Would you trust an open source software maintained by a developer who you disagree with politically (or otherwise don't like the developer)?

[_cryptagion@anarchist.nexus]

I moved off of lemmy because I didn't want to use software made by a tankie, so no.

[bacon_pdp@lemmy.world]

You are not supposed to trust anyone who doesn’t have a duty of providing trust. It is why companies like Red Hat, canonical and Novell were paid billions; they did the reviews and provided support. Yes, some distributions try to provide some of that (like Arch, Debian, etc) but only for core packages (everything else is just the Wild West and it could be malware again)

[frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

You use so much open source software--often indirectly--that it's almost impossible to avoid every asshole with an opinion.

That said, there is one dev where I disagreed with his actions so much that I actively avoid his stuff. It's not really political, but he's one of those devs who can do incredible work on his own, but has the social skills of a moldy sandwich. You may have used his work in the past indirectly, as his event library (libev) used to be the basis for Node.js. (The Node.js devs moved elsewhere many years ago due to technical issues such as Windows compatibility).

Anyways, he had a Perl event library known as AnyEvent. It has a bit of a weird, inside-out interface compared to most other event libs, but it works really well once you get the hang of it. The problem that came up was that he didn't like the way a certain extension module used AnyEvent. He threw a tantrum and had AnyEvent detect if that extension was loaded, and die() with a big error message about his personal opinion on the matter. This broke perfectly functioning systems when they upgraded AnyEvent.

That's when I stopped using his stuff and urged my coworkers to do the same. Can't risk that time bomb going off. Wasn't a small matter, either, as he also wrote the most common way to parse JSON on Perl.

[septimaeus@infosec.pub]

Depends heavily on application (access required, sensitivity of data handled, etc) and nature of disagreement as it pertains to trustworthiness.

Example A: I use Lemmy even though I disagree politically with the original devs because the design appears sound and it doesn’t require access to sensitive data.

Example B: I won’t use anything from the Proton Foundation because the founders’ personal comportment and political leanings have led me to suspect that they intend to sell user data.

[webghost0101@sopuli.xyz]

Does it make much difference when your still federalised?

If you had not mentioned it i would be unable to tell that you are not on lemmy, i also believe your comments and interactions are still getting indexed by lemmy instances and help their growth.

That said, your instance is alluring to me.

I didn’t know about piefed till now, how big of a switch/change would it be?

[malreynolds@piefed.social]

If it has lots of independent eyes on the code and provides a service I need and can't find a superior solution to, sure, as I will not be needing any services that disagree with my political opinions and as long as I'm not financially supporting said developer.

[aatube@kbin.melroy.org]

Yes.

Whether you'd boycott it is another thing.

[wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world]

Everyone else, in unison: "yes, someone else will say something if this is a bad program"

Someone Else: wind gently blowing, as a tumbleweed goes by

[deathbybigsad@sh.itjust.works]

Not really directed at Lemmy.

I was thinking about the time Louis Rossman (who used to advocate for using Graphene OS) said he stopped using GrapheneOS because he didn't trust the former lead dev.

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XZ_Utils_backdoor comes to mind.

[whatamlemmy@lemmy.world]

I don't "trust" tankies, because no authoritarian can ever be trusted, nor do I trust lemmy. I just prefer to vote with my content/wallet, and Reddit showed the world they don't deserve their user base, or any of their content.

This is an open non-profit platform anyone can scrape. That's good enough for me, until something with a better value proposition comes along.

[stinky@redlemmy.com]

open source is safe.

even non-technical people can learn how to look at issues on Github (or wherever the code is kept).

it's like restaurant reviews: if there are dozens of people saying they got malicious food, then you have reason to be careful, even if you don't understand why the food is malicious.

caveat: if the code is open source but no one has had time to review it, it's potentially dangerous even if there are no issues yet. it takes time for people to review the code. and there should be multiple reviewers; there's always the chance that a single malicious developer has created multiple github users. Time is on your side here.

[wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world]

While I am... suspicious of what the CEO (?) has spouted recently, I am unaware of how that connects to user data. Can you ELI5/summarize/point me in a direction?

[lukaro@piefed.zip]

I choose not to do business with anyone who's too vocal about their political disagreements. I'm paying you for your services not your opinion so shut up!

[autonomoususer@lemmy.world]

'Open source' is a deliberately ambiguous phrase, engineered to derail libre software.

[jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works]

One my neighbors is a highly skilled craftsman. I dont use that label loosley. I'm a very competent DIYer but his work is in a class above mine. He built a metal railing around his deck and it is immaculate. Clearly constructed by someone with years of welding experience and a keen eye for detail.

We don't really talk politics but I know for a fact that there are at least a few things we disagree on.

That said, I would absolutely hire him to fabricate something for me if I needed it. I really doubt he does his day job because of his political beliefs. I assume he takes a lot of pride in his work and would do the same quality job for me as he would for anyone.

It's a serious error to constantly try to distill people down to their politics. That's a divisive tactic intended to devalue and dismiss "the other side." Whoever that happens to be at the moment. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Politics are important and the way our governments and societies operate affects all of us.
But, people are complex and multi-faceted beings with a wide variety of experiences that shape who we are. Our lives are highly contextual and consequently, so are our dealings with others.

[frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml]

Is the political disagreement around surveillance or something related?

[frightful_hobgoblin@lemmy.ml]

The whole entire point of free software is trustlessness.

[_thebrain_@sh.itjust.works]

jdupes: it's great software. The author left GitHub not because of Microsoft, but because he refused to implement 2fa on his account, which GitHub made mandatory.

[chunes@lemmy.world]

I've installed thousands of programs on my systems over the past 30 years. Closed source, open source, you name it. Never had a single problem.

Trusting software is such an overblown hangup that people have. Even if it bites me in the ass someday, so what? I'll roll back, reformat, do whatever I have to do. It'll have been worth it.

[snoons@lemmy.ca]

In this situation, any closed source developer/project manager would never disclose such issues, if they caught them at all.

I trust open source code a hell of a lot more then close sourced stuff because anyone can look at it/test it and see if somethings fucky.