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@doctormo Being able to offer free labour is a privilege that does not get acknowledged nearly enough.
If participation in FLOSS requires volunteering, a project might as well hang a “generational wealth or other forms of socioeconomic luck required” sign.
@justjanne There are several cases where it’s not OK to just do what you like because you’re not getting paid.
When:
a FLOSS project has all unpaid contributors (an effective way to shut out people without the socioeconomic status to work for free)
And:
Solicits end users
Then:
There is a responsibility to make security and usability a part of the project planning.
Again, I was not posting about a solo contributor solo user project.
My posts are not about hobby projects.
Per my previous post in this thread.
If you want to restore a Trabant and cover it with spikes and install a seat that shocks you, and you drive it on a closed track at your house, you do you.
If you’re on the road with the rest of us, maybe don’t.
Don’t try to make battle BDSM Trabi the default either.
This post is also about FLOSS.
@menelion Plus it was one of the milder incidents of harassment that have happened in open source communities. The bar is in hell.
No, of course I am not posting about the code you write for yourself only.
If you reply like this, you’re basically doing the FLOSS equivalent of commenting on a video about making bean soup with “But I don’t like beans! Post a soup recipe without beans!”
If you have end users, make good software.
@menelion I have a tiny amount of hope that accessibility becomes a requirement for any EU-funded “digital sovereignty” projects. Given my experience being harassed at FOSDEM for using an evil corporate OS because I needed working speech to text, I don’t think developers will do this voluntarily. This is fine for single contributor and single user hobby projects, but for everything else, what little accessibility we have for interacting with public organisations must not be yanked out from under us. Not holding my breath though.
A software license doesn’t make software good.
Open source code written by a bunch of sexist, racist, ableist assholes is no viable alternative.
Free, libre, open source code is good when:
- there are design docs
- there are risk assessments
- there is user research
- accessibility is a requirement from the beginning
- it is private by design
- documentation is a part of every release
All of this is enabled by teams with a code of conduct, and no tolerance for assholes.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is the key to all of the goals FLOSS projects claim to share.
I am the very model of a hacker individual,
I’ve information cryptographic, analog and digital,
I know every cypherpunk, adhere to Kerckhoff’s principle,
I bounce from node to node so I can make myself invisible.
I’m very well acquainted, too, with server vulnerability,
I escalate my privilege and I trash availability,
I know the latest breaches and I know first when the ‘net’s ablaze,
Nets ablaze nets ablaze…
With many cheerful facts about developments in zero days.
