Post by @dzsimbo@sopuli.xyz

2026-09-10 16:51 UTC

I wouldn’t want to install anything unvetted. But doesn’t open source mean it’s fully transparent? So if the system had tracking and whatnot (which regimes usually like), I wouldn’t install it. If it’s a good fit and there is no fallout for me downloading it (I’m not funding them, not giving them info), I think there is no moral problem with me downloading the software. In this specific case I guess it’s moot, cuz it’s full of slop, but this is the same vein as pop culture consumption: do I hate myself for liking Michael Jackson’s and Morrissey’s music? Should I not pirate it, if it brings me joy? Am I a bad person for liking that music?

Replies (1)

@thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2026-09-10 17:10

Being Open Source doesn’t solve the issue here. First, as you say yourself, you even do not trust a project that is Open Source because of Ai slop. And you cannot verify every line of code with every update on every application. Do you understand every security issue by just looking at it? Even if you would, which is impossible, do you build everything from source? No normal people does that (sorry Gentoo users, this sentence was just for you guys :D). Omarchy is a good example of that we should not trust everything, just because it is Open Source. I personally would have moral problems AND fear of incompetence and intentional malware. The actual software, the operating system itself, would have been very nice if there were not these trust issues. I would say its not the same as liking pop culture. That comparison doesn’t hold up, because listening to music does not execute stuff on your system, you do not depend on it, and there is no trust issue here involved. As for the moral problem of liking something, where the creator is a bad person, well that is something you can do in art. I personally can differentiate from media consumption and its creator, which is not possible with operating systems and software. But if we start talking about media or even food, that is all a different thing and would just distract us from our original topic.

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