[OSGeo-Discuss] Activist campaign of open source projects to protest against policies of the US government

Mon Feb 24 13:47:39 PST 2025

It is of course up to the author(s) to license their work how they see 
fit, however, licenses with restrictions on who can use or redistribute 
a work are generally not considered as free and libre software.  For 
example, the Debian Free Software Guidelines sections 1, 5, and 6 
prohibit these kinds of restrictions.

I don't intend to imply the DFSG is the only potential interpretation or 
argue the morality of the DFSG.  But, I do want to point out that, as a 
practical matter, these type of license restrictions, especially on core 
libraries, will likely have downstream impacts that are much broader 
than the target of the political statement.

Personally, I believe the effect of restrictions like this is primarily 
to fragment the FLOSS community while doing nothing to stop those who 
are being protested against from using the software (as if violating a 
software license is the line they won't cross). It may even been seen as 
a win by those who wish to see the world become more fragmented.  But it 
isn't for me to tell others how to protest and I fully recognize that it 
is the author's right and probably their moral imperative.

On 2/24/25 00:40, Antonovic P. Milan via Discuss wrote:
> Hello everyone. sorry but I completely disagree with you. Pushing a 
> diverse and multicultural community to agree on a political point of 
> view can lead to divisions, wasted time and distraction from OSGeo's 
> real needs. Asking to "not be indifferent" is a well known polarizing 
> technique. Attempts to oversimplify the complexity of reality without 
> even trying to acknowledge that there are different opinions 
> and interests, obstructs the pursuit of truth and disrespects those 
> who value critical thinking.
>
> I believe that the OSGeo Community shall focus on bringing our 
> beautiful software to THE NEXT LEVEL and not playing the same games 
> that are used by the "market economy or capitalism".
>
> Let's find ways that have a real impact by concrete examples of 
> openness, friendship and community! Let's try to be better than them!
>
> ✊ Viva Open Source Software ✊
> This is just my 2 cents point of view, don't take it personally..
>
> Milan
>
> For example 👇👇👇 @Luís Moreira de Sousa this attitude does not 
> belong to the open source spirit
>
> image.png
>
>
> Il giorno dom 23 feb 2025 alle ore 19:14 Luís Moreira de Sousa via 
> Discuss <discuss at lists.osgeo.org> ha scritto:
>
>     Dear Even,
>
>     when I was a child, the priest in our parish used to say that
>     everything we do in life is political. I am not certain such
>     direct confrontation is the best way to dissuade regular folk from
>     voting for autocratic movements, but doing something is certainly
>     better than doing nothing. The SpatiaLite project, for instance,
>     is taking things even further [0]. If I am allowed to give advice
>     on the matter, just be careful not to undermine a project for
>     little influence on the public discourse.
>
>     Take care.
>
>     P.S.: as much as I am troubled with the cahos spawned by the US
>     government, to what open source is concerned, the CRA still
>     appears to me as the greatest challenge in the coming years.
>
>     [0] https://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/index.html
>
>     -- 
>     Luís Moreira de Sousa
>     Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@luis_de_sousa
>     URL: https://ldesousa.codeberg.page
>
>     Sent with Proton Mail <https://proton.me/mail/home> secure email.
>
>     On Thursday, 20 February 2025 at 19:17, Even Rouault via Discuss
>     <discuss at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi,
>>
>>     I've started an activist campaign of open source projects want to
>>     join the protest against the US government stupid, cruel and
>>     dangerous politics that affect the whole world ?
>>
>>     I've initiated the move with GDAL
>>     (https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11865 , with follow ups in
>>     https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11875,
>>     https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11876,
>>     https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/11877) , and also pushing for
>>     PROJ (https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/4406) , MapServer
>>     (https://github.com/MapServer/MapServer/pull/7233) and GEOS
>>     (https://github.com/libgeos/geos/pull/1243) .
>>
>>     Anyone else ?
>>
>>     I don't agree that we should stay away from politics. Our
>>     projects only make sense in the context of a free society, and
>>     this freedom is at high stake. We have admittedly little power,
>>     but we can and should exercise it with the tools at our disposal.
>>     The addition of small little acts might end up having visible
>>     consequences.
>>
>>     Even
>>
>>     --
>>     http://www.spatialys.com
>>     My software is free, but my time generally not.
>>     Note to current US government: stop messing with the world!
>
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