Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sham1 12 days ago
This implies that the difference actually matters. In both cases there is a political goal behind the actions. Yes, printer driver software itself is very different from sexual and gender orientation, but wanting for the printer drivers to be free is a political statement and principle, and so is the uplift of LGBTQ+ people and celebrations of PRIDE month. Both are political despite being about distinct subject matters.

You can disagree with the politics in question, but to say that FLOSS has no room for politics is itself a political position, leading you to a paradox!
1 comments
chekibreki 12 days ago
Yes, it matters. You can try to distract and do as much mental gymnastics as you want but everyone rational can clearly see that one thing is doing politics for software (free drivers, open source, no DRM, …) and the other is about virtue signaling about subjects that are completely unrelated.

Btw, feel free to label me however you want (others did already), which shows that they have no arguments and resort to pidgeonholeing and name calling.

link
sham1 12 days ago
> Yes, it matters.

Does it actually matter? And if so, why?

> You can try to distract and do as much mental gymnastics as you want but everyone rational can clearly see that one thing is doing politics for software (free drivers, open source, no DRM, …) and the other is about virtue signaling about subjects that are completely unrelated.

Okay, but you would still have to answer a really important question. Why does it matter?

Let's say that it's virtue signalling, for the sake of the argument (although people tend to not know what virtue signalling actually is, and just claim any public acknowledgement of one's values as such, which is incorrect).

So, why does one being virtue signalling and the other not being such actually matter? Does it actually change the messaging in any meaningful way? Does it make it less legitimate or whatever?

> Btw, feel free to label me however you want (others did already), which shows that they have no arguments and resort to pidgeonholeing and name calling.

I wasn't going to, but thank you for the invitation!

link
efilife 11 days ago
I think he already explained why this matters

> This will undoubtedly create tensions and will lead to fewer donations, thus having a negative impact on KDE.

Stallman was trying to better the software, what is this going to accomplish other than polarize people?

link