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Boycotting FOSS projects in the wake of the "buy canadian/european" movement makes no sense
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
lol who is suggesting boycotting foss projects?
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
390 points (97.6% liked)
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I think OP means that one shouldn't boycott FOSS projects just because they are from USA. That said, I don't like to be told what I have to do and don't agree to "FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software". My pc, my LAN, my rules.
I don’t like to be told what I have to do and don’t agree to “FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software”. My pc, my LAN, my rules.
...he said, without a hint of irony.
Meanwhile, "my PC, my LAN, my rules" is precisely the reason I do agree with always preferring FOSS to corporate software.
Almost all the lists shared in the communities exclude FOSS projects.
Totally agree. The majority of Americans are great people. Not everyone is MAGA. We need to support the good ones. Sanctions and boycotts tend to unite.
One exception would be if the project imposse a security risk because key people and servers, within the US, may be blackmailed or pushed by the new administration. We're not there yet though. And I hope these projects and people migrate if this becomes the case.
Also, FOSS projects run by big tech are probably also wise to avoid for strategic reasons.
if its run by a big company then it's just open source and not free, or do you mean something like a company contributing to the code?
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Counterpoint: Fedora is a testing bed for Red Hat. One of Red Hat's notable customers is the US military. I'd prefer to stay off that path if I can help it. It's a matter of trust, and it's a matter of indirectly contributing. I've seen people say the same things about Deepin and everyone nods in agreement, but why the hell should I trust a US project, for the same reasons?
Honestly this should be a wake call to the FOSS community that we are way too reliant on the US.
Every default we have is US centric and if FOSS is really meant for everyone we should move away from that.
why the hell should I trust a US project
Bekuz Amerika fridom wurld polis, best kontri in da world!
But on a more serious note, did you know Linus banned those Russian contributors like a month after redhat and DoD signed a new deal. Can you guess who owns RH stocks?
I think you're missing the point a bit.
Both BuyCanadian and BuyEuropean are about supporting their respective economies as they are boycotting America's.
For Canada, we're looking at a recession (brought on by our "ally") so people are trying to help fellow Canadians out as things get rough and people lose jobs.
While I support FOSS and recommend them in threads etc I fully understand why they don't meet all the goals of those movements. (That being said, I think one of the most rocking counter punches would be EU investment in stabilizing Linux enough to make it a feasible alternative to Windows/Apple for casual and corporate users, solid shot to 2 of the magnificent 7.)
investment in stabilizing Linux enough to make it a feasible alternative
Do you care to elaborate? If I had to write a list of reasons why Linux might not be ready for your average cubicle... Stability wouldn't be one of them.
Not the other commenter, but they likely meant stability with respect to device drivers. The kernel is great at not degrading with a high uptime, but there's consumer stuff that's just perpetually unimplemented, buggy, or minimally-functional:
- Sensor monitoring on Ryzen platforms
- Realtek NIC chipsets
- Nvidia cards and proprietary drivers for anything and everything other than compute workloads
- Nvidia cards older than the RTX 2000 series and FOSS drivers
- Peripherals targeted towards "gamers"
None of this is the kernel maintainers fault, of course. The underlying issue is the usual one of shitty corporations refusing to publish documentation and/or strategically abusing the legal system to stifle reverse engineering for interoperability.
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