I find it sad and very anti-democratic that they blocked my post, which is polite and respectful. The reply of the moderator was moreover rude: “Instead of starting useless drama here, seemingly in search of magic validation points” and “Go and protest somewhere else, to the people that can actually do something about it.”
Here’s my polite open letter:
I have been happily using KDE software, and especially the Kubuntu Linux distro, Plasma, and Dolphin, for almost a decade, on several devices. Of course I’m also a regular donor and affectionate follower.
It seems that more and more software developers in the Linux and FOSS ecosystem want to implement changes to comply with various age-verification laws. I understand that for the KDE developers and maintainers it might be a difficult decision whether to make this kind of changes or not. They have to consider “legal” aspects, collaboration with other developers, and, possibly, also what their user base think. What to weigh in, and how much weight to give to what, is of course up to the maintainers and developers.
I respect the choice that will be made by KDE. But I also want to make clear, in a respectful and polite way, that if such changes are implemented in KDE software and the Kubuntu distro, then I’ll move away from them, to other software and distros that do not comply (there already are some and I’m sure there’ll be plenty more).
“Well, who cares?” might the KDE people justly say. Partly I’m writing this open letter out of a feeling of friendship. It’s somehow like when you discover that a dear friend might have values very different from yours, so you have to break your no-longer-meaningful friendship, but you also feel you have to explain to your friend why, rather than going away silently. I also believe that many other KDE users think like I do, so this message does not come from me alone.
For me GNU Linux and FOSS is not only a choice about software: it’s also a choice about human values, human rights, and moral stances. These laws, besides being pointless, cross a threshold about human rights and values that I personally do not and will not allow (if this makes me a “criminal” in the egregious company of “criminals” like Claudette Colvin or King or Mandela, so be it). I want therefore to use software that also makes a similar choice, based not only on what’s “legal” but also on what’s “moral”. Besides appeals to politicians, marches of protests, strikes, and similar, also software choice is a form of protest and non-compliance; a stance.
What post are you referring to? And could you link us to the relevant discussion(s) that sparked this post in the first place?
A little bit meta, but I’m fascinated by the vote ratio of your post and comments. Makes me wonder if there’s anything personal going on here… And from what I can tell here on Lemmy, I perceive you as a level-headed person.
I’m sorry you feel this way, but again you are barking up the wrong tree as we can’t do anything about it… except what you can do too: protest to the people who want to impose this upon us.
Bringing this issue up here or on Discuss is pointless: We know, we are aware, we are against it, we don’t want it, we realise there are ulterior motives from corrupt actors, and we will do what we can to oppose them.
But this, posting to Discuss, complaining about KDE being indifferent here (which it isn’t) is probably the most unproductive thing you could do. You are tying up resources of volunteers who are already on your side. Like you say organising a protest, writing to the powers-that-be, educating your local/state/national representative, all these thing help.
But this is just consuming volunteers’ time up in moderating a potential flamewar on a topic that we (and I would argue everybody else here) already knows about.
I don’t think it’s unproductive at all. Positive changes and resistance to negative changes are caused by many, extremely different and complex factors, one of which is voiced discontent at all levels. It’s a chain of pressures. Some elements press on other elements which are not the final target, but this pressure makes them in turn exert even more pressure closer to the target. Edit: take for instance the Montgomery bus boycott – was the bus company responsible for the law? shouldn’t the black people have done the boycott then?
Without such internal pressures, positive changes may fail. History shows examples over and over (a good read is the historian Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence). I’m sure that if it wasn’t me posting stuff like this, it’d be someone else, and maybe sharing a much less polite post.
Also, I think that this kind of moderation ends up giving a very false picture on the forums, as if everyone discussing there doesn’t really mind about the topic.
I think developers can do something about it. They don’t want to, maybe for obvious reasons, and I respect their choice. But there is a choice.
I think developers can do something about it. They don’t want to, maybe for obvious reasons, and I respect their choice.
Can you point me to the… what? Survey? you are getting this information from? What are we talking here? 90%+ of all FLOSS developers?
I ask because it is usually quite hard to get FLOSS developers to all agree on anything. I am surprised you got a monolithic response to such a controversial topic.
Narrator: They didn’t have a source.
But where is this letter coming from? Did kde implement the age verification? I haven’t seen any confirmation about it.
But where is this letter coming from? Did kde implement the age verification?
No.
I haven’t seen any confirmation about it.
It hasn’t even been considered.
Looks like Nate Graham is going to get it implemented.
https://discuss.kde.org/t/age-assurance-laws/44886/34
I’ll be pulling my monthly donations unfortunately.
You should probably not take the opinion of one developer as the official position of the whole of KDE. KDE has not got an official position on this topic yet because there is still too much up in the air: are these laws going to stick? Will there be a loophole or exemption for FLOSS? Will it be possible of have the thing disabled be default and just be there for product manufacturers to activate in their products sold in the affected regions? Will it even fall to the devs of desktop projects to like ours to implement this? Will it matter at all or is this all just theatre and the user can just input anything, say, 01/01/1901, and be done with it?
And, probably most important of all: Will KDE as a community comply? This is not up to one developer. There is usually lot of discussion, often a vote. There are lot of different nationalities and people with diverse opinions. Just because one contributor has expressed an opinion, does not a done deal make.
Nobody implemented age verification, it isn’t even what was merged into systemd, everyone claiming it is is basically generating copious amounts of spam over a milquetoast change to add an option unverified field to an api.
No official decisions yet, although in a discussion thread I read developers basically saying “the law is the law”. This is why I politely wanted to let them know, as a KDE user, what’s my stance.
@pglpm @FirmDistribution “the law is the law”. There might be an afghan law forbidding women to use computers, woud they implement it ?
No, because the Afghan woman doesn’t live in California…
What did you write to the lawmakers in California?
I don’t live in California, but I was one of the many who wrote to EU parliament members against the chat-control law proposals, and participated in other local activities about that.
I’d be happy to write to the lawmakers in California. I suppose my email would immediately go into their spam folder.
I’m inclined to agree that OS-level age
verificationdeclaration is pointless and invasive but I’m sympathetic with distros looking to comply with the law. I can also see why governments want to pursue identity verification to enforce laws online even if this is obviously not the right way to achieve that.I want to see Linux become the mainstream choice and accept that it will need to be compatible with laws like this to do so. Were Linux more widely used then organisations like the KDE e.V. might even be consulted by lawmakers which might help avoid this sort of legislation being passed in the first place!
I’m also hoping that this can be solved for those in California with some sort of optional service rather than something that gets too closely integrated with the distros or desktop environments.
If you visit, say, the website of the American Association of Physics Teachers or similar associations, you can read their complaints, protests, and alarming messages about cuts and bad policy changes in the education system. So clearly laws like these are not truly targeted at the well-being of children. Fu*king invest on education of children and adults instead.
We forget that there’s no just law, there’s also morality. And sometimes they are against each other. And we must make a choice.
