• you
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    4 years ago

    I’m not really convinced by this article. One thing struck out at me:

    I am reminded of the way I put work into Mastodon for more than a year, but I never received any acknowledgement, gratitude or compensation from Gargron even though he used my ideas, because I never wrote a line of code.

    Yeah, it’s easy to come up with ideas, and much harder to actually implement them well. Genius being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, and all that.

    It is therefore safer for marginalised people to use centralised software under large companies that are accountable to the law.

    What? Hard No. If Twitter says your use case doesn’t matter, you’re fucked. The U.S. political landscape is allergic to regulating business in a pro-consumer manner at the moment, so good luck having any of them be accountable to the law.

    Also, if the main developer of Mastodon says your use case doesn’t matter, migrate to a different Mastodon host that cares about your use case. That’s the huge advantage of federated software, and why it is clearly superior for minorities.

    The more I think about it, the more I see FOSS as a microcosm of capitalism

    The general thrust of the article is that capitalism ignores minorities (and then comparing FOSS to that aspect of capitalism). Not that capitalism doesn’t have it’s issues, but to say that minority oppression doesn’t happen under other political systems is simply ahistorical. Humans are really good at ignoring the needs of minorities, regardless of political organization.

  • nope
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    4 years ago

    An important point that hasn’t been raised yet is that capitalism is not optional if you live in a capitalist country. If you want to eat, you need money to buy food – at least this holds for the large majority of people. However, the software or platforms that one uses are optional. Sure, they might be important to participate in, but you still don’t starve if you don’t use them.

    In my opinion, this breaks the whole analogy.

    Still, I think it was an interesting idea to consider.

  • Christian
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Good article overall. The tendancy for FOSS to cater towards techies is definitely a problem. I’ll note that the government accountability aspect is based on whether the software is under corporate control, not whether it’s proprietary, but I can understand conflating the two since they do tend to coincide in practice.

    It’s a tough issue, because for a ton of people FOSS is their hobby, and it’s not really fair to put the burden on the way people are enjoying their free time unless that hobby is actively harmful in some way - the world is no better off if these hobbyists were spending their free time playing games instead, and we wouldn’t ask them to cut games out of their lives. At the same time, the author’s point is definitely true that the freedoms libre licences grant are of little use to someone short on time, money, and expertise. I still think using free licenses makes the world a better place overall, but it’s completely understandable that a marginalized person wouldn’t find it worth their effort to prioritize using software under those licenses. Unless progress is made to make it worth their effort, the problems attached to proprietary software will continue to be problems.

    My best guess at the way to approach this would be a government policy that offers funding for libre projects that hit a large enough userbase in exchange for some level of democratic control over a project that accepts said funding. Getting a law like that passed is probably as much of a pipe dream as overthrowing capitalism altogether, so I guess I might as well dream a little bigger. Back in the real world, the author’s suggestion to conclude the article is a good one, but I can’t imagine many people will take it up when most are struggling to live themselves.

    • ray
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 years ago

      I am cautiously hopeful that in the not too distant future there will be elected officials around the world that see FOSS as a public good and are willing to put money into funding people who are making things that befit lots of folks.

      • munch
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 years ago

        This would be amazing. We can dream in the meantime because I have a feeling this is a long way off. Currently, the most direct government support for FOSS is probably through public servants who use their employment to contribute to FOSS projects.

  • Metawish
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 years ago

    Got captcha’d unfortunately, seems like it would be an interesting article

    • dioramaOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 years ago

      I tried to archive on web.archive.org and I failed. I used archive.is but I know it is problematic. I am open to alternatives.

      In the meantime:

      On FOSS as a capitalism-like structure
      Or, Time is Money
      ~
      Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) positions itself as being apart from capitalism. Software is written by people passionate about making their useful things freely available to all. Sometimes they’re paid but often they aren’t.
      When they’re not, and when it’s a personal project that others may or may not contribute to, if someone using the software asks for a particular feature and the developer isn’t into the idea of adding it, the standard response is “you’re free to fork it and code whatever you want.” After all, that’s what FOSS is about.
      If two people are equal in terms of coding ability and available time, that is a fair dynamic.
      When someone is unable to code their options are:¹
      Learn to code;
      Pay someone else to code;
      Find someone else who is willing and able to code for you for free.
      To put it another way:
      

      FOSS as a non-coder
      Time is money. If you have time you can use it to learn how to code, or to find skilled people and persuade them that it’s a good idea to work for you for free. If you lack time, you can often get around it by throwing money at it and buying someone else’s time. If you have enough people, everyone puts in less time each and things get done faster even though it’s still free.
      Back to the project. If as a user you object to something about a particular FOSS program or the way a project is run, you will probably be told that you have the option of forking the project or choosing another fork or project that better suits your needs. This is considered a good thing, and forking projects is encouraged. But when you have no power it sucks.
      Does this sound familiar?
      “If you don’t like a company or product you can give your money or attention to another” is considered a feature under capitalism that encourages competition and technical progress, forcing companies to make something better/cheaper or lose money and fall out of the race. It’s inherently unfair to poor people, who don’t have enough money to “vote with their wallet”, and marginalised groups and minorities are more likely to be poor. The people without power are ignored and silenced. This system is problematic enough that governments have to enact anti-discrimination laws to protect minorities and marginalised groups, who are disadvantaged under this system.
      FOSS is exactly the same as capitalism in this way, but with no greater governing body to create and enforce anti-discrimination laws. It is therefore safer for marginalised people to use centralised software under large companies that are accountable to the law.
      Mastodon markets itself as being a safer alternative to Twitter, where users have access to features that help them to protect themselves from abuse, but Gargron is a team of one who is accountable to no one and has several times objected to various features and changes that vulnerable and marginalised people have requested because it doesn’t personally suit him. In a project that had more forks with their own developers or a lot fewer than 150,000 active users this might not be so bad, but when the project gets to a certain size and there is very little variation in terms of the core features being developed, this model is straining. I try to imagine how it might have gone if Zuckerberg had faced senate interrogation in the US over issues relevant to Mastodon:
      “Senator, I hear that you feel that my software doesn’t do enough to protect vulnerable people, and I would like to remind you that if you feel it doesn’t comply with equality legislation you can fork the project and code something law-abiding yourself.”
      In companies the law ensures that marginalised people are treated appropriately, and progress is slow but we’re getting there. In FOSS the only tool we have is user pressure, and it’s not working. All the power is with the developers, who have the time and/or money to be able to code because they’re in a privileged group. In FOSS as in capitalism, power begets power, and those at the top don’t share.
      The more I think about it, the more I see FOSS as a microcosm of capitalism. I am reminded of the way I put work into Mastodon for more than a year, but I never received any acknowledgement, gratitude or compensation from Gargron even though he used my ideas, because I never wrote a line of code. (I got a heck of a lot of appreciative sentiment from fellow users of the software, though.) It echoes the way work is not acknowledged under capitalism unless it is measurably productive and benefiting someone who is already wealthy. Being a parent is a 24/7 job with no holidays, but if you’re a stay-at-home parent you’re not considered to be working. Being disabled means you’re working 5 times harder than anyone else just to maintain your own health, but because you’re not helping someone else to become richer you’re not a productive member of the workforce. Being a voluntary charity worker is virtuous, and it’s also somewhat valued because you’re doing work that no one has to pay you for, but ultimately you’re expected to enter paid employment as soon as something suitable comes along. Under capitalism we have to use our precious time to earn money to survive, to the extent that we have needed to introduce socialist laws to enforce taxes that support people who are not capable of participating in this very narrow definition of gainful and productive employment.
      And it’s the same with Mastodon and in much of FOSS generally. You can report bugs, help keep the issue list tidy, recruit new users, help newbies get to grips with the software, make mock-ups of ideas that then get implemented, post issues for those who don’t understand how to use the bug-reporting software, tell people about new features before they get rolled out so there are no nasty surprises, warn the developers when they’re about to do something that will make vulnerable people unsafe… but if you can’t code, you’re just a user.
      What’s the answer?
      I know that other people have better answers and have written more eloquently and more accurately than me, but this is what I think.
      Seek out marginalised people and deliberately put them into positions of power, so that they can build systems with you that prevent abuse and enable a more equal society that values everyone.
      Create systems that benefit marginalised people over privileged people, so that they are able to build up the skills they need to level the playing field, and so that they can be heard more easily than those who are privileged.
      Create environments that are designed for disabled people first and over abled people, because when a system is accessible for disabled people it is accessible for everyone.
      Compensate marginalised people for their time more than you compensate privileged people, because marginalised people have to work harder for the same result.
      It’s worth noting that there are disabilities that inherently and directly make (1) impossible and (3) very difficult, and anyone in a marginalised group is less likely to be able to do (2).
      
      • Metawish
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 years ago

        Wow thank you so much! I also struggle with finding the best method but I’m sure someone figured it out/is working on it but yes in the meantime, this article is bringing up a really good point

        • dioramaOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 years ago

          You’re welcome :hugging face: It’s just a lil’ gesture of solidarity.

      • Metawish
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 years ago

        Thanks for the link the article was really good and honestly, if we don’t work to unpack our default understanding of labor, we’ll only continue to replicate the capitalist structure

  • aya
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 years ago

    i find the article to be a bit all over the place tbh, but maybe it’s because i dont have the context they mention about specific features that were requested to address abuse. does anyone know the stories with Gargron?