This might be a weird post to read and consider.
I understand the logic that @catastrophic is using here. And while I can empathise with it.
The heart of it for me is it’s not intersectional enough. I get wanting to improve various distros’ compatibility with framework, but should that be done at the cost of supporting someone who’s put forward hateful rhetoric?
I get that one of FOSS’s biggest ethos is, it is open and free for anyone to use, and that does sound really lovely, until things like this happen.
Lately I’ve been looking at technological harms and how tech has been used to harm minoritised groups, in big and small ways, intentionally or otherwise. Books like Datafeminism, Race After Technology, Black Software, and Careless People. As well as documentaries like Coded Bias. At this moment, folks in tech are reckoning with their complicity in genocide (Does my code kill Palestinians). And recognising the ways in which surveillance capitalism(Palantir) is being used to support fascism.
It tells me, that we have a responsibility to consider how our actions such as what we build may harm others.
It’s a scary time all around, and while a lot of people seem to be ready to understand and take action on ways they might be complicit in harm, the FOSS mindset is not one that is ready to take ownership of that. It’s desire to focus on one thing, adoption of open source software (which is a good thing) at the expense of considering how it intersects with these other issues is no longer tolerable for a lot of folks.
Intersectionality as originally theorised by black feminists and Intersectional Feminism is something that can be lacking in tech spaces that I do think right now it sorely needs if it is to truly grow inclusive to the people we want in this community and to deal with the challenges ahead.
I believe FOSS’s original ethos and mindset is no longer enough. It’s long been too late and we need to go further. It’s not enough to be a tool without reckoning with how that tool is created and what it supports.
I want FOSS to be intersectional… and maybe it means adopting a new and better ethos that allows it to be better. Ethical licenses and source code might be that way.