“Trust” as in: trust it enough to run it on your machine.
(And assuming that you can’t understand code yourself)
Who’s out here trying to figure out the political or other beliefs of developers? I’ve got around 50 docker containers running on my server, there’s no way I’m going through people’s profiles to see if they’re morally aligned with me.
I know you do.
Well, you’re here, aren’t you?
Tbf, accessing a a software running on some server (which is not my machine) over Tor isn’t exactly the same as, say, installing a software with admin privileges on my computer.
True that…
Then lemme try to give the answer you were asking for.
Let’s start with Linux. The kernel itself has hundreds, if not thousands, of contributors. Next there’s the pieces of software that run on it, each with its own set of contributors.
There’s no way you can do anything meaningful by going thru this huge list just to see what their political backgrounds are. I’m sure there are controversial people contributing to the very pieces you are running right now.
Even if you did find some problematic backgrounds, what are you gonna do anyway? Stop using it? Do you think it would affect them? It’s not like you’re paying them. On the contrary, you’re probably just gonna make your life harder.
Depends on the software. I’d not trust a vpn that was made in an authoritarian state. I’ll play a game made in one.
As for the developer if they are more famous for their political views than the software I’d probably not install it.
Really depends on the level of disagreement. If its total idiocy like maga or monarchist or something I would likely stay away. If they don’t think ubi is a good idea I can get passed that.
past, not passed
no um I mean like I can’t get the political philosophy passed to me so like I would drop it and not run to the goal line and… ok I did it wrong.
No. If I disagree with someone politically it’s likely because they want me and anyone like me dead. Those people are dead to me.
I’m pretty sure we’ll disagree politically on many issues but I don’t want you or anyone like you dead. I hope people in the US will stop viewing politics as cults and start to communicate with people disagreeing with them.
For the first 40+ years of my life, sure. For the past 10…we are suffering from a cult.
Do you support trans rights? Do you support immigration? Do you support the demilitarization of police and complete restructuring of the current US “justice” system? Do you know why credit scores exist? Do you support using taxes to provide for our most vulnerable? Do you know what diversity, equity, and inclusion are?
If you said no to any of those, then I doubt we share common ground
I doubt many people outside the US have any clue about whether the US justice system needs to be restructured, so there goes ~95% of the global population.
Excluding people from discussions because they don’t agree with ‘one’ point is setting yourself up for failure.
You aren’t winning anyone over with an all-or-nothing attitude, you’re cutting off many potential allies.
Yes, since not liking or disagreeing with someone isn’t the same thing as likelihood they are pushing malicious code. If something is open source that’s a really good sign, because they could also push closed source code and be more likely to get away with it that way. More points if it clearly has other eyes on it; even if I am not checking over the code myself, someone probably is for a lot of projects.
It’s like “separate art from artist” except even more so because software tends to be even more quantifiable as its own independent thing than art is.
it depends on what the software is doing i guess
Most of the time : Yes
But it depends on a lot of things :
Is there any viable alternatives ? What’s the nature of the disagreement ? Is there a possibility of a fork emerging ? Etc…
I hate google but I can’t replace Android studio at work or ask my employer to stop releasing updates on google play. If the disagreement is about project governance, I would support forking, see CoMaps or Forgejo. I will avoid projects for a variety of reason, two good examples are Manjaro and Hyperland, I avoid the former because of their collaboration politics and the later because they are plain bigots.
Politics can encompass a lot of thing and open source is a very political subject.
it depends entirely on the context, what the software is, alternatives… etc
if it is open source and sources I trust approve of it, sure
no.
IMO conservatives are untrustworthy and can’t identify fact from fiction.
would you run software from a dev who has a problem discerning reality? do you think a schizophrenic person writes stable maintainable code?
mental health is an important part of gaining trust in your product. ironic that they continue to trust and support a geriatric nazi-wannabe, but goes to show how compromised conservatives are when it comes to their decision making skills.
TempleOS?
technically the guy went crazy because of the project.
Only if they specifically seem fascist, because that’s the one political group that likes to know everything you do and censor any dissenting opinion.
I mean… I used reiserFS for years and that guy killed his wife, I’m not too keen on that.
I guess its fine as long as its not actively malicious code, its not like I’m letting them into my brain.
On that though, I find it unlikely someone who differs from me politically would have the same priorities, and as such their projects are much less likely to show up on my radar.
Edit: spelling correction, Autocorrupt, ykwim?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReiserFS
Reiser was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife, Nina Reiser
Does anyone have a link to that handwritten letter (with translation) from prison where he resigned as maintainer of reiserfs?
There’s such different views on life that I don’t think its possible to get software designed close to what you or I believe in.
If the source is open, the code is viewable. So yes I think I can trust, at least the code.
Also there’s a saying “trust but verify”. So actually check to see if the binaries your getting actually behave the way you think.
