Post #2117048

2026-04-28 19:07 UTC

@toxi But the process of introducing new people to the guild would have to be very stringent, since a single member who betrays the guild would put all the other members back at square 1. (NB: it seems funny how people complain about maintainers "gatekeeping" these days, when the alternative is pretty much a secret society...) And if "FOSS" becomes an exclusive club that you cannot join without knowing the right people, then it's just another vehicle of social stratification :/ 2/2

Replies (2)

@wolf480pl@mstdn.io 2026-04-28 19:12

@toxi So yeah, I think a coordinated strike in order to get better laws is the only way to save software commons that can be openly collaborated on.

Open ##2117049
@taylan@fedi.feministwiki.org 2026-04-28 20:18

@wolf480pl @toxi In my observation many "FOSS" projects these days are already an exclusive club. You have to share a certain set of quasi religious political views that are not even related to software freedom, or you'll risk being canceled. Needless to say, I don't trust such people to have a sensible definition of "ethical use of software." Let's say such a license was applied to a Fedi server implementation or another piece of software that facilitates communication. Heck, could be a web server... The license would probably try to control what speech you are allowed to publish via the software. "No publishing hate speech or you are in breach of the license." Congrats, it's now illegal to use the software to publish feminist views critical of gender identity theory, because it will 100% be branded "transphobic hate speech." It's actually somewhat scary to think about, because the whole CoC trend already comes somewhat close to this, just limited to culling contributors rather than blocking people from using the software. I can hardly imagine it ever going that far, but think about a world 20 years from now in which people who want to publish unpopular views are barred from using most web servers, blogging platforms, etc. and have to pay fringe "free speech hosting" companies a ton of money because the company has to maintain an entirely independent software stack developed from scratch. Unrealistic, but scary. Would make for a good dystopian story.

Open ##2117051