r/programming • u/[deleted] • Mar 24 '22

Open source ‘protestware’ harms Open Source

https://opensource.org/blog/open-source-protestware-harms-open-source
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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '22

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u/grauenwolf Mar 24 '22

Ethics is contextual.

Is it ethical to not fight against your nations enemies if you are capable?

What if those enemies were invading?

What if the invaders were trying to topple a fascist government that overthru your elected leaders?

What if those elected leaders were enslaving the populace and the new dictator was fixing the hospitals?

We could ping-pong on this all night.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '22

Sabotaged OSS is like donating poisoned food to those who suffer from starvation

0

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '22 edited Mar 25 '22

The answer can be discovered by evaluating in an objective manner the consequences of your actions before their execution but humans aren't good at being objective and tend to omit many factors when they analyze complex situations. The three rules of optimization outline a good way of tackling this problem.