My core choice thanks to open source dev church of IPL (intellectual property law) logic is corporate greed or wild narcissism. With whatever utility I can accidentally extract from between the cracks.
Like how dare I complain about effective support for spyware just because they aren’t in a position to send an invoice.
OSS (open source software) devs always play the zero responsibility game, claiming because they aren’t getting paid they have zero culpability, but that’s logically bankrupt. The only reason it’s accepted is because it’s effectively part of the religion that has sprung up around intellectual property law. (Current most lethal religion on earth thanks to all the deaths stemming from big pharma and medical/food patents.)
If I make cookies and give them away, but they shatter teeth, I’m at fault. OSS logically is the same way but because of the new religion. Anyone who applies logic gets scolded. your only socially acceptable response when dealing with OSS devs is obsequious self deprecating praise.
OSS browser devs have stepped up to take responsibility for giving people a communication’s tool of extreme life importance. Socially we should be saying if you’re unwilling to accept that burden then don’t code for public use. It’s like building a bridge for free and then saying not your fault when it collapses during rush hour.
In this context the breakage is making no substantive effort as a group to make a secure and open browser true competition to corporate and government spyware. All the negative consequences (thank you Snowden for trying to warn us) of that ball being dropped are logically and morally on the heads of the people who can prevent it but don’t because of the “not my problem, take it or leave it” caveat emptor you get what you pay for libertarian Nuremberg defense equivalent. OSS devs all actually honestly believe they have at worst zero moral culpability just because have zero social accountability. More often they actually believe they’re owed infinite praise the same way corporations believe they are owed infinite fees because they both think they invented numbers.
The effective outcome of all OSS dev effort so far is to prop up the payware industry and kill people through opportunity cost. Imagine all the reform opportunity lost because people don’t have secure accessible user friendly reliable communication tools. It’s like the stealthier version of Iran shutting off the Internet. Because everyone is stuck with kludgy resume padding garbage or corporate spyware, reformers are crippled from the outset. Instantly and preemptively countered by the propaganda industry because our strategy discussion system leaks like a sieve.
It’s all just smaller and smaller versions of the core linux example: No one in the OSS community is trying to actually replace exploitative backdoored software. They just want to be the one living off patented zeros at the end of the day, and all this pretension of good public works is so much empty ad copy and resume cover page boiler plate for yet another larval steve jobs.
People who could improve the world from their desk but don’t even try should be ashamed. But somehow I’m the asshole for saying that, because of capitalist money logic. As if being paid is the ONLY pathway to culpability. Absurd.
Chlauncher, an app that essentially for normal people punishes use of an open browser, is a solid example. All those people stuck with chrome, supporting the evils of Google, because they can’t make chromium just work, are suffering because of failures right here. But yeah, not dev’s fault, no invoices, libertarian notions of “voluntary.” Blah blah blah.
Tell me more about how much of a horrible person I am for daring to apply a shred of ethics to something that actually matters.
Why do I bother typing.
