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1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 25-Apr-2024 22:58:55 JST Aral Balkan

   • Pierre Bourdon

   @delroth “Now ‘everything is political’.”

   … Says the smoked gammon working for the defense contractor at the heart of the controversy.

   Oh, quelle surprise!

   https://discourse.nixos.org/t/major-nixpkgs-contributor-leaving/44053/13

   #nixOS #anduril

   • Miroslav Kravec (kravemir@hometech.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:38:36 JST Miroslav Kravec

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon

     @aral @delroth I have no clue what political afair is happening in NixOS community.

     Why can't technology be only about technology without politics?

     Especially in #FOSS, which is a public good - everyone benefits from it.

     Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:38:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Miroslav Kravec

     @kravemir @delroth Because technology is the physical manifestation of ideology. You cannot understand a specific technology without understanding the ideology it is designed to support and amplify. If certain technologies appear apolitical, it’s because they amplify the dominant ideology of the system you reside within. So all technology is political. But the only technologies deemed political by those who benefit from the status quo are the ones that threaten it.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:42:43 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️

     @cferdinandi @delroth Yep.

   • Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️ (cferdinandi@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:42:44 JST Chris Ferdinandi ⚓️

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon

     @aral @delroth "Now..."

     Privilege is a hell of a drug, eh?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:55:20 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Miroslav Kravec

     @kravemir @delroth Why is it designed the way that it is? What are the assumptions underlying those design decisions? Why is it, for example, so enticing for a defence contractor? How might it have been designed, licensed, governed, etc., so it would not have been? How is it funded? Why does it attract that funding? Etc.

   • Miroslav Kravec (kravemir@hometech.social)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:55:21 JST Miroslav Kravec

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon

     @aral @delroth I don't quite get it for this case.

     Technology is a tool. In this case - open-source software - non rivalrous public good.

     Some technology can be an inherently evil or political tool, i.e. weapons.

     But, an open-source operating system (Linux distribution) doesn't have an implicit purpose.

     NixOS can be used by all people for everyone's benefit. I don't see how this can be coupled to politics.

     It's pretty much a neutral tool (public good), and it's up to user how it's used.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 00:58:11 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Miroslav Kravec

     @kravemir @delroth Take our work with the Small Web, for example: why did I spend the last six years recreating parts of the wheel instead of just using a web server like nginx, a framework like React, a database like MongoDB and/or a serverless platform, etc. All those seem like very neutral, dare I say it normal choices. But they’re actually designed with the assumption that you want to build centralised systems that scale…

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 01:02:21 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Miroslav Kravec

     @kravemir @delroth …whereas what I’m trying to encourage is the emergence of a peer-to-peer web, the goals and success criteria of which are diametrically opposed to those of venture-capital-funded mainstream Silicon Valley corporations. The same ones that create those open source tools and technologies to help perpetuate their system. So at every level of the stack, decisions are baked into our everyday things that are made based on ideology; business models, etc.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 17:56:54 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon
     • Orca🌻 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     @Orca @delroth Yep.

   • Orca🌻 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️ (orca@nya.one)'s status on Friday, 26-Apr-2024 17:57:00 JST Orca🌻 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Pierre Bourdon

     @aral@mastodon.ar.al @delroth@mastodon.delroth.net
     "everything is political"
     What the heck. tech, foss, Linux have always been political, and will always be. :neocat_confused: