support discriminatory licensing, we are still totally free to 
make statements and requests about the use of software!

In solidarity,
Aaron

On 2022-02-25 04:15, Devin Ulibarri wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Jean Louis:
>> Overall do not forget Freedom 0 -- all people are free to use software
>> as they wish.
> 
> Yes, and I take it somewhat as a given that most people subscribed to
> the list already know this, and its implications.
> 
> That being said, the economic sanctions affect distribution of
> membership cards and shop items to Russia -- as they would for any other
> US organization at this time.
> 
> Best,
> Devin
> 

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

[Thomas Lord]

Setting aside the legal restrictions imposed on speech by the
free software foundation, who would decide what the FSF view
of particular armed conflicts between nations should be?
Who would be alienated?  Who would be in reactionary
opposition to the statement?

Similarly for a project.  Typically, a software project
is itself the work of many hands and typically it is
mostly made up of code written by many other projects.
Who gets to speak in this way for "the software" produced
as end-product by a project?

In the specific case, are you sure you want to say the
Russian Army shouldn't use free software?  Do you know
well enough how they might be using it to decide if it
is increasing violence or helping to reduce or resist it?
Is the army a monolith on such questions?

It's one thing to say that a circumstance is bad and that
everyone should do what they can to end violence and harm.
Another thing entirely to advocate for something as
distantly connected to what we know of what software systems
are in play and how.

Lastly, I would think we'd want free software to be thriving
in Russian and every society because that gives *users* greater
freedom to do what they think is best.  If all humans at least
on average tend towards non-violence and international
solidarity, my best is on as much access to free software
as possible, everywhere.

-t




On 2022-02-25 07:32, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> Oh ABSOLUTELY, 100% support your suggestion!
> 
> There is NO conflict between software freedom and making political 
> statements!
> 
> It is perfectly sensible for anyone, including FSF or individual
> projects or developers, to make a strong public statement condemning
> acts of war and stating explicitly that we do not support the use of
> our software by the Russian military, even though their use is legal.
> 
> I think it makes complete sense for anyone who makes free software or
> any other resources to go ahead and make political statements. It's
> still free software if it includes a note saying "I don't want anyone
> to use this in support of war or violence" or any similar sort of
> political statement. It's not a license, it's not discrimination
> through legal power, it's just a message on a human level.
> 
> Acknowledging that we don't have the power to stop the use of software
> and don't support discriminatory licensing, we are still totally free
> to make statements and requests about the use of software!
> 
> In solidarity,
> Aaron
> 
> On 2022-02-25 04:15, Devin Ulibarri wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Jean Louis:
>>> Overall do not forget Freedom 0 -- all people are free to use 
>>> software
>>> as they wish.
>> 
>> Yes, and I take it somewhat as a given that most people subscribed to
>> the list already know this, and its implications.
>> 
>> That being said, the economic sanctions affect distribution of
>> membership cards and shop items to Russia -- as they would for any 
>> other
>> US organization at this time.
>> 
>> Best,
>> Devin
>> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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Should we take steps to reduce Russian access to Free Software? No.

[J.B. Nicholson]

Thomas Lord wrote:
> Setting aside the legal restrictions imposed on speech by the
> free software foundation, who would decide what the FSF view
> of particular armed conflicts between nations should be?
> Who would be alienated?  Who would be in reactionary
> opposition to the statement?

I imagine that strong opposition would come from anyone who objects to any of
the US-backed wars & occupations which receive no such attention of this kind.
Such people might ask why this conflict deserves such a reaction but other
conflicts apparently didn't. It's not clear to me why free software activists
would be asked to side against Russia or Russians here or what sparked this
interest all of a sudden. The timing could also come off as being suspiciously
compatible with establishment media coverage of the Ukrainian conflict.

> Lastly, I would think we'd want free software to be thriving
> in Russian and every society because that gives *users* greater
> freedom to do what they think is best.  If all humans at least
> on average tend towards non-violence and international
> solidarity, my best is on as much access to free software
> as possible, everywhere.

That sentiment sounds correct to me.

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

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I post my views on political issues outside the free software field on
my own site, stallman.org, and not on gnu.org.  This is so that people
won't be led  to believe, incorrectly, that they are  the views of the
GNU Project.
-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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

[Valentino Giudice]

> There is NO conflict between software freedom and making political
> statements!
Absolutely correct.

> It is perfectly sensible for anyone, including FSF or individual
> projects or developers, to make a strong public statement condemning
> acts of war and stating explicitly that we do not support the use of our
> software by the Russian military, even though their use is legal.

Absolutely not correct, and this kind of thing is, in my view, the
biggest issue in free software organizations: the fact that such
organizations lose their focus and are used by their boards
effectively as personal blogs.

Individuals have the right to make any statement they wish. Stallman
can talk about his favourite food, on his own blog, and that has
nothing to do with the GNu project. People who happen to be on the FSF
board (including Geoffrey Knauth) are well within their right to state
their opinion on what the best movie of all time is. On their own
personal blog.

But the FSF has a raison d'être, a very specific mission and ideology
and a reason why people support it. If one supports the FSF, they do
so because they want to support the free software ideology and the GNU
project. They could have any opinion on any unrelated topic.

The mere fact that something doesn't contradict software freedom
doesn't mean it should be FSF's job to talk about it. For that to be
the case, the topic must be related to software freedom and FSF's
opinion must follow from their mission.

Otherwise, it would mean the FSF is no longer a tool at the disposal
of its mission, but rather a tool at the disposal of whomever happens
to be in the organization. We have seen this happen multiple times
with multiple free software organizations and it's never not ugly.

People that disagree on most topics (and any two given people will,
provided they think with their brain, given the amount of opinions you
could have about anything) should be able to work together on the
topics they do agree on: that is why organizations exist.

If the FSF starts doing this sort of thing, supporting it in good
faith becomes impossible *even if the opinions they express are 100%
right* because an organization is not merely a group of people and the
mission should play a stronger role than who happens to be on the
board at any given time. If an organization is treated as a tool to
express any opinion at all on any topic, it's of no substance and if
the FSF started doing so now, that would be a betrayal of anyone who
has supported it thus far: we don't know their opinion about this war
and we shouldn't care, because that's separate from what the FSF
should be doing: support software freedom and the GNU project.

> Acknowledging that we don't have the power to stop the use of software
> and don't support discriminatory licensing, we are still totally free to
> make statements and requests about the use of software!

Yes, you can do that as an individual and every person in the FSF can
do so as an individual too, but only speaking for themselves.

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

[Jean Louis]

Thanks Valentino, I agree to everything what you said here.
That should be lesson for FSF representatives as well.

Let us be friends for reasons that we have in common to love
free software. 

Other politics but free software we better to put on side and
discuss individually on other Internet places, as it is not
related to free software.

It would divide us, while we are friends and we are friends
with free software regardless of our ethnicity or country of
origin and regardless of our individual political views.


* Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-01 07:59]:
> > There is NO conflict between software freedom and making political
> > statements!
> Absolutely correct.
> 
> > It is perfectly sensible for anyone, including FSF or individual
> > projects or developers, to make a strong public statement condemning
> > acts of war and stating explicitly that we do not support the use of our
> > software by the Russian military, even though their use is legal.
> 
> Absolutely not correct, and this kind of thing is, in my view, the
> biggest issue in free software organizations: the fact that such
> organizations lose their focus and are used by their boards
> effectively as personal blogs.
> 
> Individuals have the right to make any statement they wish. Stallman
> can talk about his favourite food, on his own blog, and that has
> nothing to do with the GNu project. People who happen to be on the FSF
> board (including Geoffrey Knauth) are well within their right to state
> their opinion on what the best movie of all time is. On their own
> personal blog.
> 
> But the FSF has a raison d'être, a very specific mission and ideology
> and a reason why people support it. If one supports the FSF, they do
> so because they want to support the free software ideology and the GNU
> project. They could have any opinion on any unrelated topic.
> 
> The mere fact that something doesn't contradict software freedom
> doesn't mean it should be FSF's job to talk about it. For that to be
> the case, the topic must be related to software freedom and FSF's
> opinion must follow from their mission.
> 
> Otherwise, it would mean the FSF is no longer a tool at the disposal
> of its mission, but rather a tool at the disposal of whomever happens
> to be in the organization. We have seen this happen multiple times
> with multiple free software organizations and it's never not ugly.
> 
> People that disagree on most topics (and any two given people will,
> provided they think with their brain, given the amount of opinions you
> could have about anything) should be able to work together on the
> topics they do agree on: that is why organizations exist.
> 
> If the FSF starts doing this sort of thing, supporting it in good
> faith becomes impossible *even if the opinions they express are 100%
> right* because an organization is not merely a group of people and the
> mission should play a stronger role than who happens to be on the
> board at any given time. If an organization is treated as a tool to
> express any opinion at all on any topic, it's of no substance and if
> the FSF started doing so now, that would be a betrayal of anyone who
> has supported it thus far: we don't know their opinion about this war
> and we shouldn't care, because that's separate from what the FSF
> should be doing: support software freedom and the GNU project.
> 
> > Acknowledging that we don't have the power to stop the use of software
> > and don't support discriminatory licensing, we are still totally free to
> > make statements and requests about the use of software!
> 
> Yes, you can do that as an individual and every person in the FSF can
> do so as an individual too, but only speaking for themselves.

-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

The GNU Project stays neutral on unrelated political issues.  It does
not take sides in international disputes, except for disputes about
free software issues.

A free license must offer the four freedoms to all users, and it must
not try to restrict what jobs users can do with the program.  See
https://gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html
for why this must be so.

The FSF must obey US law, including any sanctions on dealings between
US organizations and Russians or Russian companies.  I think that is what
Devin was talking about.

But that won't affect whether Russians can use free software.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > the reasson for me being rude is, that i find the letter of Devin U. so 
  > very rude.

I have to say that I don't see anything rude in it, not even slightly.
It doesn't insult anyone, or criticize anyone.  There is no anger in
it.  Is it possible you've misunderstood the meaning of "rude"?

  > he wanted to know, i guess a valid question (if you dont know 
  > that FSF is not a political organization)

Yes, it was a valid question.  Some people know enough about the FSF
to see what the answer would be.  But some people don't know,
so they will want to ask.

  > but the answer that i read is quite "politično angažiran" (translate 
  > from slovene - politically motivated?). and signed with FSF credentials!

Devin is on the FSF staff, and his message says so.  I don't see
anything strange about that.

His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
political question about a political situation.  That's natural.

I don't know what "politično angažiran" means.  The words "politically
motivated" are vague; if you're trying to hint at something, I don't
know what it is.  It would be a mistake to try to guess!

I see you accused Devin of some sort of dishonesty or wrongdoing, but
that makes no sense to me.  I don't see any dishonesty or wrongdoing
in his message.  So I appreciate your apologizing for that.

Devin's message did have an imperfection: it was abstract and left
unanswered some practical questions about what the FSF would do.  I
hope my message answered those questions.  But that's not wrongdoing,
it's just an imperfection.  None of us is perfect, we can only do our
best.  Let's forgive each other.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[gregor]

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dear mr rms,

i will always and more than gladly think, before answering any letter 
that you send me. it is always an honour.

let me not even begin, by putting some caveats first:

as for all the spelling mistakes, please bear with them(you might 
specially notice how gladly i dont use capital letters, i never knew 
where to put comas, must be sort of personal coma koma, etc.).  and the 
clumsines of my english must be known by now. as for the humor, i 
realize mine is not funny for most people, but i know surrelly of one, 
who is always laughing at them. those jokes are for him.

be that thinking even harmfull to me, i will do it. you my kind sir, are 
a treasure, time will only tell the greatness of.

"pa pojdimo lepo po vrsti, kot so tudi hiše v trsti" is what we would 
say for such an occasion (its never late to start learning another 
language, my mothers tonge is beautiful)

firstly i thought of doing the positive logical approach, that is to 
say, i shall write a letter of answer to Jaocob H., the way i imagine it 
would and should be written (outreach, communications, emphasis). for 
the difference of negative approach, where i go and try to dismantle or 
rather go against(hence negative aproach) - one by one - Devins 
statments, claims, toughs etc., which i will do in a second part.

then in the third part, i shall try answering your questions.

is also why i use word: logical swordfigt - for me  it connotates a 
negative logic approach dialog, and is also why i claim headaches for 
thinking. i dont like to fight, gives head&heart ache.

so here goes nothing (like in that monthypython meanning of life, where 
the french waiter takes us to see "it", only to dismiss us in the end)

so what was rude? you ask. the logic of it all. it hurt my logic. 
rudeness which was to hurt my feelings of ratio, strange huh? the sheer 
prepostorous reassoning behind it all. so i go now dismantle that poor 
selection of wordings (watch the head boy) /*let me first find that 
letter ... here it is ...

###

On 2/24/22 03:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:

> Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war
> with free software being used across russia and in the government
> thus playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.

What the FSF is taking action on immediately is abiding economic
sanctions against Russia. This effects distribution of shop orders and
membership cards, for example.

###

POSITIVE: my dear mr. Jacob H., (i already see, it will be hard for me 
to drop the usual cinisizm i would personally use, i would say here 
something like --- wtf, go read the 4 freedoms, meditate on it and come 
back. but as an ourtreach comm, it could be something like:) your claim 
in the first statement is full of very opinioneated statements,  (aaah, 
see, thats not good altough they all are just that)
try nr.2 dear mr jacob H., the sentiments you express are your personal 
ones. please refrain from expressing them on this list, because they are 
very very contraversial, and we dont want nor need to involve ourselves 
and our organisation in them contraversies. i might share them, we all 
might (or none), but it is completelly out of the scope of this list, 
also, let me remind you, that FSF is not a political organization. so, 
rude as it may sound, lets not talk politics here, shall  we.

try3: dear mr J.H., there is always much contraversies, let alone 
tragedies, around us all. i can see your emotional reaction and can 
appreciate it as such, but, FSF is not, can not and shall not be part of 
any such controversies let alone worse. i would also like to remind you, 
that going by emotions in this case is just worsening the situation, so 
please, think better of it.

NEGATIVE:

when Devin answers with: " 'what' the FSF ... ", that 'what' makes me 
think that there is something going on, something extraordinare (for the 
difference of uganda, tunguzija and slovenija, where daily people 
suffer) but lets see, what comes next: "... is taking action on 
immediately" , so there is active immediate response, by which i imagine 
some people doing the research on how to best fullfill  " ... is abiding 
economic sanctions against Russia ..." oh, is not that bad, still shows 
to me there is an active engagement in abiding them sanctions, and that, 
as much as i dont like(active engagement), must be done.

but then, is there the same amount of active engagemant on all the other 
issues? and that is no trivial question, for there might be monsanto 
using free software for spraying prohibited neonicotins, or ... and then 
we come to the problem of arbitrirary choosing as best as we can, out of 
zillion unjustices, which ones we will fight against. monsanto? 
terrorists? bad jokes? so who will decide - Freud or Jung? who's the 
arbiter. very Pandoraboxical you see. it's a trap.

so i wonder what would this selective active engagement in our case 
mean. and i come to the conclusion, that it is a political stance. its 
active and selective, what more can you do as a solder taking sides.

to add. there is a complete lack of correcting Jacob in boldness to put 
forward his emotional political assumptions, thus opening the pandoras 
box of, well you know, everything flew out, all we are left with now is 
hope.

now i am to elaborate how come, that Jacobs statement is but propaganda, 
at best just his opinion. but i will not. it is my firm opinion that it 
is. but i also share another opinion, which is: it is very bad to share 
opinions like they were apples, among so many strangers in so short a 
space, they're bound to land rotten. lets just stick each to our own 
rotten apple (opinion).

or as g.marx said: i have this principle, if you dont like it, well, i 
have others.

but jokes aside, it's not about Jacobs opinions, i could go fence more 
on that, but why. it's just to point out - again - that the answer or 
rather the lack of it, shows complete support of emotionally charged 
jacobs opinion (the stupiditi of a sentence: "with free software being 
used across russia and in the government." would be so easilly destroyed 
i am ashamed even to think of words. the headache of it all. and mind 
you, i think i am doing us all a big favor, not to mention more about that)

### now for the second part, the horror of it

> Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to
> our software?

We are working within the legal frameworks of this evolving situation,
and will seek legal advice when necessary. The details are complex
given the very nature of free (as in freedom) software.

In short, the FSF is taking the situation seriously. Thank you for
raising the point.

###

positive:

take 1: there is no such thing as reducing access in them 4 freedoms. 
some politenenss about how to best understand 4 freedoms maybe a link or 
two (so for all them nubs, not to blunder stupidities)

nr.2: your statement again shows more emotions than logic. by the 4 
freedoms we shall live, whitout, we are gonners

"v tretje gre rado" - many a times, there is this third take that i make 
good.

3: The answer to your question is thankfully very simple. we should not 
and would not want to. for the 4 freedoms are beyond the petty politics 
of the day.

/* and some conclusion saying that nobody better touch this subject even 
with a stick ... "da se nebi niti s palico dotaknil tega dreka", of 
course polite

negative:

unless its a royal We, there are as i suspected earlier, at least 2! 
persons working selectivelly activelly, "within a legal frameworks", 
that sounds ok, but for the obvious abovementioned selectivness. (no new 
argument here), "will seek ..." ok, ok. again (old argument), for how 
many other things were deemed necessary, and who chooses it. (same 
argument used above)

"details are complex" ... maybe, them sanctions every day different, but 
the four freedoms are not complex. so what coplexness is he on about i 
wonder. and i conclude, that he is talking about his not understanding 
the beauty of simplicity that the four freedoms gospel exhibits. for if 
he would, he would dismiss Jacobs question about "prevent/reduce" in the 
first place. and there are at least 2 persons in FSF (i doubt Devin 
spends royal with cheese) actively doing something, against 4 freedoms 
is what i conclude.

"taking situation seriously" i think i dismantled this twice already.

"thank you for raising the point". this alone statement could be fine, 
but in the context, is what i blurred in my rude letter, as if he (and 
at least one more person) was hardly waiting to add his emotions to the 
"pandoras  spectre flying circus", hence negativelly impact on the whole 
"war in question" happenings (don't know how better to shortly put it), 
dragging FSF in that dark place where only hope survives.

also and again - no correcting jacobs misimpretation of the four 
freedoms  alone is bad. but then, when Jacob claims the software "our 
software". is there no decency left? yes sure, i am rude and undecent. 
but nothing surpasses that apropriatory statement "our software". are 
russians not human?

###

now to answer your questions (as best as i can, and will gladly try to 
shine more light on the obscurities, if asked):

why rude you ask. it hurt my sense of logic. instead of stopping the 
hate, lowering emotional charge, there is warmongering shouting(am not 
thinking in english now, so translation of my thoughts is clumsilly 
direct). and i tought something like that could not happen in FSF. i 
find it very rude to be calling civilians to go to war. i find it very 
very rude to be coming from FSF.

when i say "and signed with fsf credentials" my meanning is: he is 
representing an official stance "glede tega vprašanja" on this subject. 
and if that is so (for which i doubted at that time), i am now 
dumbfounded to realize, that fsf is a political front. or am i wrong?

when you say:

His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
political question about a political situation.  That's natural.

firstly, i am sadened to see you defend his position. my sentiment 
namely is: no political debate or expressing ones political opinion is 
valid in fsf (unless pertaining to free software). so i don't see why 
you needed to dvelve into this.

surelly, everithing is political. greek for non-political person is 
i-diotes (nowadays we use it differently :). but there are so many petty 
politics, i don't see this war (don't get me wrong, there is no petty 
war, ever been) as being any different. for, i could send a mail a day 
to libreplanet about some or other injustice, claiming complete 
knowledge of it and demanding action.

I don't know what "politično angažiran" means.  The words "politically
motivated" are vague; if you're trying to hint at something, I don't
know what it is.  It would be a mistake to try to guess!

his letter is in my opinion polittically motivated. he is taking a stand 
in a war which he is no part of. and even if he were, that should be his 
personal view and shouldnt come even close to fsf. why recruting 
soldiers for a war you never been even close to, and thinking that 
everything you get out of that box, called tv is truth. you might be 
recruting murderes of civilians, in the case your tv lied to you. are 
you willing to take that risk? not to mention, most of you never been to 
war. well i have. and it was fought by that same type of people you are 
demonstrating now to be. warmongers from "other continents" (is more to 
that, but the heartache of it). and propaganda. and then my people died. 
(am criying now remembering, but thats all good)

the rest of your letter i think has no questions in it, so i shall 
conclude with:

i am always willing to accept any and all apologies, and offer mine when 
i fell i did wrong. what, but flowers we are, coloring our way, closer 
and closer to the sun.

and forgivness is the basis of my "religion", so i am so very glad that 
you've ended your letter with it

there will always be a huge room for you in my heart, dear mr rms

yt

g


On 1. 03. 22 05:24, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > the reasson for me being rude is, that i find the letter of Devin U. so
>    > very rude.
>
> I have to say that I don't see anything rude in it, not even slightly.
> It doesn't insult anyone, or criticize anyone.  There is no anger in
> it.  Is it possible you've misunderstood the meaning of "rude"?
>
>    > he wanted to know, i guess a valid question (if you dont know
>    > that FSF is not a political organization)
>
> Yes, it was a valid question.  Some people know enough about the FSF
> to see what the answer would be.  But some people don't know,
> so they will want to ask.
>
>    > but the answer that i read is quite "politično angažiran" (translate
>    > from slovene - politically motivated?). and signed with FSF credentials!
>
> Devin is on the FSF staff, and his message says so.  I don't see
> anything strange about that.
>
> His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
> political question about a political situation.  That's natural.
>
> I don't know what "politično angažiran" means.  The words "politically
> motivated" are vague; if you're trying to hint at something, I don't
> know what it is.  It would be a mistake to try to guess!
>
> I see you accused Devin of some sort of dishonesty or wrongdoing, but
> that makes no sense to me.  I don't see any dishonesty or wrongdoing
> in his message.  So I appreciate your apologizing for that.
>
> Devin's message did have an imperfection: it was abstract and left
> unanswered some practical questions about what the FSF would do.  I
> hope my message answered those questions.  But that's not wrongdoing,
> it's just an imperfection.  None of us is perfect, we can only do our
> best.  Let's forgive each other.
>

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 14426 bytes --]

   dear mr rms,

   i will always and more than gladly think, before answering any letter
   that you send me. it is always an honour.

   let me not even begin, by putting some caveats first:

   as for all the spelling mistakes, please bear with them(you might
   specially notice how gladly i dont use capital letters, i never knew
   where to put comas, must be sort of personal coma koma, etc.).  and the
   clumsines of my english must be known by now. as for the humor, i
   realize mine is not funny for most people, but i know surrelly of one,
   who is always laughing at them. those jokes are for him.

   be that thinking even harmfull to me, i will do it. you my kind sir,
   are a treasure, time will only tell the greatness of.

   "pa pojdimo lepo po vrsti, kot so tudi hiše v trsti" is what we would
   say for such an occasion (its never late to start learning another
   language, my mothers tonge is beautiful)

   firstly i thought of doing the positive logical approach, that is to
   say, i shall write a letter of answer to Jaocob H., the way i imagine
   it would and should be written (outreach, communications, emphasis).
   for the difference of negative approach, where i go and try to
   dismantle or rather go against(hence negative aproach) - one by one -
   Devins statments, claims, toughs etc., which i will do in a second
   part.

   then in the third part, i shall try answering your questions.

   is also why i use word: logical swordfigt - for me  it connotates a
   negative logic approach dialog, and is also why i claim headaches for
   thinking. i dont like to fight, gives head&heart ache.

   so here goes nothing (like in that monthypython meanning of life, where
   the french waiter takes us to see "it", only to dismiss us in the end)

   so what was rude? you ask. the logic of it all. it hurt my logic.
   rudeness which was to hurt my feelings of ratio, strange huh? the sheer
   prepostorous reassoning behind it all. so i go now dismantle that poor
   selection of wordings (watch the head boy) /*let me first find that
   letter ... here it is ...

   ###

On 2/24/22 03:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:

Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war
with free software being used across russia and in the government
thus playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.

What the FSF is taking action on immediately is abiding economic
sanctions against Russia. This effects distribution of shop orders and
membership cards, for example.

   ###

   POSITIVE: my dear mr. Jacob H., (i already see, it will be hard for me
   to drop the usual cinisizm i would personally use, i would say here
   something like --- wtf, go read the 4 freedoms, meditate on it and come
   back. but as an ourtreach comm, it could be something like:) your claim
   in the first statement is full of very opinioneated statements,  (aaah,
   see, thats not good altough they all are just that)
   try nr.2 dear mr jacob H., the sentiments you express are your personal
   ones. please refrain from expressing them on this list, because they
   are very very contraversial, and we dont want nor need to involve
   ourselves and our organisation in them contraversies. i might share
   them, we all might (or none), but it is completelly out of the scope of
   this list, also, let me remind you, that FSF is not a political
   organization. so, rude as it may sound, lets not talk politics here,
   shall  we.

   try3: dear mr J.H., there is always much contraversies, let alone
   tragedies, around us all. i can see your emotional reaction and can
   appreciate it as such, but, FSF is not, can not and shall not be part
   of any such controversies let alone worse. i would also like to remind
   you, that going by emotions in this case is just worsening the
   situation, so please, think better of it.

   NEGATIVE:

   when Devin answers with: " 'what' the FSF ... ", that 'what' makes me
   think that there is something going on, something extraordinare (for
   the difference of uganda, tunguzija and slovenija, where daily people
   suffer) but lets see, what comes next: "... is taking action on
   immediately" , so there is active  immediate response, by which i
   imagine some people doing the research on how to best fullfill  " ...
   is abiding economic sanctions against Russia ..." oh, is not that bad,
   still shows to me there is an active engagement in abiding them
   sanctions, and that, as much as i dont like(active engagement), must be
   done.

   but then, is there the same amount of active engagemant on all the
   other issues? and that is no trivial question, for there might be
   monsanto using free software for spraying prohibited neonicotins, or
   ... and then we come to the problem of arbitrirary choosing as best as
   we can, out of zillion unjustices, which ones we will fight against.
   monsanto? terrorists? bad jokes? so who will decide - Freud or Jung?
   who's the arbiter. very Pandoraboxical you see. it's a trap.

   so i wonder what would this selective active engagement in our case
   mean. and i come to the conclusion, that it is a political stance. its
   active and selective, what more can you do as a solder taking sides.

   to add. there is a complete lack of correcting Jacob in boldness to put
   forward his emotional political assumptions, thus opening the pandoras
   box of, well you know, everything flew out, all we are left with now is
   hope.

   now i am to elaborate how come, that Jacobs statement is but
   propaganda, at best just his opinion. but i will not. it is my firm
   opinion that it is. but i also share another opinion, which is: it is
   very bad to share opinions like they were apples, among so many
   strangers in so short a space, they're bound to land rotten. lets just
   stick each to our own rotten apple (opinion).

   or as g.marx said: i have this principle, if you dont like it, well, i
   have others.

   but jokes aside, it's not about Jacobs opinions, i could go fence more
   on that, but why. it's just to point out - again - that the answer or
   rather the lack of it, shows complete support of emotionally charged
   jacobs opinion (the stupiditi of a sentence: "with free software being
   used across russia and in the government." would be so easilly
   destroyed i am ashamed even to think of words. the headache of it all.
   and mind you, i think i am doing us all a big favor, not to mention
   more about that)

   ### now for the second part, the horror of it

Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to
our software?

We are working within the legal frameworks of this evolving situation,
and will seek legal advice when necessary. The details are complex
given the very nature of free (as in freedom) software.

In short, the FSF is taking the situation seriously. Thank you for
raising the point.

   ###

   positive:

   take 1: there is no such thing as reducing access in them 4 freedoms.
   some politenenss about how to best understand 4 freedoms maybe a link
   or two (so for all them nubs, not to blunder stupidities)

   nr.2: your statement again shows more emotions than logic. by the 4
   freedoms we shall live, whitout, we are gonners

   "v tretje gre rado" - many a times, there is this third take that i
   make good.

   3: The answer to your question is thankfully very simple. we should not
   and would not want to. for the 4 freedoms are beyond the petty politics
   of the day.

   /* and some conclusion saying that nobody better touch this subject
   even with a stick ... "da se nebi niti s palico dotaknil tega dreka",
   of course polite

   negative:

   unless its a royal We, there are as i suspected earlier, at least 2!
   persons working selectivelly activelly, "within a legal frameworks",
   that sounds ok, but for the obvious abovementioned selectivness. (no
   new argument here), "will seek ..." ok, ok. again (old argument), for
   how many other things were deemed necessary, and who chooses it. (same
   argument used above)

   "details are complex" ... maybe, them sanctions every day different,
   but the four freedoms are not complex. so what coplexness is he on
   about i wonder. and i conclude, that he is talking about his not
   understanding the beauty of simplicity that the four freedoms gospel
   exhibits. for if he would, he would dismiss Jacobs question about
   "prevent/reduce" in the first place. and there are at least 2 persons
   in FSF (i doubt Devin spends royal with cheese) actively doing
   something, against 4 freedoms is what i conclude.

   "taking situation seriously" i think i dismantled this twice already.

   "thank you for raising the point". this alone statement could be fine,
   but in the context, is what i blurred in my rude letter, as if he (and
   at least one more person) was hardly waiting to add his emotions to the
   "pandoras  spectre flying circus", hence negativelly impact on the
   whole "war in question" happenings (don't know how better to shortly
   put it), dragging FSF in that dark place where only hope survives.

   also and again - no correcting jacobs misimpretation of the four
   freedoms  alone is bad. but then, when Jacob claims the software "our
   software". is there no decency left? yes sure, i am rude and undecent.
   but nothing surpasses that apropriatory statement "our software". are
   russians not human?

   ###

   now to answer your questions (as best as i can, and will gladly try to
   shine more light on the obscurities, if asked):

   why rude you ask. it hurt my sense of logic. instead of stopping the
   hate, lowering emotional charge, there is warmongering shouting(am not
   thinking in english now, so translation of my thoughts is clumsilly
   direct). and i tought something like that could not happen in FSF. i
   find it very rude to be calling civilians to go to war. i find it very
   very rude to be coming from FSF.

   when i say "and signed with fsf credentials" my meanning is: he is
   representing an official stance "glede tega vprašanja" on this subject.
   and if that is so (for which i doubted at that time), i am now
   dumbfounded to realize, that fsf is a political front. or am i wrong?

   when you say:
His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
political question about a political situation.  That's natural.

   firstly, i am sadened to see you defend his position. my sentiment
   namely is: no political debate or expressing ones political opinion is
   valid in fsf (unless pertaining to free software). so i don't see why
   you needed to dvelve into this.

   surelly, everithing is political. greek for non-political person is
   i-diotes (nowadays we use it differently :). but there are so many
   petty politics, i don't see this war (don't get me wrong, there is no
   petty war, ever been) as being any different. for, i could send a mail
   a day to libreplanet about some or other injustice, claiming complete
   knowledge of it and demanding action.
I don't know what "politično angažiran" means.  The words "politically
motivated" are vague; if you're trying to hint at something, I don't
know what it is.  It would be a mistake to try to guess!

   his letter is in my opinion polittically motivated. he is taking a
   stand in a war which he is no part of. and even if he were, that should
   be his personal view and shouldnt come even close to fsf. why recruting
   soldiers for a war you never been even close to, and thinking that
   everything you get out of that box, called tv is truth. you might be
   recruting murderes of civilians, in the case your tv lied to you. are
   you willing to take that risk? not to mention, most of you never been
   to war. well i have. and it was fought by that same type of people you
   are demonstrating now to be. warmongers from "other continents" (is
   more to that, but the heartache of it). and propaganda. and then my
   people died. (am criying now remembering, but thats all good)

   the rest of your letter i think has no questions in it, so i shall
   conclude with:

   i am always willing to accept any and all apologies, and offer mine
   when i fell i did wrong. what, but flowers we are, coloring our way,
   closer and closer to the sun.

   and forgivness is the basis of my "religion", so i am so very glad that
   you've ended your letter with it

   there will always be a huge room for you in my heart, dear mr rms

   yt

   g

   On 1. 03. 22 05:24, Richard Stallman wrote:

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > the reasson for me being rude is, that i find the letter of Devin U. so
  > very rude.

I have to say that I don't see anything rude in it, not even slightly.
It doesn't insult anyone, or criticize anyone.  There is no anger in
it.  Is it possible you've misunderstood the meaning of "rude"?

  > he wanted to know, i guess a valid question (if you dont know
  > that FSF is not a political organization)

Yes, it was a valid question.  Some people know enough about the FSF
to see what the answer would be.  But some people don't know,
so they will want to ask.

  > but the answer that i read is quite "politično angažiran" (translate
  > from slovene - politically motivated?). and signed with FSF credentials!

Devin is on the FSF staff, and his message says so.  I don't see
anything strange about that.

His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
political question about a political situation.  That's natural.

I don't know what "politično angažiran" means.  The words "politically
motivated" are vague; if you're trying to hint at something, I don't
know what it is.  It would be a mistake to try to guess!

I see you accused Devin of some sort of dishonesty or wrongdoing, but
that makes no sense to me.  I don't see any dishonesty or wrongdoing
in his message.  So I appreciate your apologizing for that.

Devin's message did have an imperfection: it was abstract and left
unanswered some practical questions about what the FSF would do.  I
hope my message answered those questions.  But that's not wrongdoing,
it's just an imperfection.  None of us is perfect, we can only do our
best.  Let's forgive each other.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 184 bytes --]

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Valentino Giudice]

> when Devin answers with: " 'what' the FSF ... ", that 'what' makes me
> think that there is something going on

Stop right there.
Devin is only responsible for what he writes, not for what you think.

> but then, is there the same amount of active engagemant on all the
> other issues? and that is no trivial question, for there might be
> monsanto using free software for spraying prohibited neonicotins,

Which is something the FSF doesn't legally have to care about.
But because there are US sanctions against Russia, the FSF, and any
other US organization, has to comply.

>... and then we come to the problem of arbitrirary choosing as best as
>  we can, out of zillion unjustices, which ones we will fight against.

But the FSF is not fighting against this injustice. In fact, the FSF
is not even claiming the ongoing situation is an injustice.
The FSF is just "chosing" anything, it's just doing what it has to as
a US organization.

> so who will decide

The US government. Do you think the FSF decided these sanctions?

> so i wonder what would this selective active engagement in our case
> mean.

It means the FSF is complying with the law. It has to.

> and i come to the conclusion, that it is a political stance.

You came to the wrong conclusion.

> the answer or
> rather the lack of it, shows complete support of emotionally charged
> jacobs opinion

By the same logic, I could argue that unless the FSF expressly
condemns the Russian government, it means it supports it.
Would that make sense? Absolutely not, because this logic doesn't make sense.
Not saying something doesn't equate saying the opposite. What would
imply endorsement of what Jacob said is if Devin expressly endorsed
it, which isn't what happened.

While I was attempting to reply to your email, I will have to skip
part of it. It's so badly written I can't even parse it. You should
really put more effort in your writing.

>  i
> find it very rude to be calling civilians to go to war. i find it very
> very rude to be coming from FSF.

That literally never happened. The FSF never called for anyone to go to war.

> or am i wrong?

You are wrong.
The FSF is only political when it comes to software freedom and
related topics. The US government, however, *is* political and the FSF
will comply with US law.

> he is taking a
> stand in a war which he is no part of.

The stand is "we will literally follow the law, which we have to".

None is recruiting soldiers, not on the FSF mailing list.


Devin's "answer" effectively didn't answer Jacob's question at all.
Some others did answer it, including Richard Stallman, a member of the
board of directors of the FSF. And the consensus seems pretty clear to
me: the answer to Jacob's question is NO.

As Stallman has said, Devin's answer was incomplete. But he didn't say
anything wrong. Unless you read way too much into it.

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[gregor]

hello,

thank you for taking the time for fencing my blabberings. tried as i 
could, it was best i could do (write)

what you are saying makes a lot of sense. i need to read it few times 
more (to let it sip through the thickness of my bone)

i didn't have the oportunity, have not received any mail from lib.plan 
since my agitated mail. but i did receive the one you've mentioned, by 
mr rms, well, the one where he nicely denies any charge (i was accusing 
Devins letter of). i read it  couple times, but couldn't come to 
differently judge Devins letter.

the book i go by, strongly condems judging other people and i am a bad 
personn for doing that to Devin. anti-war triggerhappy soldier that i 
am. i hope Devin can forgive me some day.

yes, as you've stated - i must have read way way too much into it. . if 
most of readers got the meanning you presented, then i am surelly wrong. 
and it would be backpedalling on my side trying with the cultural 
difference excuse.

backpaddle i shall not. apologise is a different thing.

i spoke my mind. my mind is wrong. am in the process of talking to my 
mind, to see weather go with what most people read in Devins letter or 
stay where i was - wrong.

again, thank you for taking the time

g

ps

i wrote the above, thinking your letter was sent to me only, now just 
about to send i see is for all, i will leave it as it is, sending it to all

On 2. 03. 22 07:18, Valentino Giudice wrote:
>> when Devin answers with: " 'what' the FSF ... ", that 'what' makes me
>> think that there is something going on
> Stop right there.
> Devin is only responsible for what he writes, not for what you think.
>
>> but then, is there the same amount of active engagemant on all the
>> other issues? and that is no trivial question, for there might be
>> monsanto using free software for spraying prohibited neonicotins,
> Which is something the FSF doesn't legally have to care about.
> But because there are US sanctions against Russia, the FSF, and any
> other US organization, has to comply.
>
>> ... and then we come to the problem of arbitrirary choosing as best as
>>   we can, out of zillion unjustices, which ones we will fight against.
> But the FSF is not fighting against this injustice. In fact, the FSF
> is not even claiming the ongoing situation is an injustice.
> The FSF is just "chosing" anything, it's just doing what it has to as
> a US organization.
>
>> so who will decide
> The US government. Do you think the FSF decided these sanctions?
>
>> so i wonder what would this selective active engagement in our case
>> mean.
> It means the FSF is complying with the law. It has to.
>
>> and i come to the conclusion, that it is a political stance.
> You came to the wrong conclusion.
>
>> the answer or
>> rather the lack of it, shows complete support of emotionally charged
>> jacobs opinion
> By the same logic, I could argue that unless the FSF expressly
> condemns the Russian government, it means it supports it.
> Would that make sense? Absolutely not, because this logic doesn't make sense.
> Not saying something doesn't equate saying the opposite. What would
> imply endorsement of what Jacob said is if Devin expressly endorsed
> it, which isn't what happened.
>
> While I was attempting to reply to your email, I will have to skip
> part of it. It's so badly written I can't even parse it. You should
> really put more effort in your writing.
>
>>   i
>> find it very rude to be calling civilians to go to war. i find it very
>> very rude to be coming from FSF.
> That literally never happened. The FSF never called for anyone to go to war.
>
>> or am i wrong?
> You are wrong.
> The FSF is only political when it comes to software freedom and
> related topics. The US government, however, *is* political and the FSF
> will comply with US law.
>
>> he is taking a
>> stand in a war which he is no part of.
> The stand is "we will literally follow the law, which we have to".
>
> None is recruiting soldiers, not on the FSF mailing list.
>
>
> Devin's "answer" effectively didn't answer Jacob's question at all.
> Some others did answer it, including Richard Stallman, a member of the
> board of directors of the FSF. And the consensus seems pretty clear to
> me: the answer to Jacob's question is NO.
>
> As Stallman has said, Devin's answer was incomplete. But he didn't say
> anything wrong. Unless you read way too much into it.

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > backpaddle i shall not. apologise is a different thing.

  > i spoke my mind. my mind is wrong. am in the process of talking to my 
  > mind, to see weather go with what most people read in Devins letter or 
  > stay where i was - wrong.

I forgive you.  We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[gregor]

hi all,

i would like firstly to express my immense gratitude for the forgiveness

thank you so much mr rms

then offer my sincere apologies, for not helping in making us all better 
persons. tried i did. but, you know me.

and i specially offer my apology to Devin, whom i oh so easily judged.

i am sorry Devin. (wish we could go for a beer and lough about it some day)

###

so there is this joke, and its a bad one, just skip to the last three 
lines of my letter

two friends are talking about a freudian slip

"you wouldn't believe what happened to me the other day. i wanted to buy 
two tickets to pitsbourough (and the lady was in full blossom) but 
instead of saying that, i said: could i please get two pickets to 
titsbourough."

"that's nothing", says the other one

"i wanted to say to my wife: would you kindly please pass me that salt dear

but what came out was: you fucking bitch you've ruined my life."

{i really hope it's obvious which one of the two quacks  is me}

###

i wish you all all the best

yt

g




On 3. 03. 22 06:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > backpaddle i shall not. apologise is a different thing.
>
>    > i spoke my mind. my mind is wrong. am in the process of talking to my
>    > mind, to see weather go with what most people read in Devins letter or
>    > stay where i was - wrong.
>
> I forgive you.  We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
> admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.
>

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Devin Ulibarri]

Hi,

On 3/3/22 00:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
> We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
> admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.

As for me, the mistake I would like to admit is not being careful enough
in choosing my words. I did not mean to suggest that the FSF was taking
a particular public stance, when in fact, it has not (and is under no
obligation to do so).

I appreciate everyone's work toward the common vision of achieving user
freedom, and I look forward to the discussions to come, as we all have a
lot of work to do.

Best wishes,
Devin

-- 
Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
Free Software Foundation

Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom: https://my.fsf.org/

US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us through
the Combined Federal Campaign. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/

GPG Key: 2E0E CE75 F816 2B40 7D66 6767 8797 38E6 D644 0D57
What's GPG? See https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/ for more info.

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Ole Aamot]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2106 bytes --]

Ukrainian state broadcaster is currently not GNOME Internet Radio Locator
12.2.0.
Kyiv is under attack and we want to limit Russia and Putin's access to
information.

Is this wrong to think?  Users are free to add their own radio stations as
users into

   $HOME/.gnome-internet-radio-locator/gnome-internet-radio-locator.xml

The release is available from
https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2/gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
and needs testing.

See http://www.gnomeradio.org/ for more information about the previous
release 12.0.9 with the Ukrainian state broadcaster and it's location
"Kyiv, Ukraine".

Not mapped on OpenStreetMap.

Best,
Ole

On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 5:12 PM Devin Ulibarri <devinu@fsf.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 3/3/22 00:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
> > admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.
>
> As for me, the mistake I would like to admit is not being careful enough
> in choosing my words. I did not mean to suggest that the FSF was taking
> a particular public stance, when in fact, it has not (and is under no
> obligation to do so).
>
> I appreciate everyone's work toward the common vision of achieving user
> freedom, and I look forward to the discussions to come, as we all have a
> lot of work to do.
>
> Best wishes,
> Devin
>
> --
> Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
> Free Software Foundation
>
> Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom: https://my.fsf.org/
>
> US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us through
> the Combined Federal Campaign. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
>
> GPG Key: 2E0E CE75 F816 2B40 7D66 6767 8797 38E6 D644 0D57
> What's GPG? See https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/ for more info.
>
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>

--
Ole Aamot
Aamot Software / www.aamot.software
Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
(+47) 45049800 / ole@aamot.software

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 2777 bytes --]

   Ukrainian state broadcaster is currently not GNOME Internet Radio
   Locator 12.2.0.
   Kyiv is under attack and we want to limit Russia and Putin's access to
   information.
   Is this wrong to think?  Users are free to add their own radio stations
   as users into
      $HOME/.gnome-internet-radio-locator/gnome-internet-radio-locator.xml
   The release is available from
   [1]https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2
   /gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
   and needs testing.
   See [2]http://www.gnomeradio.org/ for more information about the
   previous release 12.0.9 with the Ukrainian state broadcaster and it's
   location "Kyiv, Ukraine".
   Not mapped on OpenStreetMap.
   Best,
   Ole
   On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 5:12 PM Devin Ulibarri <[3]devinu@fsf.org>
   wrote:

     Hi,
     On 3/3/22 00:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
     > We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
     > admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.
     As for me, the mistake I would like to admit is not being careful
     enough
     in choosing my words. I did not mean to suggest that the FSF was
     taking
     a particular public stance, when in fact, it has not (and is under
     no
     obligation to do so).
     I appreciate everyone's work toward the common vision of achieving
     user
     freedom, and I look forward to the discussions to come, as we all
     have a
     lot of work to do.
     Best wishes,
     Devin
     --
     Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
     Free Software Foundation
     Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom:
     [4]https://my.fsf.org/
     US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us
     through
     the Combined Federal Campaign. [5]https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
     GPG Key: 2E0E CE75 F816 2B40 7D66 6767 8797 38E6 D644 0D57
     What's GPG? See [6]https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/ for more info.
     _______________________________________________
     libreplanet-discuss mailing list
     [7]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
     [8]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
     s

   --
   Ole Aamot
   Aamot Software / [9]www.aamot.software
   Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
   (+47) 45049800 / [10]ole@aamot.software

References

   1. https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2/gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
   2. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   3. mailto:devinu@fsf.org
   4. https://my.fsf.org/
   5. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
   6. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
   7. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   8. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
   9. http://www.aamot.software/
  10. mailto:ole@aamot.software

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 184 bytes --]

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Jean Louis]

* Ole Aamot <oka@oka.no> [2022-03-03 21:49]:
> Ukrainian state broadcaster is currently not GNOME Internet Radio
> Locator 12.2.0.
> Kyiv is under attack and we want to limit Russia and Putin's access to
> information.
> Is this wrong to think?

Yes, it is wrong to think if you wish to limit "public" radio. If you
wish to make media "public", then keep it public. Support freedom of
information.

If you wish to make private radio, that is fine, as that by default
means it is confidential, private. Not for everybody.


Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Lori Nagel via libreplanet-discuss]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3277 bytes --]

 
I would not wish proprietary software on my worst enemy.  The less proprietary software used the better.  
    On Thursday, March 3, 2022, 01:48:15 PM EST, Ole Aamot <oka@oka.no> wrote:  
 
   Ukrainian state broadcaster is currently not GNOME Internet Radio
  Locator 12.2.0.
  Kyiv is under attack and we want to limit Russia and Putin's access to
  information.
  Is this wrong to think?  Users are free to add their own radio stations
  as users into
      $HOME/.gnome-internet-radio-locator/gnome-internet-radio-locator.xml
  The release is available from
  [1]https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2
  /gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
  and needs testing.
  See [2]http://www.gnomeradio.org/ for more information about the
  previous release 12.0.9 with the Ukrainian state broadcaster and it's
  location "Kyiv, Ukraine".
  Not mapped on OpenStreetMap.
  Best,
  Ole
  On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 5:12 PM Devin Ulibarri <[3]devinu@fsf.org>
  wrote:

    Hi,
    On 3/3/22 00:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
    > We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
    > admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.
    As for me, the mistake I would like to admit is not being careful
    enough
    in choosing my words. I did not mean to suggest that the FSF was
    taking
    a particular public stance, when in fact, it has not (and is under
    no
    obligation to do so).
    I appreciate everyone's work toward the common vision of achieving
    user
    freedom, and I look forward to the discussions to come, as we all
    have a
    lot of work to do.
    Best wishes,
    Devin
    --
    Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
    Free Software Foundation
    Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom:
    [4]https://my.fsf.org/
    US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us
    through
    the Combined Federal Campaign. [5]https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
    GPG Key: 2E0E CE75 F816 2B40 7D66 6767 8797 38E6 D644 0D57
    What's GPG? See [6]https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/ for more info.
    _______________________________________________
    libreplanet-discuss mailing list
    [7]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
    [8]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
    s

  --
  Ole Aamot
  Aamot Software / [9]www.aamot.software
  Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
  (+47) 45049800 / [10]ole@aamot.software

References

  1. https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2/gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
  2. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
  3. mailto:devinu@fsf.org
  4. https://my.fsf.org/
  5. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
  6. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
  7. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
  8. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
  9. http://www.aamot.software/
  10. mailto:ole@aamot.software
_______________________________________________
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[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 4381 bytes --]

   I would not wish proprietary software on my worst enemy.  The less
   proprietary software used the better.

   On Thursday, March 3, 2022, 01:48:15 PM EST, Ole Aamot <oka@oka.no>
   wrote:
     Ukrainian state broadcaster is currently not GNOME Internet Radio
     Locator 12.2.0.
     Kyiv is under attack and we want to limit Russia and Putin's access
   to
     information.
     Is this wrong to think?  Users are free to add their own radio
   stations
     as users into

   $HOME/.gnome-internet-radio-locator/gnome-internet-radio-locator.xml
     The release is available from

   [1][1]https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/1
   2.2
     /gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
     and needs testing.
     See [2][2]http://www.gnomeradio.org/ for more information about the
     previous release 12.0.9 with the Ukrainian state broadcaster and it's
     location "Kyiv, Ukraine".
     Not mapped on OpenStreetMap.
     Best,
     Ole
     On Thu, Mar 3, 2022 at 5:12 PM Devin Ulibarri <[3][3]devinu@fsf.org>
     wrote:
       Hi,
       On 3/3/22 00:07, Richard Stallman wrote:
       > We all mistakes; we're all human.  The ability to
       > admit a mistake is a sign of a wise human.
       As for me, the mistake I would like to admit is not being careful
       enough
       in choosing my words. I did not mean to suggest that the FSF was
       taking
       a particular public stance, when in fact, it has not (and is under
       no
       obligation to do so).
       I appreciate everyone's work toward the common vision of achieving
       user
       freedom, and I look forward to the discussions to come, as we all
       have a
       lot of work to do.
       Best wishes,
       Devin
       --
       Devin Ulibarri // Outreach & Communications Coordinator
       Free Software Foundation
       Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom:
       [4][4]https://my.fsf.org/
       US government employee? Use CFC charity code 63210 to support us
       through
       the Combined Federal Campaign. [5][5]https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
       GPG Key: 2E0E CE75 F816 2B40 7D66 6767 8797 38E6 D644 0D57
       What's GPG? See [6][6]https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/ for more
   info.
       _______________________________________________
       libreplanet-discuss mailing list
       [7][7]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org

   [8][8]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
       s
     --
     Ole Aamot
     Aamot Software / [9]www.aamot.software
     Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
     (+47) 45049800 / [10][9]ole@aamot.software
   References
     1.
   [10]https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.
   2/gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
     2. [11]http://www.gnomeradio.org/
     3. mailto:[12]devinu@fsf.org
     4. [13]https://my.fsf.org/
     5. [14]https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
     6. [15]https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
     7. mailto:[16]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
     8.
   [17]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
     9.
   [18]http://www.aamot.software/
     10. mailto:[19]ole@aamot.software
   _______________________________________________
   libreplanet-discuss mailing list
   [20]libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   [21]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

References

   1. https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2
   2. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   3. mailto:devinu@fsf.org
   4. https://my.fsf.org/
   5. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
   6. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
   7. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   8. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discus
   9. mailto:ole@aamot.software
  10. https://download.gnome.org/sources/gnome-internet-radio-locator/12.2/gnome-internet-radio-locator-12.2.0.tar.xz
  11. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
  12. mailto:devinu@fsf.org
  13. https://my.fsf.org/
  14. https://cfcgiving.opm.gov/
  15. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
  16. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
  17. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
  18. http://www.aamot.software/
  19. mailto:ole@aamot.software
  20. mailto:libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
  21. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > So again i repeat my argument the freedom 2 says: "The freedom to 
  > /redistribute/ and make copies __so you can help your neighbour.__"

I used the term "help your neighbor" to describe the purpose of
freedom 2 because "help your neighbor" is a traditional way to refer
to cooperating with your community and with the rest of society.  I
never intended it to mean that your use of freedom 2 was limited to
people that live near you.

Yeara ago I realized that people were getting the wrong idea from that
word, so I started saying it differently.  But it took a long tine to
recognize and replace the old wording in writing.

If you see anything which describes freedom 2 using the word "neighbor",
please try to get it corrected.  If you see this on gnu.org, please
report it to webmasters@gnu.org.

Whether you redistribute a free program to any given user
is your choice.  Freedom 2 says you are free to do so, when you wish.
However, as long as you're distributing the source code, it is always
your choice whether to do it in any specific instance.

(The GNU GPL has a special rule for distributing a compiled form
without source code.  If you do that in certain ways, you will be
required to make the source code available laler.  That is so you
can't deny source code to the community.)

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Jacob Hrbek]

[-- Attachment #1.1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2510 bytes --]

 > I used the term "help your neighbor" to describe the purpose of
freedom 2 because "help your neighbor" is a traditional way to refer to
cooperating with your community and with the rest of society. -- RMS

How is that justifying the use of free software in russian military to
do war crimes worth of projected 1 000 000 civilian death _including
children_?

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.

On 3/6/22 06:13, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > So again i repeat my argument the freedom 2 says: "The freedom to
>    > /redistribute/ and make c
opies __so you can help your neighbour.__"
>
> I used the term "help your neighbor" to describe the purpose of
> freedom 2 because "help your neighbor" is a traditional way to refer
> to cooperating with your community and with the rest of society.  I
> never intended it to mean that your use of freedom 2 was limited to
> people that live near you.
>
> Yeara ago I realized that people were getting the wrong idea from that
> word, so I started saying it differently.  But it took a long tine to
> recognize and replace the old wording in writing.
>
> If you see anything which describes freedom 2 using the word "neighbor",
> please try to get it corrected.  If you see this on gnu.org, please
> report it to webmasters@gnu.org.
>
> Whether you redistribute a free program to any given user
> is your choice.  Freedom 2 says you are free to do so, when you wish.
> However, as long as you're distributing the source code, it is always
> your choice whether to do it in any speci
fic instance.
>
> (The GNU GPL has a special rule for distributing a compiled form
> without source code.  If you do that in certain ways, you will be
> required to make the source code available laler.  That is so you
> can't deny source code to the community.)
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>
--
Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine


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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Valentino Giudice]

> How is that justifying the use of free software in russian military to
> do war crimes worth of projected 1 000 000 civilian death _including
> children_?

Did someone claim it justifies that activity? If not, you are asking a
loaded question.

Also, what is the issue in using free software to do that? Doing that
is an issue IMO (and I say "IMO" because I don't speak for the FSF and
this issue has nothing to do with free software), but it's immoral
regardless of whether one uses free software, proprietary software or
no software. The issue is killing people, not using free software to
do that.

> 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.

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

[Félicien Pillot]

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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

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

[Valentino Giudice]

Which makes absolutely no sense.

It's not the job of the FSF to side with Ukraine, or in general to
take a side in wars. Those that support the FSF can have any opinion
about any topic unrelated to free software and their money and support
shouldn't be used to take a stand on separate issues.

But even if it did take a stand on this (it's still not clear to me
why access to free software is any more of a concern than access to
anything else, and access to anything else is being regulated through
sanctions which are decided by governments), it would fail.

There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone who supports Russia, or
who simply disagrees with restricting access to software, from
mirroring all software programs distributed by the FSF, and any free
GNU/Linux distro.

As for Debian, it has a social contract: https://www.debian.org/social_contract

I believe that not distributing software to a particular part of the
world that was using their software before would be against paragraph
4.
First, free software is a priority. Not any other political stance. So
trying to support Ukraine by reducing free software access in Russia
goes against this principle.
Second, and more importantly, users are a priority. So preventing
Russian users (not just individuals, but companies and government
agencies too) from accessing updates to software they use goes after
that principle.

Some would argue that Debian should take a stand in this because
people in Ukraine are users too, but that would be a terrible
argument. The intention of that paragraph and the meaning of the word
"user" are obviously such that users are a priority *as such* (i.e.
because they are users, and are helped by Debian as users).

Otherwise, the mission of Debian could simply be "we make the world a
better place". None in good faith would ever support such an
organization because you can't know what you are actually supporting.
An organization which does whatever the person in charge thinks is
good, regardless of topic, regardless of what the organization
promises, is a fundamentally corrupt organization.

The same applies to the FSF: preventing access to free software in
Russia would in no way help software freedom, nor would it help free
software users as such, and thus it's not something the FSF should do.

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

[Erica Frank]

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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
>

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

[Jacob Hrbek]

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 > "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
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

-- 
Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine


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

[Matt Ivie]

On Thu, 2022-03-10 at 16:01 +0000, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
> 
> 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.
> 
Nobody wrote the software FOR the Russian army specifically. I'm not
sure what you want everyone to do here. Do you have any army to back
your idea of restricting the Russian army from using Free Software?

Even if we suddenly changed licensing terms to exclude acts of war or
whatever that would only be active going forward, not retroactive if
I'm understanding the licenses properly. Meaning there are repositories
of software out there that would be available for use.

Also, if someone is committing a war crime, do you think they'll stop
at violating a software license? Like leveling a city was okay to them
but violating software terms is the hard line they just won't cross?



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

[Jean Louis]

* Jacob Hrbek <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz> [2022-03-11 21:00]:
> > "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.

Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's
Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software. 

Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general,
though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about
Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free
software.

The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for
people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they
wish.

In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything
for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like
ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame
manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators.

Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian
organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives,
including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners.

Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the
perpetrator, it is not.

Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on
Libreplanet mailing list.

Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or
Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality.

Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior
towards any ethnicity on this mailing list.

Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office
https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html

What we have is free software and that is what brings us together.


Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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

[Aaron Wolf]

The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities 
of this issue:

https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization

Now, that does not really relate to powerful government entities like 
the Russian military, but it does get into questions of danger and risk 
as people access technology. We can probably all see that if there were 
some software that would have the effect of a nuclear bomb, making that 
free software and distributing it to the world would be insane. There 
are some powers too dangerous to let exist and others too dangerous to 
allow individuals to operate without a whole system of checks-and-balances.

This is an interesting debate about software freedom and whether there 
are places we should consider limiting it.

Now, I don't agree with the tactic of the new ethical-source-license 
ideas where all the code is available and they try to use Copyright 
licenses to enforce ethical use. That can't solve these issues.

But I think there's some challenging legitimate questions here, despite 
Jacob's views being largely misunderstandings for the current situation.

-Aaron

On 2022-03-11 21:27, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Jacob Hrbek <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz> [2022-03-11 21:00]:
>>> "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.
> 
> Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's
> Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software.
> 
> Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general,
> though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about
> Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free
> software.
> 
> The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
> https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
> 
> Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for
> people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they
> wish.
> 
> In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything
> for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like
> ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame
> manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators.
> 
> Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian
> organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives,
> including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners.
> 
> Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the
> perpetrator, it is not.
> 
> Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on
> Libreplanet mailing list.
> 
> Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or
> Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality.
> 
> Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior
> towards any ethnicity on this mailing list.
> 
> Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office
> https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html
> 
> What we have is free software and that is what brings us together.
> 
> 
> Jean
> 
> Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
> https://www.fsf.org/campaigns
> 
> In support of Richard M. Stallman
> https://stallmansupport.org/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
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Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[Jean Louis]

* Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> [2022-03-12 20:48]:
> The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of
> this issue:

From your link:

> https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization

,----
| But if the world lives on Bitcoin, we may not be able to sanction
| nation states like Russia when they invade sovereign nations.
`----

To be sovereign nation it does not mean killing withing one country
one's own people and even 13000 of them. That is not
"sovereign". Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and
neglect of human rights. This war is not begin, but end of the war
that begun 2014. Back then the conflict was financed by US government.

Thus it should be clear there are multiple viewpoints on the issue.

One could say that US has used free software in all of the killings
like in Afghanistan or Libya, etc. 

Those discussions will never end. That is why we stick to freedom
zero, use it as you wish.

Using free software principles now for political propaganda is
disgusting. I find it hostile to free software principles.


-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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

[Aaron Wolf]

The point of the podcast discussion was to grapple with the questions 
about power. I'm not saying I agree with every point or the way they 
frame the discussion. They are saying something to the effect of 
"empowering all people in the world via decentralized software freedom 
gives up the possibility of controlling bad actors", and the tension is 
whether there's any viable stance for the idea of even truly democratic 
organized power being okay having that sort of power over individual actors.

I think the podcast is worth a listen, and your reactivity about Ukraine 
being described as "sovereign" is not relevant to the question.

That said, the 13,000+ who died in Eastern Ukraine over the past several 
years are not all victims of the Ukrainian government directly, it 
amounts to the deaths on both sides. You can argue that the Ukrainian 
government could have made different decisions to avoid the situation, 
but other will argue that the Russian support of separatists is also at 
fault. Regardless of these dynamics, I get your point. Ukraine wasn't 
merely a plain old peaceful place prior to the recent invasion. Still, 
Russia chose to spread the war to a much greater scale and a much 
greater geographic region, affecting vastly greater numbers of people.

"Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and neglect of 
human rights."

Nonsense. Tell that to China. We can't honestly have a debate about 
whether China is a sovereign nation. We could discuss whether sovereign 
states of the modern sort should even exist at all. That could be more 
interesting. We could assert a political claim about what types of state 
sovereignty *ought* to exist or that we *recognize* (in the way that 
people politically refuse to recognize basic facts because of political 
tensions about the acknowledgement).

But this gets too tangential for this list about software freedom. The 
philosophical and on-topic question is: are there ever situations where 
the decentralized power of software freedom is too dangerous? And if so, 
is it even possible to avoid it? And if so, who would justly be in 
control of such technology restrictions.

It is a valid, and FSF-aligned position to say either that no situation 
ever justifies having software available but keeping the code restricted 
*or* to say that even if such situations exist, there is no (or even can 
never be a) powerful entity which we can trust to be the one managing 
the restrictions. But this is a discussion we could bother having.

There is no discussion to have about blocking Russian military from 
using GNU/Linux distros. That's as out of scope as wishing for them not 
to have access to nuclear technology. The inventors of nuclear 
technology might feel guilty about their role in the threat of nuclear 
war, but it's too late now to undo that. The question now that we can at 
least have philosophically is to reflect on this in terms of considering 
whether or not we see a place for limits to software freedom for 
dangerous technology. And that discussion doesn't rely on any agreement 
about which current actors are good or bad.

On 2022-03-12 10:53, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> [2022-03-12 20:48]:
>> The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the complexities of
>> this issue:
> 
>  From your link:
> 
>> https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization
> 
> ,----
> | But if the world lives on Bitcoin, we may not be able to sanction
> | nation states like Russia when they invade sovereign nations.
> `----
> 
> To be sovereign nation it does not mean killing withing one country
> one's own people and even 13000 of them. That is not
> "sovereign". Sovereignty is lost at time point when there is abuse and
> neglect of human rights. This war is not begin, but end of the war
> that begun 2014. Back then the conflict was financed by US government.
> 
> Thus it should be clear there are multiple viewpoints on the issue.
> 
> One could say that US has used free software in all of the killings
> like in Afghanistan or Libya, etc.
> 
> Those discussions will never end. That is why we stick to freedom
> zero, use it as you wish.
> 
> Using free software principles now for political propaganda is
> disgusting. I find it hostile to free software principles.
> 
> 

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

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto:
> The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role 
> in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that.

The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it 
secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's 
too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will 
get access to it.

This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade 
secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows 
about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best 
copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying 
entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors 
is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software 
is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather 
than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.)

As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people 
more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread 
pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents

As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any 
conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly 
about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised 
power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter 
copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has 
been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of 
responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I 
would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions.

See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details 
about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we 
would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly 
external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations.

Federico

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

[Aaron Wolf]

I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that centralized 
vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal inclination/assumptions.

I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider that 
the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. It 
might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think centralized 
vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's a question of 
risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose with either 
centralized or decentralized power?

Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power 
specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't just 
opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments having 
control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles and limits 
all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and because rather 
than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized powers often use 
their power unethically.

I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question.

On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
> Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto:
>> The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their role 
>> in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that.
> 
> The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep it 
> secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, it's 
> too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst actors will 
> get access to it.
> 
> This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade 
> secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody knows 
> about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's the best 
> copyright regime for the use of this work by copyright-complying 
> entities". Making it public but regulating its usage by private actors 
> is more likely to be a matter of patenting and the like. (If a software 
> is so dangerous, it must be for the ideas/inventions it contains, rather 
> than for the creativity of the specific software implementation.)
> 
> As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people 
> more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to spread 
> pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like:
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents
> 
> As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because any 
> conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, particularly 
> about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you like centralised 
> power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more patents, stricter 
> copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that nuclear catastrophe has 
> been avoided due to popular pressure and decentralised actions of 
> responsible people, more than by exercise of central power, therefore I 
> would argue for less secrets, less patents and less copyright restrictions.
> 
> See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
> 
> He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details 
> about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, we 
> would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, possibly 
> external too) would increase the chances of such correct interpretations.
> 
> Federico

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

[gregor]

hi aa, all

my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software 
freedom(s).

also, i find your positions on the question very ethically questionable, 
shame on you.

g

On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that 
> centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal 
> inclination/assumptions.
>
> I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider 
> that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. 
> It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think 
> centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's 
> a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose 
> with either centralized or decentralized power?
>
> Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power 
> specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't 
> just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments 
> having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles 
> and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and 
> because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized 
> powers often use their power unethically.
>
> I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question.
>
> On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>> Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto:
>>> The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their 
>>> role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that.
>>
>> The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep 
>> it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, 
>> it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst 
>> actors will get access to it.
>>
>> This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade 
>> secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody 
>> knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's 
>> the best copyright regime for the use of this work by 
>> copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its 
>> usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting 
>> and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the 
>> ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the 
>> specific software implementation.)
>>
>> As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people 
>> more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to 
>> spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like:
>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents
>>
>> As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because 
>> any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, 
>> particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you 
>> like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more 
>> patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that 
>> nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and 
>> decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of 
>> central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents 
>> and less copyright restrictions.
>>
>> See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
>>
>> He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details 
>> about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, 
>> we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, 
>> possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct 
>> interpretations.
>>
>> Federico
>
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Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[Miles Fidelman]

That's a pretty much substance free comment.  An axiomatic pronouncement 
- of both an opinion & judgement.

And, just for the record... of COURSE politics has a part in thinking 
about software freedoms - copyrights, enforcement/protection thereof, 
business practices - all are subject to law, regulation, courts, police 
action (official & secret), etc. - and hence politics.

Beyond that, if you're going to condemn someone's positions as 
"ethically questionable" - might you at least afford them, and the rest 
of us, some elaboration of which positions you're referring to, and what 
it is that you find ethically "questionable." (Which, I might add, is a 
rather dubious term.  Pretty much EVERYTHING in life is "questionable" - 
unless you're a religious or political zealot.  The use of 
"questionable" as a derogative label, is prejudicial, and itself, 
"questionable.")

Now, if you don't want to think about the politics associated with 
software freedom, and/or the impacts of software (free & otherwise) on 
politics - that's your prerogative.  But then, please, stay out of the 
discussion, while the rest of us think & talk about the issues.

Miles Fidelman

gregor wrote:
> hi aa, all
>
> my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software 
> freedom(s).
>
> also, i find your positions on the question very ethically 
> questionable, shame on you.
>
> g
>
> On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that 
>> centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal 
>> inclination/assumptions.
>>
>> I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider 
>> that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation 
>> issue. It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think 
>> centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. 
>> It's a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we 
>> lose with either centralized or decentralized power?
>>
>> Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power 
>> specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't 
>> just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments 
>> having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles 
>> and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and 
>> because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the 
>> centralized powers often use their power unethically.
>>
>> I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question.
>>
>> On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>>> Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto:
>>>> The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their 
>>>> role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that.
>>>
>>> The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep 
>>> it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the 
>>> world, it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the 
>>> worst actors will get access to it.
>>>
>>> This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade 
>>> secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody 
>>> knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than 
>>> "what's the best copyright regime for the use of this work by 
>>> copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its 
>>> usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting 
>>> and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the 
>>> ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the 
>>> specific software implementation.)
>>>
>>> As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes 
>>> people more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful 
>>> to spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like:
>>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
>>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents
>>>
>>> As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because 
>>> any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, 
>>> particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you 
>>> like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more 
>>> patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that 
>>> nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and 
>>> decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise 
>>> of central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less 
>>> patents and less copyright restrictions.
>>>
>>> See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world:
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
>>>
>>> He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some 
>>> details about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the 
>>> software, we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least 
>>> internal, possibly external too) would increase the chances of such 
>>> correct interpretations.
>>>
>>> Federico
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
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-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown


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

[Aaron Wolf]

Gregor, I don't know if you're talking to me as "aa" but your "shame on 
you" comment is out of line. I didn't even express my positions, I 
brought up questions for discussion. You don't know what my position is.

Software freedom is itself a political issue, it's not merely "open 
source" development methods, it's about the political issue of computer 
users having freedom.

On 2022-03-13 10:33, gregor wrote:
> hi aa, all
> 
> my perspective is, that politics has no part in thinking software 
> freedom(s).
> 
> also, i find your positions on the question very ethically questionable, 
> shame on you.
> 
> g
> 
> On 13. 03. 22 16:07, Aaron Wolf wrote:
>> I agree with most of that, but I don't accept the idea that 
>> centralized vs decentralized is simply a questions of personal 
>> inclination/assumptions.
>>
>> I think we can recognize shared concerns about ethics and consider 
>> that the structure of power might be a pragmatic implementation issue. 
>> It might be too abstract to easily pin down, but I don't think 
>> centralized vs decentralized is a matter of opinion or of ethics. It's 
>> a question of risk and potential. What do we risk and what do we lose 
>> with either centralized or decentralized power?
>>
>> Software freedom as a focus argues against centralized power 
>> specifically in terms of control over computing. The argument isn't 
>> just opinion. I see it as claiming that companies and governments 
>> having control over computing by others is unjust because it stifles 
>> and limits all sorts of legitimate and ethical uses of computing and 
>> because rather than primarily block unethical actions, the centralized 
>> powers often use their power unethically.
>>
>> I'd like to hear others' insights and perspectives on this question.
>>
>> On 2022-03-13 01:51, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
>>> Il 13/03/22 05:52, Aaron Wolf ha scritto:
>>>> The inventors of nuclear technology might feel guilty about their 
>>>> role in the threat of nuclear war, but it's too late now to undo that.
>>>
>>> The same is true or any invention or creation. You can hope to keep 
>>> it secret if it's so dangerous, but once it's out there in the world, 
>>> it's too late. If you restrict access, chances are only the worst 
>>> actors will get access to it.
>>>
>>> This concern about dangerous software seems related more to trade 
>>> secrets than to copyright. Keeping something secret so that nobody 
>>> knows about it is a completely different kind of problem than "what's 
>>> the best copyright regime for the use of this work by 
>>> copyright-complying entities". Making it public but regulating its 
>>> usage by private actors is more likely to be a matter of patenting 
>>> and the like. (If a software is so dangerous, it must be for the 
>>> ideas/inventions it contains, rather than for the creativity of the 
>>> specific software implementation.)
>>>
>>> As usual, the "intellectual property" bandwagon probably makes people 
>>> more confused. People often forget the basics, so it's useful to 
>>> spread pages where trade secrets and patents are discussed, like:
>>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
>>> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/danger-of-software-patents
>>>
>>> As for the example of nuclear, it's not particularly useful because 
>>> any conclusion depends entirely on your personal assumptions, 
>>> particularly about whether centralised power is good or bad. If you 
>>> like centralised power, you will argue for more trade secrets, more 
>>> patents, stricter copyright; and vice versa. I would argue that 
>>> nuclear catastrophe has been avoided due to popular pressure and 
>>> decentralised actions of responsible people, more than by exercise of 
>>> central power, therefore I would argue for less secrets, less patents 
>>> and less copyright restrictions.
>>>
>>> See for instance how Stanislav Petrov saved the world:
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident
>>>
>>> He was able to make the correct decision because he knew some details 
>>> about how the alert systems worked. If he had trusted the software, 
>>> we would not be talking now. More transparency (at least internal, 
>>> possibly external too) would increase the chances of such correct 
>>> interpretations.
>>>
>>> Federico
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
>> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
>> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
> 
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Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[Miles Fidelman]

Aaron Wolf wrote:
> The recent podcast from Humane Tech folks grapples with the 
> complexities of this issue:
>
> https://www.humanetech.com/podcast/49-the-dark-side-of-decentralization
>
> Now, that does not really relate to powerful government entities like 
> the Russian military, but it does get into questions of danger and 
> risk as people access technology. We can probably all see that if 
> there were some software that would have the effect of a nuclear bomb, 
> making that free software and distributing it to the world would be 
> insane. There are some powers too dangerous to let exist and others 
> too dangerous to allow individuals to operate without a whole system 
> of checks-and-balances.

An awful lot of cyber-attack tools are out there, freely available. Also 
crypto stuff, like TOR (courtesy of the US Navy, by the way).
>
> This is an interesting debate about software freedom and whether there 
> are places we should consider limiting it.

Of course it's a little hard to do that, except for classified work, 
done in secure labs, by people who get thrown in Leavenworth if they 
release their work.  And even then...

Miles Fidelman

>
> Now, I don't agree with the tactic of the new ethical-source-license 
> ideas where all the code is available and they try to use Copyright 
> licenses to enforce ethical use. That can't solve these issues.
>
> But I think there's some challenging legitimate questions here, 
> despite Jacob's views being largely misunderstandings for the current 
> situation.
>
> -Aaron
>
> On 2022-03-11 21:27, Jean Louis wrote:
>> * Jacob Hrbek <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz> [2022-03-11 21:00]:
>>>> "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.
>>
>> Not that I am aware of it, as I have not read it in Richard Stallman's
>> Manifesto. Your statements are not related to free software.
>>
>> Freedom of speech if fundamental to US constitution and US in general,
>> though religion, "want" and "fear" are not related. How I know about
>> Dr. Stallman from his writings, religion has nothing to do with free
>> software.
>>
>> The GNU Manifesto - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
>> https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
>>
>> Free software is not a perpertrator, it is useful resource for
>> people. How people use it is freedom zero, users may use it how they
>> wish.
>>
>> In every war on every side there are criminals who will use anything
>> for their evil intentions, maybe software, but maybe other tools, like
>> ropes, knives, timber, steel, poison, and so on. Please do not blame
>> manufacturers nor authors of resources to be perpetrators.
>>
>> Finally free software may be used on both sides by humanitarian
>> organizations, by hospitals, nurses, doctors, who save lives,
>> including lives of Ukrainians/Russians as prisoners.
>>
>> Please don't blame useful resource like software to be the
>> perpetrator, it is not.
>>
>> Best is to find other place to promote other political agenda than on
>> Libreplanet mailing list.
>>
>> Let us not discriminate on this mailing list against any Russian or
>> Ukrainian for reasons of their ethnicity, opinion or nationality.
>>
>> Let us stick to basics of Human Rights and adhere in our good behavior
>> towards any ethnicity on this mailing list.
>>
>> Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for 
>> human rights | UN Human Rights Office
>> https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html
>>
>> What we have is free software and that is what brings us together.
>>
>>
>> Jean
>>
>> Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
>> https://www.fsf.org/campaigns
>>
>> In support of Richard M. Stallman
>> https://stallmansupport.org/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
>> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
>> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
>
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown


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Getting the truth into Russia

[Akira Urushibata]

There is much discussion here on restricting access to free software
source code and packages from Russia as a means to stymie their war
effort.

Here I provide some links on an effort in another direction: getting
the truth about the war into Russia.

Ukraine: Spam website set up to reach millions of Russians
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60697261

  A Norwegian computer expert has created a website enabling anyone to
  send an email about the war in Ukraine to up to 150 Russian email
  addresses at a time, so that Russian people have a chance to hear
  the truth their government is hiding.


Opinion: Why the West should help Russians learn the truth about
Putin's war in Ukraine
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/07/west-must-help-russians-learn-truth-about-war-ukraine-independent-media/

---

I don't totally agree with the use of spam.  One measure I would like
fellow list subscribers to consider is to study media control, and
popular reaction thereto, in totalitarian societies.  Some members
may have relevant information in the form of household legends.

My father was born in Osaka in 1934.  He was in primary school during
the last year of WW2.  He recalls that initially, people supported the
war effort and believed what they were being told in the news.  The
media was under tight government control at that time.  At around
early 1945 that changed.  In the last months of the war the official
news had little credibility.



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

[Jean Louis]

* Erica Frank <e.lynn.frank@gmail.com> [2022-03-10 18:33]:
> This makes no sense.
> "Free software" does not mean "until you use it for immoral or illegal
> purposes."

Thanks for your opinion. Yes.

Regarding "immoral":

Please note that what is immoral is hard to define; it is vague and
thus becomes unjust. For an average Muslim it could be immoral to use
GIMP to draw a picture of Muhamed the prophet. Thus we get conflicts. 

Free software is not related to morality beyond the aspect of
computing.

What is "illegal" vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Free
software is global and not jurisdiction specific. We do not want to
"lock" free software into US jurisdiction only or any other, but that
it remains global and compatible with all jurisdictions.

What is "illegal" in one country may be legal in other. People can use
free software to do illegal things. Law and order is handling such
cases. You cannot possibly handle that by using any license.

Here is example of non-free proprietary software that falsely claimes
to be free: https://github.com/WWBN/AVideo

,----
| This Software must be used for Good, never Evil. It is expressly
| forbidden to use AVideo Platform Open-Source to build porn sites,
| violence, racism, terrorism, or anything else that affects human
| integrity or denigrates the image of anyone.
`----

Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software. 

For many people on this world porn is both moral and legal. For some
others it is not. However, author keeps in chains users of this
software as author is dictating what is moral. Thus it becomes unjust. 

Even for people who do not like porn, there are many movie scenes that
could be construed as porn. It is vague and thus brings
uncertainties. Does author mean soft porn? Or porn only?  The
definition of porn includes written text as well, does author forbid
that too?! It is vague and unjust.

"Violence" is another issue. Is it illegal to report violence on
video? There are many legitimate uses of reporting violence, including
such with educational purposes. It is however author's wish to keep
software user in chains as author solely dictates what type of
violence is "good" and what is "not good".

"Racism" is another issue and it could be biased. Same with
terrorism. And same with "anything that affects human integrity or
denigrates the image of anyone".

All those statements written by naive person lacking legal knowledge
are subject to interpretations, thus vague, and render the software
NOT TO BE free software. It is not. It is proprietary.

Copyrights are only about copyrights, not other rights. What is
illegal or imoral is quite different issue and is subject of those
other rights, not copyrights.

Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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

[Ron Nazarov via libreplanet-discuss]

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On 13/03/2022 17:57, Jean Louis wrote:
> Here is example of non-free proprietary software that falsely claimes
> to be free: https://github.com/WWBN/AVideo
> 
> ,----
> | This Software must be used for Good, never Evil. It is expressly
> | forbidden to use AVideo Platform Open-Source to build porn sites,
> | violence, racism, terrorism, or anything else that affects human
> | integrity or denigrates the image of anyone.
> `----
> 
> Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software.

It is neither free software nor open source, it is proprietary and 
source-available.

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

[Akira Urushibata]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1938 bytes --]

Two recent news articles which relate to the discussion.

Zelensly states that he wants IT companies to stop supporting Russian
versions of their products.  Some of his supporters may feel that free
software developers should do likewise.

The second article argues that matters are not so simple.

---

Zelensky Presses Companies - Microsoft, SAP And Oracle - To Punish
Russia More
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/03/13/zelensky-presses-companies-microsoft-sap-and-oracle-to-punish-russia-more/

   Tagging Microsoft, Oracle and SAP's official accounts, Zelensky
   tweeted Sunday the technology companies must "stop supporting"
   their Russian products, asserting the company's Russian pullbacks
   were "`half' decisions.'"

---

War censorship exposes Putin's leaky internet controls
https://news.yahoo.com/war-censorship-exposes-putins-leaky-211745727.html

  ...
  
  Yet the Kremlin's latest censorship efforts have revealed serious
  shortcomings in the government's bigger plans to straightjacket the
  internet. Any Russian with a modicum of tech smarts can circumvent
  Kremlin efforts to starve Russians of fact.
  
  For instance, the government has so far had only limited success
  blocking the use of software known as virtual private networks, or
  VPNs, that allows users to evade content restrictions. The same goes
  for Putin’s attempts to restrict the use of other censorship-evading
  software.
  
  That puts providers of internet bandwidth and associated services
  sympathetic to Ukraine's plight in a tough spot. On one side, they
  face public pressure to punish the Russian state and economic reasons
  to limit services at a time when bills might well go unpaid. On the
  other, they're wary of helping stifle a free flow of information that
  can counter Kremlin disinformation - for instance, the state's claim
  that Russia's military is heroically "liberating" Ukraine from
  fascists.




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

[Valentino Giudice]

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>  Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software.

No, it is absolutely not.

The founders of the open source movement, the Open Source Initiative,
Debian (which also uses the term "open source"), many software communities
and even several government agencies all mean the same thing by "open
source" (with disagreements on licenses that are on the very boundary of
that category) and software like that is absolutely *NOT* open source.

"Open source" and "free software" are synonymous, or almost synonymous,
when it comes to describing software categories or licenses. The open
source movement and the free software movement, on the other hand, are two
different movements with different ideas.

The JSON license is not an open source license by any means.

See:
- https://opensource.org/osd
- https://www.debian.org/social_contract
- https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
- https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
- http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html
- https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/

The software is source available, not open source.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 1542 bytes --]

   >  Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software.
   No, it is absolutely not.
   The founders of the open source movement, the Open Source Initiative,
   Debian (which also uses the term "open source"), many software
   communities and even several government agencies all mean the same
   thing by "open source" (with disagreements on licenses that are on the
   very boundary of that category) and software like that is absolutely
   *NOT* open source.
   "Open source" and "free software" are synonymous, or almost synonymous,
   when it comes to describing software categories or licenses. The open
   source movement and the free software movement, on the other hand, are
   two different movements with different ideas.
   The JSON license is not an open source license by any means.
   See:
   - [1]https://opensource.org/osd
   - [2]https://www.debian.org/social_contract
   - [3]https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
   - [4]https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
   - [5]http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html
   - [6]https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/
   The software is source available, not open source.

References

   1. https://opensource.org/osd
   2. https://www.debian.org/social_contract
   3. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
   4. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
   5. http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html
   6. https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/

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"Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Jean Louis]

* Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-14 05:02]:
> >  Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software.
> 
> No, it is absolutely not.
> 
> The founders of the open source movement, the Open Source Initiative,
> Debian (which also uses the term "open source"), many software communities
> and even several government agencies all mean the same thing by "open
> source" (with disagreements on licenses that are on the very boundary of
> that category) and software like that is absolutely *NOT* open
> source.

That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively, it
is not the reality.

The term "open source" is used in vague manner all over the world in
various applications including those which are not software. And by my
previous example it is used in case of proprietary software.

Surely I know what you mean, as I follow it since 1999.

The attempt by Open Source Initiative (https://opensource.org/osd) to
remain or be "in authority" over "what is Open Source" has long been
dilluted and disintegrated. You or other people with limited knowledge
about usage of the term "open source" may argue how is this or that,
though when a trademark "open source" is registered for guns or wine
making, then it is objectively and legally not only that what you wish
and want it to be.

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.14

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 013. US 002 009. G & S: Component
parts for guns; Muzzle brakes that screw onto a rifle barrel; Muzzle
compensators; Noise suppressors for guns

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.35

DESCRIPTION: Owner (REGISTRANT) The Winemakers Co-Op Inc. CORPORATION

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.24

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Judo
instruction

and if we speak of "Open Source Initiative" here is what they legally
have to say:

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.47

DESCRIPTION: NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "OPEN SOURCE" APART
FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN

Various "Open Source" related trademarks
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4807%3Avpqtar.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=open+source&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query

After this very objective presentation that various "open source"
related trademarks are used for judo, guns, wine makers and what else
not, it becomes clear that numerous organizations and thus people and
groups of people will not agree with us here on what "open source"
means. 

It also proves that "Open Source Initiative" could not protect the
trademark itself.

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.9

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 032. US 045 046 048. G & S: Smoothies; Organic
fruit juice

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.7

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 045. US 100 101. G & S: Providing on-line
information in the field of spirituality, self-help, and personal
empowerment subject matters; Providing spiritual and philosophical
guidance in the field of personal growth, empowerment, and
enlightenment

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.17

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Women's
clothing, namely, shirts, dresses, skirts, blouses; Bottoms as
clothing for men; Tops as clothing for men

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.18

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Education services,
namely, providing classes, seminars and workshops in the fields of
health, wellbeing and stress management, performance management,
behavior change, and health coaching

Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.4

DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 019. US 001 012 033 050. G & S: Hardwood
flooring; bamboo flooring; laminate flooring; waterproof laminate
flooring; vinyl flooring; waterproof vinyl flooring; vinyl floor
tiles; luxury vinyl floor tiles; stone polymer composite (SPC)
flooring; stone polymer composite (SPC) floor tiles; vinyl flooring,
vinyl floor tiles and luxury vinyl floor tiles containing a stone
polymer composite (SPC) core; flooring underlayments

Thus legally and protectively "Open Source" as term is used for
everything and anything and there is nothing we can do about it.

In GNU project we do not use "Open Source" or "Open" when referring to
"Free Software":

Open
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open

“Open”

Please avoid using the term “open” or “open source” as a substitute
for “free software.” Those terms refer to a different set of views
based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for
your freedom in your computing, as a matter of justice. The open
source non-movement does not campaign for anything in this way.

When referring to the open source views, it's correct to use that
name, but please do not use that term when talking about us, our
software, or our views—that leads people to suppose our views are
similar to theirs.

Instead of open source, we say, free software or free (libre) software.

-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Aaron Wolf]

FWIW, I heard from people at OSI that they *chose* to release the 
trademark on "Open Source" in general many years ago because they 
thought it would be better to encourage the use of the term. Whether 
that was a good decision is open to debate.

On 2022-03-13 22:50, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-14 05:02]:
>>>   Thus the software is "open source" but it is not free software.
>>
>> No, it is absolutely not.
>>
>> The founders of the open source movement, the Open Source Initiative,
>> Debian (which also uses the term "open source"), many software communities
>> and even several government agencies all mean the same thing by "open
>> source" (with disagreements on licenses that are on the very boundary of
>> that category) and software like that is absolutely *NOT* open
>> source.
> 
> That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively, it
> is not the reality.
> 
> The term "open source" is used in vague manner all over the world in
> various applications including those which are not software. And by my
> previous example it is used in case of proprietary software.
> 
> Surely I know what you mean, as I follow it since 1999.
> 
> The attempt by Open Source Initiative (https://opensource.org/osd) to
> remain or be "in authority" over "what is Open Source" has long been
> dilluted and disintegrated. You or other people with limited knowledge
> about usage of the term "open source" may argue how is this or that,
> though when a trademark "open source" is registered for guns or wine
> making, then it is objectively and legally not only that what you wish
> and want it to be.
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.14
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 013. US 002 009. G & S: Component
> parts for guns; Muzzle brakes that screw onto a rifle barrel; Muzzle
> compensators; Noise suppressors for guns
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.35
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Owner (REGISTRANT) The Winemakers Co-Op Inc. CORPORATION
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.24
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Judo
> instruction
> 
> and if we speak of "Open Source Initiative" here is what they legally
> have to say:
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.47
> 
> DESCRIPTION: NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE "OPEN SOURCE" APART
> FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
> 
> Various "Open Source" related trademarks
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4807%3Avpqtar.1.1&p_search=searchss&p_L=50&BackReference=&p_plural=yes&p_s_PARA1=&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA1%24LD&expr=PARA1+AND+PARA2&p_s_PARA2=open+source&p_tagrepl%7E%3A=PARA2%24COMB&p_op_ALL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query
> 
> After this very objective presentation that various "open source"
> related trademarks are used for judo, guns, wine makers and what else
> not, it becomes clear that numerous organizations and thus people and
> groups of people will not agree with us here on what "open source"
> means.
> 
> It also proves that "Open Source Initiative" could not protect the
> trademark itself.
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.9
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 032. US 045 046 048. G & S: Smoothies; Organic
> fruit juice
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.7
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 045. US 100 101. G & S: Providing on-line
> information in the field of spirituality, self-help, and personal
> empowerment subject matters; Providing spiritual and philosophical
> guidance in the field of personal growth, empowerment, and
> enlightenment
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.17
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 025. US 022 039. G & S: Women's
> clothing, namely, shirts, dresses, skirts, blouses; Bottoms as
> clothing for men; Tops as clothing for men
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.18
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Education services,
> namely, providing classes, seminars and workshops in the fields of
> health, wellbeing and stress management, performance management,
> behavior change, and health coaching
> 
> Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS)
> https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:vpqtar.2.4
> 
> DESCRIPTION: Goods and Services IC 019. US 001 012 033 050. G & S: Hardwood
> flooring; bamboo flooring; laminate flooring; waterproof laminate
> flooring; vinyl flooring; waterproof vinyl flooring; vinyl floor
> tiles; luxury vinyl floor tiles; stone polymer composite (SPC)
> flooring; stone polymer composite (SPC) floor tiles; vinyl flooring,
> vinyl floor tiles and luxury vinyl floor tiles containing a stone
> polymer composite (SPC) core; flooring underlayments
> 
> Thus legally and protectively "Open Source" as term is used for
> everything and anything and there is nothing we can do about it.
> 
> In GNU project we do not use "Open Source" or "Open" when referring to
> "Free Software":
> 
> Open
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open
> 
> “Open”
> 
> Please avoid using the term “open” or “open source” as a substitute
> for “free software.” Those terms refer to a different set of views
> based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for
> your freedom in your computing, as a matter of justice. The open
> source non-movement does not campaign for anything in this way.
> 
> When referring to the open source views, it's correct to use that
> name, but please do not use that term when talking about us, our
> software, or our views—that leads people to suppose our views are
> similar to theirs.
> 
> Instead of open source, we say, free software or free (libre) software.
> 

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Jean Louis]

* Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> [2022-03-15 00:02]:
> FWIW, I heard from people at OSI that they *chose* to release the trademark
> on "Open Source" in general many years ago because they thought it would be
> better to encourage the use of the term. Whether that was a good decision is
> open to debate.

It should be clear from my references that OSI does not have trademark
"Open Source"; thus they were not able to "release" it.

There is type of trademark called "community trademark" used for many
people at once, members of specific group and unrelated to EU
community trademark, but OSI did not move towards that direction. I
find their legal behavior in trademarks rather self-centered.

-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Aaron Wolf]

Ah found the details:

https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php

It wasn't intentional. They had attempted to trademark "open source" and 
they describe the application as "lapsed" rather than rejected, but the 
rest of the posting makes it seem effectively the same.

 > Because the phrase "open source" cannot be trademarked, we must rely 
on market pressure to protect the concept from abuse.

So much for that. Although to be sure, I think despite the dilution and 
abuses, the dominant use does remain the OS Definition per OSI.

On 2022-03-14 14:17, Jean Louis wrote:
> * Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> [2022-03-15 00:02]:
>> FWIW, I heard from people at OSI that they *chose* to release the trademark
>> on "Open Source" in general many years ago because they thought it would be
>> better to encourage the use of the term. Whether that was a good decision is
>> open to debate.
> 
> It should be clear from my references that OSI does not have trademark
> "Open Source"; thus they were not able to "release" it.
> 
> There is type of trademark called "community trademark" used for many
> people at once, members of specific group and unrelated to EU
> community trademark, but OSI did not move towards that direction. I
> find their legal behavior in trademarks rather self-centered.
> 

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Jean Louis]

* Aaron Wolf <wolftune@riseup.net> [2022-03-15 00:49]:
> Ah found the details:
> 
> https://opensource.org/pressreleases/certified-open-source.php
> 
> It wasn't intentional. They had attempted to trademark "open source" and
> they describe the application as "lapsed" rather than rejected, but the rest
> of the posting makes it seem effectively the same.

,----
| That's not likely, for the very reason the application was permitted
| to lapse. We have discovered that there is virtually no chance that
| the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office would register the mark "open
| source"; the mark is too descriptive. Ironically, we were partly a
| victim of our own success in bringing the "open source" concept into
| the mainstream.
`----

And I have demonstrated in my last email with links to trademarks
registered under "Open Source". Legal issues are very detailed and
specific. One need to have skilled people to know how to do it.

There are other issues that could prevent registration of "open
source" as software, though it is not my business and I don't wish to
present it here. In general I don't agree to ways how that
organization plays.

> Because the phrase "open source" cannot be trademarked, we must rely
> on market pressure to protect the concept from abuse.

The phrase CAN BE a trademark, and references from yesterday have
proven it. The USPTO office does not have nicely searchable links, and
my references were not functioning after I have submitted them.

Here is the proof that trademark "OPEN SOURCE" can be registered:

Word Mark 	OPEN SOURCE
Goods and Services 	IC 013. US 002 009. G & S: Component parts for guns; Muzzle brakes that screw onto a rifle barrel; Muzzle compensators; Noise suppressors for guns
Standard Characters Claimed 	
Mark Drawing Code 	(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 	88783917
Filing Date 	February 4, 2020
Current Basis 	1B
Original Filing Basis 	1B
Published for Opposition 	December 22, 2020
Owner 	(APPLICANT) PM Research, Inc. CORPORATION NEW YORK 4110 Niles Hill Road Wellsville NEW YORK 14895
Attorney of Record 	Bennet K. Langlotz
Type of Mark 	TRADEMARK
Register 	PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator 	LIVE

Here is another proof:

Word Mark 	OPEN SOURCE
Goods and Services 	IC 033. US 047 049. G & S: Wine. FIRST USE: 20180610. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20180610
Standard Characters Claimed 	
Mark Drawing Code 	(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 	87797142
Filing Date 	February 14, 2018
Current Basis 	1A
Original Filing Basis 	1B
Published for Opposition 	July 3, 2018
Registration Number 	5667492
Registration Date 	January 29, 2019
Owner 	(REGISTRANT) The Winemakers Co-Op Inc. CORPORATION NEW JERSEY 9 Rocktown Road Ringoes NEW JERSEY 08551
Attorney of Record 	David M. Perry
Type of Mark 	TRADEMARK
Register 	PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator 	LIVE

Trademark may be same though registered for different groups of goods
or services, in this case we have "wine" and "Component parts for
guns". 

You can freely use "open source" or say "open source software", as it
does not make any problems to wine neither guns.

And free software movement is not about open source:

Open
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open

LibrePlanet adopted the policy not to use "Open" for free
software. How we express ourselves is important. 

See:

https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:About/Code_of_Conduct

 Advocate Freedom.

The free software movement is first and foremost a social movement, so
please be sure to have read our critical documents and understand our
core philosophy. In accordance with 1-3, please do not be aggressive
toward others who may not immediately share the same views. If we are
not encouraging and respectful, we can't hope to gain their
support. Frame issues and arguments in a way which is conducive to
changing minds, not alienating visitors. People are unlikely to listen
if they feel in any way like they're being attacked. They are much
more receptive to ideas which are presented in a positive and
constructive way. Being respectful doesn't mean sacrificing our core
ideals; we should always frame the issues we work on in terms of those
ideals. That means using language that foregrounds freedom, like
referring to the operating system we promote as "GNU/Linux", talking
about free software rather than open source, and encouraging people to
try distributions that are fully committed to freedom. 


-- 
Jean

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Valentino Giudice]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2105 bytes --]

> That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively, it
> is not the reality.

Legally and protectively "free software" doesn't have more meaning or value
than "open source". Possibly less.

That said, as I mentioned, the term "open source" is used by government
agencies. It also appears in Italian legislation (translated in Italian,
even though developers usually say "open source", without translating it).
The term "open source" has also been used in court decisions with the
correct meaning in the United States, as well as at least one court order
in Italy I am aware of (which didn't translate it).

That said, the mere fact that it is not *illegal* to use the term "open
source" as a synonym of "source available" doesn't mean it's correct.

You made a claim that that particular piece of software is open source. I
said the claim is wrong. For that to be the case, "open source" doesn't
need to be a trademark and calling that piece of software "open source"
doesn't need to be illegal. You are moving the goalpost to something I
never said.

> The term "open source" is used in vague manner all over the world in
> various applications including those which are not software. And by my
> previous example it is used in case of proprietary software.

You made a positive claim that that software qualifies as open source. If
we work under the assumption that "open source" has no meaning, then your
claim makes no sense. The absolute most widespread and widely recognized
meaning of "open source" is that which OSI uses, or something very similar,
and is definitely not synonymous with "source available", or broad enough
to include that piece of software.

Since we are talking about a piece of software, specifically, the meaning
of "open source" in other sectors is entirely irrelevant.

> In GNU project we do not use "Open Source" or "Open" when referring to
> "Free Software":

I never suggested that you use the term "Open Source" to refer to free
software, just that you also do not use it to refer to proprietary software.

Doing so isn't illegal, it's just incorrect.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 2209 bytes --]

   > That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively,
   it
   > is not the reality.
   Legally and protectively "free software" doesn't have more meaning or
   value than "open source". Possibly less.
   That said, as I mentioned, the term "open source" is used by government
   agencies. It also appears in Italian legislation (translated in
   Italian, even though developers usually say "open source", without
   translating it). The term "open source" has also been used in court
   decisions with the correct meaning in the United States, as well as at
   least one court order in Italy I am aware of (which didn't translate
   it).
   That said, the mere fact that it is not *illegal* to use the term "open
   source" as a synonym of "source available" doesn't mean it's correct.
   You made a claim that that particular piece of software is open source.
   I said the claim is wrong. For that to be the case, "open source"
   doesn't need to be a trademark and calling that piece of software "open
   source" doesn't need to be illegal. You are moving the goalpost to
   something I never said.
   > The term "open source" is used in vague manner all over the world in
   > various applications including those which are not software. And by
   my
   > previous example it is used in case of proprietary software.
   You made a positive claim that that software qualifies as open source.
   If we work under the assumption that "open source" has no meaning, then
   your claim makes no sense. The absolute most widespread and widely
   recognized meaning of "open source" is that which OSI uses, or
   something very similar, and is definitely not synonymous with "source
   available", or broad enough to include that piece of software.
   Since we are talking about a piece of software, specifically, the
   meaning of "open source" in other sectors is entirely irrelevant.
   > In GNU project we do not use "Open Source" or "Open" when referring
   to
   > "Free Software":
   I never suggested that you use the term "Open Source" to refer to free
   software, just that you also do not use it to refer to proprietary
   software.
   Doing so isn't illegal, it's just incorrect.

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/plain, Size: 184 bytes --]

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Jean Louis]

* Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-15 01:02]:
> > That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively, it
> > is not the reality.
> 
> Legally and protectively "free software" doesn't have more meaning
> or value than "open source". Possibly less.

It has because free software refers to exact freedoms for clients.

What is Free Software? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

To keep a concept well understood in public one need not have a
registered trademark. One has to communicate to help people
understand reasons on what is free software. In real life and when
explaining it to layman, I need usually not more than just 1 (one)
minute to give them understanding what "free software" means. I do
explain it practically in life to layman who wonder why I am using
free software and not proprietary software. Usually I tell them that I
did not have license or permission to change, modify the software and
inspect it, thus I can't know what it does to my data on phone or
computer. People get insight and that is where it becomes clear that
free software allows freedom not otherwise given. Hundreds of people
have installed free software because of simple explanations. 

In free software movement we do not orient ourselves so much
commercially, we do not protect ourselves, and GNU members and FSF
does not protect itself, rather, they protect freedom for users by
advocating about free software.

To contrary, OSI has tendencies to protect itself as organization as
authoritative body over all of the free software, also taking credits
for what it is not due. OSI has taken a lot of credits from Stallman's
free software philosophy. 

Related to trademarks, to protect a trademark one need not have a
registered trademark. That is major principle of trademark law. Though
it is not related to free software. It is better registering, as it
becomes evidence, though without registering one can freely use own
trademarks and also protect them, there is just little bit more work
about it.

> You made a claim that that particular piece of software is open source. I
> said the claim is wrong. For that to be the case, "open source" doesn't
> need to be a trademark and calling that piece of software "open source"
> doesn't need to be illegal. You are moving the goalpost to something I
> never said.

I agree it does not need to be a trademark. What we have to see here
is that words "open source" are used in vague manner. I have
demonstrated that software is calledopen source and in the same time
it is proprietary software:

WWBN/AVideo: Create Your Own Broadcast Network With AVideo Platform Open-Source. OAVP OVP
https://github.com/WWBN/AVideo

This is because "open source" is and can be used in vague manner to
profit out of it or gain benefits.

In free software movement trademark law is not used to protect
software. OSI has quite wrong approach in it and I do not join to
goals and purposes of that organization.

What is used to protect free software is GNU GPL license and other
free software licenses. That is copyright law. Not trademark law. 

What matters is what is the substance of it, and not how you call it.

Libreplanet advises members not to use "Open" when referring to
software, please see:

https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:About/Code_of_Conduct

Being respectful doesn't mean sacrificing our core ideals; we should
always frame the issues we work on in terms of those ideals. That
means using language that foregrounds freedom, like referring to the
operating system we promote as "GNU/Linux", talking about free
software rather than open source, and encouraging people to try
distributions that are fully committed to freedom. 

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html

From above:

“Free software.” “Open source.” If it's the same software (or nearly
so), does it matter which name you use? Yes, because different words
convey different ideas. While a free program by any other name would
give you the same freedom today, establishing freedom in a lasting way
depends above all on teaching people to value freedom. If you want to
help do this, it is essential to speak of “free software.”

> > The term "open source" is used in vague manner all over the world in
> > various applications including those which are not software. And by my
> > previous example it is used in case of proprietary software.
> 
> You made a positive claim that that software qualifies as open source. If
> we work under the assumption that "open source" has no meaning, then your
> claim makes no sense. The absolute most widespread and widely recognized
> meaning of "open source" is that which OSI uses, or something very similar,
> and is definitely not synonymous with "source available", or broad enough
> to include that piece of software.

That is your opinion about widely recognized meaning, keep it so,
though I don't agree. Many software developers do not even know about
OSI, neither it is important. Damage has been already done.

I have many examples of "open source" used in quite different context,
and I do not want to make it vague for people. I teach people about
free software, not about "open source" as it has different meanings
with different goals.

> Since we are talking about a piece of software, specifically, the
> meaning of "open source" in other sectors is entirely irrelevant.

Because "open source" is vague, I cannot know what person means when
it is mentioned. It brings more discussion than it is necessary. It
brings confusion.

> > In GNU project we do not use "Open Source" or "Open" when referring to
> > "Free Software":
> 
> I never suggested that you use the term "Open Source" to refer to free
> software, just that you also do not use it to refer to proprietary software.
> 
> Doing so isn't illegal, it's just incorrect.

I have shown you that it is correct as people do refer to proprietary
software with "open source", you can fight as much as you wish with
me. Me as such I am not relevant there, that is how people use the
term, vaguely. And that happens because "open source" promotes
different goals, it does not transmit idea properly. You fight against
objectively found case when people use "open source" for proprietary
software. And you still can't "take it" though it is real. You are
going against windmills. Damage has been done by those promoting "open
source" and is not easily reparable.

It is difficult to fight on LibrePlanet to promote "open source" as a
term, as the agreement and code of conduct is that we should not
promote that vague term.

In LibrePlanet there are different values involved, not the value of
OSI definition.

We have values of free software, then we have Free System Distribution
Guidelines as more practical and tactical set of policies:
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

Look at the list of non-free software packages:
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines

Some of them are using "Open" and "open source" in promotion, though
we don't consider it enough free for free software distributions.

Example entry:

 hplip
Description: printer drivers
Homepage: http://hplipopensource.com/
Problem: Suggests that the user download nonfree Binary Plug-In for some printers
Recommended Fix: Modify hp-setup and hp-plugin to not recommend non-free software
References: http://hplipopensource.com/node/309
Copyright file: in Trisquel
(Source) package name(s): hplip 

Another example is using "open source" by OpenOffice and Apache:
http://www.openoffice.org/license.html

,----
| OpenOffice.org used a single open-source license
`----

Though there are clear freedom issues:

 OpenOffice.org
Description: Office suite.
Homepage: http://www.openoffice.org/
Problem: (1) Recommends non-free software. (extensions)

    (2) Has non-free components (Artistic License).

Recommended Fix: Use LibreOffice. (Primary)

    (1) Change link to point to the LibrePlanet list of extensions. (Alternate)
    (2) Remove the non-free components from source. (Alternate)

That should be enough evidences for researcher that "open source"
moves to quite different goals deviating from freedom.

Another analysis resulting that "open" should not be used to refer to
free software is on the following page:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwareLicenses

- No license
- Aladdin Free Public License
- Anti-996 License
- Anti-Capitalist Software License
- Apple Public Source License (APSL), version 1.x
- Apple Public Source License (APSL), version 1.x
- Artistic License 1.0
- AT&T Public License
- Code Project Open License, version 1.02
- Commons Clause
- CNRI Digital Object Repository License Agreement
- eCos Public License, version 1.1
- The Hippocratic License 1.1
- GPL for Computer Programs of the Public Administration
- Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA)
- Jahia Community Source License
- The JSON License
- Old license of ksh93
- License of Lha
- Microsoft's Shared Source CLI, C#, and Jscript License
- NASA Open Source Agreement, see:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Open_Source_Agreement#Reception
  example is that it is "OSI approved" license, but not free software
- Oculus Rift SDK License
- Open Public License
- Peer-Production License
- Personal Public License Version 3a
- License of PINE
- Old Plan 9 license
- Reciprocal Public License
- Scilab license
- Scratch 1.4 license
- Simple Machines License
- Old Squeak license
- Sun Community Source License
- Sun Solaris Source Code (Foundation Release) License, Version 1.1
- Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0
- SystemC “Open Source” License, Version 3.0
- Truecrypt license 3.0
- University of Utah Research Foundation Public License
- YaST License

The above references should be enough for public and developers to
understand that using the term "open" brings confusion and problems.

We use free software freedom principles to distinguish between
proprietary and free software. It is method to distinguish if software
is free or not.

We do not use "open" as method, as it has already unclear definitions
and proprietary licensing cases under that term "open" and "open
source"; it does not guarantee that software is free. Using the term
"open source" is not a good method to transmit to other party that we
speak of free software.


-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Jean Louis]

* Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-15 01:03]:
>    > That is what you say, though objectively, legally and protectively,
>    it
>    > is not the reality.
>    Legally and protectively "free software" doesn't have more meaning or
>    value than "open source". Possibly less.

That is why we use methods to protect free software. One good method
is the copyleft GNU GPL license and copyright laws. Very smart
invention by Richard Stallman.

The term "free software" as such is not meaningful unless one knows
what we are talking about. To know that one has to read free software
philosophy. 

> That said, as I mentioned, the term "open source" is used by government
> agencies. It also appears in Italian legislation (translated in
> Italian, even though developers usually say "open source", without
> translating it). The term "open source" has also been used in court
> decisions with the correct meaning in the United States, as well as at
> least one court order in Italy I am aware of (which didn't translate
> it).

Yes, and it is used wrongly. I have already demonstrated example with
NASA open source license which is proprietary. 

Term alone does not mean nothing much, also for courts. Courts want to
understand what was agreed between parties. One foundational document
that tells about agreement is a license, and not the "term" alone. 

> That said, the mere fact that it is not *illegal* to use the term "open
> source" as a synonym of "source available" doesn't mean it's
> correct.

Legal or illegal, please, I and other people can use any terms we
want. Speaking is not illegal.

Trademark usage means selling goods or services under specific
trademark. Even if you do use same trademark as other person, that
does not make it automatically trademark infringement (akin to
illegality). 

Using ANY (decent) terms in conversations is not illegal. You can
mention any trademarks you wish and want. 

Correct or not, we don't use "open" in Libreplanet or GNU system
distributions, we call it free software for reasons of freedomg.

> You made a claim that that particular piece of software is open
> source.  I said the claim is wrong. For that to be the case, "open
> source" doesn't need to be a trademark and calling that piece of
> software "open source" doesn't need to be illegal. You are moving
> the goalpost to something I never said.

For you is wrong, for author is obviously not wrong. If author calls
it open source, I let it be, but I know it is not free software.


-- 
Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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Re: "Open Source" is vague term referring to guns, wine, spirituality, etc.

[Valentino Giudice]

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Relevant: https://opensource.org/node/1218

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 101 bytes --]

   Relevant: [1]https://opensource.org/node/1218

References

   1. https://opensource.org/node/1218

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

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

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

We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but
why do that?

It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with
our softwsre.  It would not stop Russians from downloading our
software, as they could use mirror sites.  It _would_ stop people in
Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use
Tor or a VPN.  That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it.

The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so
you are scum."

Is it useful to treat Russians that way?  Would it help save Ukraine
or defeat Putin?  I don't think so.  That message is not a valid or
useful message to give to Russians.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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

[knowledgeofnations]

[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2104 bytes --]

Are there ways to be hostile to Putin's regime without being hostile to the ordinary Russians?
________________________________
From: libreplanet-discuss <libreplanet-discuss-bounces+knowledgeofnations=outlook.com@libreplanet.org> on behalf of Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2022 9:15:37 PM
To: Félicien Pillot <felicien@gnu.org>
Cc: valentino.giudice96@gmail.com <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com>; kreyren@rixotstudio.cz <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz>; libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
Subject: Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

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

We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but
why do that?

It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with
our softwsre.  It would not stop Russians from downloading our
software, as they could use mirror sites.  It _would_ stop people in
Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use
Tor or a VPN.  That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it.

The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so
you are scum."

Is it useful to treat Russians that way?  Would it help save Ukraine
or defeat Putin?  I don't think so.  That message is not a valid or
useful message to give to Russians.

--
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/plain, Size: 2428 bytes --]

   Are there ways to be hostile to Putin's regime without being hostile to
   the ordinary Russians?
     __________________________________________________________________

   From: libreplanet-discuss
   <libreplanet-discuss-bounces+knowledgeofnations=outlook.com@libreplanet
   .org> on behalf of Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
   Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2022 9:15:37 PM
   To: Félicien Pillot <felicien@gnu.org>
   Cc: valentino.giudice96@gmail.com <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com>;
   kreyren@rixotstudio.cz <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz>;
   libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org>
   Subject: Re: Should distros take steps to reduce russian access to Free
   Software?

   [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
   [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
   [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
     > So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and
     > Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in
   Russia.
   We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but
   why do that?
   It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with
   our softwsre.  It would not stop Russians from downloading our
   software, as they could use mirror sites.  It _would_ stop people in
   Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use
   Tor or a VPN.  That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it.
   The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so
   you are scum."
   Is it useful to treat Russians that way?  Would it help save Ukraine
   or defeat Putin?  I don't think so.  That message is not a valid or
   useful message to give to Russians.
   --
   Dr Richard Stallman ([1]https://stallman.org)
   Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project ([2]https://gnu.org)
   Founder, Free Software Foundation ([3]https://fsf.org)
   Internet Hall-of-Famer ([4]https://internethalloffame.org)
   _______________________________________________
   libreplanet-discuss mailing list
   libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
   [5]https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

References

   1. https://stallman.org/
   2. https://gnu.org/
   3. https://fsf.org/
   4. https://internethalloffame.org/
   5. https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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

[Miles Fidelman]

Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
>    > So what we could ask, is that Savannah, Github or Sourceforge, and
>    > Debian, Fedora or Ubuntu, stop to distribute free software in Russia.
>
> We could make Savannah deny access from Russian domain address, but
> why do that?
>
> It would not impede anything the Russian government wants to to with
> our softwsre.  It would not stop Russians from downloading our
> software, as they could use mirror sites.  It _would_ stop people in
> Russia from committing changes in our repositories, unless they use
> Tor or a VPN.  That isn't hard to do, unless Putin has blocked it.
>
> The main thing that would do is tell Russians, "You are Russian, so
> you are scum."
>
> Is it useful to treat Russians that way?  Would it help save Ukraine
> or defeat Putin?  I don't think so.  That message is not a valid or
> useful message to give to Russians.
>
Good points all.

Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING 
SUBMISSIONS to the repositories.  I expect that the Russians (among 
others) are spending a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into 
things - to better distribute disinformation, the better to collect 
names of folks to arrest, the better to prepare for large scale 
cyberattacks.

Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man.

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown


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

[Jean Louis]

* Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> [2022-03-11 20:54]:
> Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING SUBMISSIONS
> to the repositories.  I expect that the Russians (among others) are spending
> a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into things - to better
> distribute disinformation, the better to collect names of folks to arrest,
> the better to prepare for large scale cyberattacks.

Please do not spread FUD or Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts. 

> Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man.

That is not purpose of Libreplanet mailing list to support this or
that political opinions.

Please read here:

LibrePlanet:About/Code of Conduct - LibrePlanet
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:About/Code_of_Conduct

And let me remind you that in many countries your constitution defends
human rights, including UN declaration of human rights, so please
stick to what your nation, whatever it may be, promised to you as
citizens, not to discriminate against others or accuse others without
evidences.

Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights | Stand up for human rights | UN Human Rights Office
https://standup4humanrights.org/en/article.html




Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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

[Miles Fidelman]

Jean Louis wrote:
> * Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net> [2022-03-11 20:54]:
>> Then again, we might want to spend a bit more time SCRUTINIZING SUBMISSIONS
>> to the repositories.  I expect that the Russians (among others) are spending
>> a bit more time, of late, inserting malware into things - to better
>> distribute disinformation, the better to collect names of folks to arrest,
>> the better to prepare for large scale cyberattacks.
> Please do not spread FUD or Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts.
>
>> Let's be sure that our efforts are helping the revolution, not the man.
> That is not purpose of Libreplanet mailing list to support this or
> that political opinions.
So how is posting a security concern - based on well-documented conduct 
of a national government currently conducting cyber operations - 
suddenly a political opinion, or against the code of conduct?

Unless, perhaps, one is intentionally trying to deflect scrutiny?

Miles Fidelman


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown


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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Matt Ivie]

On Tue, 2022-03-08 at 11:01 +0000, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
>  > I used the term "help your neighbor" to describe the purpose of
> freedom 2 because "help your neighbor" is a traditional way to refer
> to
> cooperating with your community and with the rest of society. -- RMS
> 
> How is that justifying the use of free software in russian military
> to
> do war crimes worth of projected 1 000 000 civilian death _including
> children_?
In this case you're blaming the tool for the action of the wielder of
the tool.

> 
> 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.
> 
The terms of the license are very clear. If you want to enforce other
terms you need another license.

Further, how do you propose we keep Russia from using Free Software?
Enforcing software licenses in the US is a difficult task and to do it
we don't need the backing of a military.


> On 3/6/22 06:13, Richard Stallman wrote:
> > [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please
> > consider    ]]]
> > [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all
> > enemies,     ]]]
> > [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.
> > ]]]
> > 
> >    > So again i repeat my argument the freedom 2 says: "The freedom
> > to
> >    > /redistribute/ and make c
> opies __so you can help your neighbour.__"
> > I used the term "help your neighbor" to describe the purpose of
> > freedom 2 because "help your neighbor" is a traditional way to
> > refer
> > to cooperating with your community and with the rest of society.  I
> > never intended it to mean that your use of freedom 2 was limited to
> > people that live near you.
> > 
> > Yeara ago I realized that people were getting the wrong idea from
> > that
> > word, so I started saying it differently.  But it took a long tine
> > to
> > recognize and replace the old wording in writing.
> > 
> > If you see anything which describes freedom 2 using the word
> > "neighbor",
> > please try to get it corrected.  If you see this on gnu.org, please
> > report it to webmasters@gnu.org.
> > 
> > Whether you redistribute a free program to any given user
> > is your choice.  Freedom 2 says you are free to do so, when you
> > wish.
> > However, as long as you're distributing the source code, it is
> > always
> > your choice whether to do it in any speci
> fic instance.
> > (The GNU GPL has a special rule for distributing a compiled form
> > without source code.  If you do that in certain ways, you will be
> > required to make the source code available laler.  That is so you
> > can't deny source code to the community.)
> > 
> > --
> > Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
> > Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> > Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> > Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
> > 
> > 
> --
> Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
-- 
"Under the sky, under the heavens there is but one family."
        --Bruce Lee


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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

Free software means that the developers cannot decide who can use it
and who cannot.  If we had the power to stop Russia from using a program,
we would also have the power to anyone else from using it.
That would not be free software.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Ole Aamot]

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On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 5:22 AM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> Free software means that the developers cannot decide who can use it
> and who cannot.  If we had the power to stop Russia from using a program,
> we would also have the power to anyone else from using it.
> That would not be free software.
>

True.

We could become uncivil and block people from downloading a free software
program, but there are no such (as far as I know) ipchains blocklists on
www.gnomeradio.org, so
there is no reason to do so either.  We live in civil democracies, but
Russia and Putin has invaded Ukraine.

I have recently added Retro FM in Kyiv, Ukraine after discussions with
Magnus (dizzi90@gmail.com), when we saw that someone with a Russian IP
address deliberatedly tried to remove Retro FM from the list of Ukrainian
radio stations on en.wikipedia.org, so we decided to loop censorship on
Wikipedia and therefore published the station in GNOME Radio 16.0.6 for
GNOME 42 to a global mirror of GNOME.

See https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome-42/
and http://www.gnomeradio.org/

--
Ole Aamot
Aamot Software / www.aamot.software
Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
(+47) 45049800 / ole@aamot.software

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   On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 5:22 AM Richard Stallman <[1]rms@gnu.org> wrote:

     [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider
     ]]]
     [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,
     ]]]
     [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.
     ]]]
     Free software means that the developers cannot decide who can use it
     and who cannot.  If we had the power to stop Russia from using a
     program,
     we would also have the power to anyone else from using it.
     That would not be free software.

   True.
   We could become uncivil and block people from downloading a free
   software program, but there are no such (as far as I know) ipchains
   blocklists on [2]www.gnomeradio.org, so
   there is no reason to do so either.  We live in civil democracies, but
   Russia and Putin has invaded Ukraine.
   I have recently added Retro FM in Kyiv, Ukraine after discussions with
   Magnus ([3]dizzi90@gmail.com), when we saw that someone with a Russian
   IP address deliberatedly tried to remove Retro FM from the list of
   Ukrainian radio stations on [4]en.wikipedia.org, so we decided to loop
   censorship on Wikipedia and therefore published the station in GNOME
   Radio 16.0.6 for GNOME 42 to a global mirror of GNOME.
   See
   [5]https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome
   -42/ and [6]http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   --
   Ole Aamot
   Aamot Software / [7]www.aamot.software
   Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
   (+47) 45049800 / [8]ole@aamot.software

References

   1. mailto:rms@gnu.org
   2. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   3. mailto:dizzi90@gmail.com
   4. http://en.wikipedia.org/
   5. https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome-42/
   6. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   7. http://www.aamot.software/
   8. mailto:ole@aamot.software

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Ole Aamot]

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The code is in GNOME Gitlab and free to fork, ignore or co-operate with.

http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio

There is a Issue tracker, feel free to file issues in

http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio/-/issues

or send merge requests.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2022, 08:14 Magnus, <dizzi90@gmail.com> wrote:

> The cure against hateful speech is constructive speech. As Richard wrote
> in Free Software, Free Society, there is a link between knowing the law of
> a country and knowing the software that runs on computers you control.
> The Internet makes the world one society and we must take greater care in
> knowing the consequences of our actions. Else we as creators manifest a
> tyrannical rule. XAI must be part of a free global siblinghood.
>
> On Thu, 31 Mar 2022, 00:44 Ole Aamot, <oka@oka.no> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 5:22 AM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>>> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
>>> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
>>> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>>>
>>> Free software means that the developers cannot decide who can use it
>>> and who cannot.  If we had the power to stop Russia from using a program,
>>> we would also have the power to anyone else from using it.
>>> That would not be free software.
>>>
>>
>> True.
>>
>> We could become uncivil and block people from downloading a free software
>> program, but there are no such (as far as I know) ipchains blocklists on
>> www.gnomeradio.org, so
>> there is no reason to do so either.  We live in civil democracies, but
>> Russia and Putin has invaded Ukraine.
>>
>> I have recently added Retro FM in Kyiv, Ukraine after discussions with
>> Magnus (dizzi90@gmail.com), when we saw that someone with a Russian IP
>> address deliberatedly tried to remove Retro FM from the list of Ukrainian
>> radio stations on en.wikipedia.org, so we decided to loop censorship on
>> Wikipedia and therefore published the station in GNOME Radio 16.0.6 for
>> GNOME 42 to a global mirror of GNOME.
>>
>> See
>> https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome-42/
>> and http://www.gnomeradio.org/
>>
>> --
>> Ole Aamot
>> Aamot Software / www.aamot.software
>> Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
>> (+47) 45049800 / ole@aamot.software
>>
>

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   The code is in GNOME Gitlab and free to fork, ignore or co-operate
   with.
   [1]http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio
   There is a Issue tracker, feel free to file issues in
   [2]http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio/-/issues
   or send merge requests.
   On Thu, 31 Mar 2022, 08:14 Magnus, <[3]dizzi90@gmail.com> wrote:

   The cure against hateful speech is constructive speech. As Richard
   wrote in Free Software, Free Society, there is a link between knowing
   the law of a country and knowing the software that runs on computers
   you control.
   The Internet makes the world one society and we must take greater care
   in knowing the consequences of our actions. Else we as creators
   manifest a tyrannical rule. XAI must be part of a free global
   siblinghood.

   On Thu, 31 Mar 2022, 00:44 Ole Aamot, <[4]oka@oka.no> wrote:

   On Wed, Mar 9, 2022 at 5:22 AM Richard Stallman <[5]rms@gnu.org> wrote:

     [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider
     ]]]
     [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,
     ]]]
     [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.
     ]]]
     Free software means that the developers cannot decide who can use it
     and who cannot.  If we had the power to stop Russia from using a
     program,
     we would also have the power to anyone else from using it.
     That would not be free software.

   True.
   We could become uncivil and block people from downloading a free
   software program, but there are no such (as far as I know) ipchains
   blocklists on [6]www.gnomeradio.org, so
   there is no reason to do so either.  We live in civil democracies, but
   Russia and Putin has invaded Ukraine.
   I have recently added Retro FM in Kyiv, Ukraine after discussions with
   Magnus ([7]dizzi90@gmail.com), when we saw that someone with a Russian
   IP address deliberatedly tried to remove Retro FM from the list of
   Ukrainian radio stations on [8]en.wikipedia.org, so we decided to loop
   censorship on Wikipedia and therefore published the station in GNOME
   Radio 16.0.6 for GNOME 42 to a global mirror of GNOME.
   See
   [9]https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome
   -42/ and [10]http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   --
   Ole Aamot
   Aamot Software / [11]www.aamot.software
   Frydenbergveien, 0575 OSLO, Norway
   (+47) 45049800 / [12]ole@aamot.software

References

   1. http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio
   2. http://gitlab.gnome.org/ole/gnome-radio/-/issues
   3. mailto:dizzi90@gmail.com
   4. mailto:oka@oka.no
   5. mailto:rms@gnu.org
   6. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
   7. mailto:dizzi90@gmail.com
   8. http://en.wikipedia.org/
   9. https://blogs.gnome.org/oleaamot/2022/03/19/gnome-radio-16-for-gnome-42/
  10. http://www.gnomeradio.org/
  11. http://www.aamot.software/
  12. mailto:ole@aamot.software

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > I have recently added Retro FM in Kyiv, Ukraine after discussions with
  > Magnus (dizzi90@gmail.com), when we saw that someone with a Russian IP
  > address deliberatedly tried to remove Retro FM from the list of Ukrainian
  > radio stations on en.wikipedia.org, so we decided to loop censorship on
  > Wikipedia and therefore published the station in GNOME Radio 16.0.6 for
  > GNOME 42 to a global mirror of GNOME.

That is good.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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Free software is not perpetrator

[Jean Louis]

* Jacob Hrbek <kreyren@rixotstudio.cz> [2022-03-09 00:41]:
> How is that justifying the use of free software in russian military to
> do war crimes worth of projected 1 000 000 civilian death _including
> children_?

I am using Wordnet dictionary, so look below:

Definition of "Perpetrator":

1. perpetrator, culprit -- (someone who perpetrates wrongdoing)

Definition of "Software": 

The noun software has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. software, software program, computer software, software system,
software package, package -- ((computer science) written programs or
procedures or rules and associated documentation pertaining to the
operation of a computer system and that are stored in read/write
memory; "the market for software is expected to expand")

You are the one who has to understand the difference between the
perpetrator and software.

Don't accuse free software to be the perpetrator as it is not.



Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Il 08/03/22 13:01, Jacob Hrbek ha scritto:
> use of free software in russian military to
> do war crimes

That's pretty much like asking how to stop people who do crimes by...

* ...talking over the phone (shut down the phone companies?)
* ...reading and writing paper notes (fire all primary school teachers?)
* ...using the laws of mathematics (repeal the Peano axioms?)
* ...communicating over the ether (confiscate the airwaves?)
* ...breathing air (burn all trees in the world so there's no more oxygen?)

Federico

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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Jean Louis]

* Valentino Giudice <valentino.giudice96@gmail.com> [2022-03-02 09:19]:
> > when Devin answers with: " 'what' the FSF ... ", that 'what' makes me
> > think that there is something going on
> 
> Stop right there.
> Devin is only responsible for what he writes, not for what you
> think.

It is not simple like that Valentino. Devin has signed his email as
being the FSF community outreach officer. And he did make references
to FSF directly. 

If Devin would be talking like you, it would be clear that Valentino
is not FSF officer or community outreach -- so it becomes clear that
statement is not FSF statement.

I am however sure that Devin understood the presentation and that he
knows how to speak for himself and how to speak in front of or in the
name of organization.

If I am FSF officer, then I can send email from my private email
address and in capacity as myself; or I can make clear I speak my
opinion, and not represent FSF.

So that is from where little confusion came, nothing really
significant. 

> > but then, is there the same amount of active engagemant on all the
> > other issues? and that is no trivial question, for there might be
> > monsanto using free software for spraying prohibited neonicotins,
> 
> Which is something the FSF doesn't legally have to care about.
> But because there are US sanctions against Russia, the FSF, and any
> other US organization, has to comply.

Yes please, though also it would be kind not to generalize. FSF
complies to what specifically? To comply to what? As not to accept
Putin as FSF member and his politicans? Like what exactly.

Let us not generalize, sanctions by US are specific, government did so
much care to make it specific, they have named individual people who
are sanctioned.

Is post office and mailing of items to Russia sanctioned? I am sure it
is difficult, but is it sanctioned?

Is the person Russian Mr. ABC sanctioned?

If not, FSF can ship whatever items. Including FSF can receive
donations from Russians, that is not sanctioned.

Don't mix everything with everything. 

Russian people are too many, don't accuse and blame all of the nation
for politics. And that politics was anyway caused by US, so first go
from where it was caused. 

Reference:

US Congress stops funding for Ukraine's war-criminal, neo-Nazi Azov Battalion -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net
https://www.sott.net/article/350064-US-Congress-stops-funding-for-Ukraines-war-criminal-neo-Nazi-Azov-Battalion

> >... and then we come to the problem of arbitrirary choosing as best as
> >  we can, out of zillion unjustices, which ones we will fight against.
> 
> But the FSF is not fighting against this injustice. In fact, the FSF
> is not even claiming the ongoing situation is an injustice.
> The FSF is just "chosing" anything, it's just doing what it has to as
> a US organization.

That is correct, FSF should abide to its articles of incorporation,
goals and purposes, and straighten freedom of software. 

FSF has already pointed out to injustices like privacy and
communication, I guess also censorship. It is related to free software
as such may provide privacy, straight communication without
surveillance and avoid censorship. 

In those areas it would be right to say that human rights abuses are
occuring now in many countries which are blocking all of the Russian
media, and Russia blocking other media and giving back in same way and
conducting censorhip. We cannot even get the viewpoint from other side
to decide for ourselves. That is called mass hypnosis, as invented by
Goebels, Hitler's propagandist. 

> The US government. Do you think the FSF decided these sanctions?

Apropos, FSF could be incorporated in other countries where such
sanctions do not exist and it could have independent groups of people
who act on their own and who are not under any sanctions.

For example, somebody could make FSF-like organization in Iran or in
Russia, and promote free software. It is needed there too.

> > > so i wonder what would this selective active engagement in our case
> > mean.
> 
> It means the FSF is complying with the law. It has to.

And that is right, however, don't generalize, it shall comply to
specific laws, not to rumors. See above generalization vs. specifics.

> > find it very rude to be calling civilians to go to war. i find it
> > very very rude to be coming from FSF.
> 
> That literally never happened. The FSF never called for anyone to go
> to war.

But his viewpoint is understandable. That is what I said, when
representative of organization expresses his private opinion, that
opinion shall be separate, individual, best not even told on
Libreplanet mailing list. Libreplanet is for Russian and Ukrainian
equally. That was small problem, though there is no significant
impact.

> > or am i wrong?
> 
> You are wrong.

And I say, he is wrong. :-)

> As Stallman has said, Devin's answer was incomplete. But he didn't
> say anything wrong. Unless you read way too much into it.

While he did not say anything wrong, he represented FSF and has given
references to FSF. And that caused slight quarrel here.

Next time it will be better.


Jean

Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

In support of Richard M. Stallman
https://stallmansupport.org/


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Re: Should we take steps to reduce russian access to Free Software?> the headache of it all dissolves in forgiveness

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

I'd like to ask everyone posting in this discussion to take another
look at https://gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html.  As we
express our disagreements about substantial points, let's pay
attention to the fact that we're all supporters of the free software
cause, even when we disagree about details.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)



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

[Julian Daich]

El 1/3/22 a las 6:24, Richard Stallman escribió:
> His message was political in the sense that it responded to a
> political question about a political situation.  That's natural.

Hi,

I think that a message from the FSF about this political situation
should start with a statement such as" Due the conflict in Ukraine the
US Government as decided XXX. As an US organization the FSF has to
complain with YYY" and so on.

Without such statement is unclear that the FSF is just obeying an
external holonomic legal constraint and open the door to other
interpretations.

Best,

Julian

-- 
Julian Daich

julian.daich@freecomputerlabs.org

FCL
www.freecomputerlabs.org

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

[Paul Sutton via libreplanet-discuss]

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Hi

Good question.

Watching the BBC news,  I get the impression, that while the regime is 
behind the invasion,  the army follow orders.  Many ordinary Russians DO 
NOT want this war.  In addition there are probably many activists in 
Russia, who are against Putin and who may rely on free software to 
conduct business, communication etc (e.g at a guess gnupg)

Free software is about using software for what you want to use it for. 
Of course, we would hope people use it in a way that respects human 
rights and freedoms.

Just a thought.

Paul


On 24/02/2022 08:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
> Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war with
> free software being used across russia and in the government thus
> playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.
> 
> Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to our
> software?
> 
> -- 
> Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

-- 
Paul Sutton, Cert Cont Sci (Open)
https://personaljournal.ca/paulsutton/
OpenPGP : 4350 91C4 C8FB 681B 23A6 7944 8EA9 1B51 E27E 3D99
Pronoun : him/his/he
Fedi: @zleap@qoto.org

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

[Aaron Wolf]

You might also focus on how Russia uses concepts from political 
philosophy, technology like wheels and guns, and can we stop them from 
having access to that stuff?

It does seem that restricting various actors from having technology to 
do harm is a sensible idea. But who gets to control that discrimination? 
It ends up being a matter of wanting the good-guys to just be in control.

Software freedom works against such power, and much of the time that 
means it undermines the power of bad actors to do harm. But it also 
means we don't reserve power to discriminate against bad actors.

The means of engaging with Russia aren't through some way of blocking 
their access to free software. Rather than just make this a 
philosophical debate, the practical answer is "NO, we do NOT have the 
power to stop Russia from using free software". We are not the powerful 
rulers of software access. That is not a capacity we have.



On 2022-02-24 00:04, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
> Today russian forces invaded ukraine and started an unprovoked war with
> free software being used across russia and in the government thus
> playing a major role in russia's war capabilities.
> 
> Should we and can we take steps to prevent/reduce russia's access to our
> software?
> 
> -- 
> Jacob Hrbek, In support of ukraine sovereignty #supportUkraine
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss

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