Hopefully no one is asking developers to be virtuous (even tho, to be fair, if we are going to be asking that we should also expect the code to be wholly bugs-free!), but how many times they actually “keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project”? On whichever side. It’s just not a thing that can reasonably be avoided all the time between humans.
But the reality of these times is that behaviour outside the field of programming is representative and/or predictive of behaviour in the field of programming, when it comes to literally working with other people. And this is not only about the act of commiting changes or filing PRs, it’s about the why of programming and the ways of delivery as well. Someone who strongly associates with barbaric beliefs is less likely to want to spend their spare time working in peace for all, and more likely to be wanting to work on software that at least in some way carries or represents those beliefs, for example in capturing and using user data, or in aiding systems used by the military to kill children of “non-citizens”. So being “absolutely” uncaring does not really make sense.
Someone who strongly associates with barbaric beliefs is less likely to want to spend their spare time working in peace for all, and more likely to be wanting to work on software that at least in some way carries or represents those beliefs, for example in capturing and using user data, or in aiding systems used by the military to kill children of “non-citizens”. So being “absolutely” uncaring does not really make sense.
Let’s look at Linux, for example, which is perhaps the most successful FOSS project in the world. It takes contributions from people of a wide range of motivations, such as:
hardware vendors who just want their stuff to work
intelligence agencies, who want stable systems to spy on people
hacking groups that want low level control to facilitate exploits
militaries that want reliable guidance systems to bomb women and children abroad
freedom fighters who need top security to protect themselves from repressive governments
free software advocates who believe computing should be accessible to all
ad agencies that need a scalable solution to push their dark patterns more efficiently
IT pros building a career on maintaining complex systems
And so on. The net result is a solid, general purpose kernel and a rich ecosystem of supported software. All Linux did was focus on technical details and largely ignore the source.
In the words of Linus Torvalds:
With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
Does it really matter who those eyeballs belong to? Yes, we should be careful about malicious intent (e.g. xz scandal), but that’s a technical problem, not a political or cultural one.
At the end of the day, everyone is free to associate or not associate with any groups they want. If you’re a maintainer, that means you get to decide which contributions you accept and who you let into your communication channels.
I use software maintained by people I really don’t like, such as:
GrapheneOS - lead dev is a giant pain to deal with
Lemmy - both lead devs have extreme political views that I strongly disagree with and find dangerous
Brave - CEO’s political views are distasteful, to put it mildly
Tor - pretty sure it’s largely maintained by spooks and militaries (at least it started that way)
React web framework - developed and maintained by Meta, whom I actively avoid and refuse to do business with
I’ve also contributed patches to some of those as well. Why? Because the technical merits of those protects is pretty much all that matters. If the maintainers go off the deepend and piss people off, I or someone else can fork it. That happened with various OpenOffice (LibreOffice), ownCloud (NextCloud and OpenCloud), and now Redis (Valley), though those had more to do with licensing changes than technical project direction.
That’s why I’m concerned when projects put non-technical concerns (say, a COC) above technical concerns. Yes, civility is expected, and enforcement of that is a lot easier when the project focuses primarily if not exclusively on technical concerns.
Hopefully no one is asking developers to be virtuous (even tho, to be fair, if we are going to be asking that we should also expect the code to be wholly bugs-free!), but how many times they actually “keep their beliefs to themselves and focus on technical issues in the project”? On whichever side. It’s just not a thing that can reasonably be avoided all the time between humans.
But the reality of these times is that behaviour outside the field of programming is representative and/or predictive of behaviour in the field of programming, when it comes to literally working with other people. And this is not only about the act of commiting changes or filing PRs, it’s about the why of programming and the ways of delivery as well. Someone who strongly associates with barbaric beliefs is less likely to want to spend their spare time working in peace for all, and more likely to be wanting to work on software that at least in some way carries or represents those beliefs, for example in capturing and using user data, or in aiding systems used by the military to kill children of “non-citizens”. So being “absolutely” uncaring does not really make sense.
Let’s look at Linux, for example, which is perhaps the most successful FOSS project in the world. It takes contributions from people of a wide range of motivations, such as:
And so on. The net result is a solid, general purpose kernel and a rich ecosystem of supported software. All Linux did was focus on technical details and largely ignore the source.
In the words of Linus Torvalds:
Does it really matter who those eyeballs belong to? Yes, we should be careful about malicious intent (e.g. xz scandal), but that’s a technical problem, not a political or cultural one.
At the end of the day, everyone is free to associate or not associate with any groups they want. If you’re a maintainer, that means you get to decide which contributions you accept and who you let into your communication channels.
I use software maintained by people I really don’t like, such as:
I’ve also contributed patches to some of those as well. Why? Because the technical merits of those protects is pretty much all that matters. If the maintainers go off the deepend and piss people off, I or someone else can fork it. That happened with various OpenOffice (LibreOffice), ownCloud (NextCloud and OpenCloud), and now Redis (Valley), though those had more to do with licensing changes than technical project direction.
That’s why I’m concerned when projects put non-technical concerns (say, a COC) above technical concerns. Yes, civility is expected, and enforcement of that is a lot easier when the project focuses primarily if not exclusively on technical concerns.