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

[Erica Frank <e.lynn.frank@gmail.com>]

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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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