incredible take from one of the GNU maintainers, seriously
0 Boosts
0 Likes
@ariadne
Given that North Korea exists, the idea of software being produced by forced labour is far from hypothetical, I would say.
@ariadne Doubling down, too.
"If we start talking about genocide, that's bad, let's brush it all aside! Don't mix sport and politics!"
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2026-11/msg00201.html
@richlv @ariadne I have contracts with companies which require suppliers to follow terms like (quoting Merck KGaA):
Suppliers shall ensure that no form of forced, bonded, indentured, or involuntary labor is used. In particular, Suppliers shall act in accordance with
• Art. 2 (2) of Convention No. 29 of the ILO and
• Art. 8 (3) (b) and (c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
This would mean slaveemacs would be prohibited by anyone working at or for Merck (including me), or any other organization with similar rules, on top of those who would be morally opposed to using or contributing to software built by slave labor. This would of course be a death blow to the free software movement, which would become identified as "free as in the free labor of slaves".
@ariadne
Woa, these people have some severe issues. Are they just stupid or crazy?
@ariadne@social.treehouse.systems
Isn’t the “hypothetical example” the definition of Work?
@skeyby work generally is voluntary in exchange for money
@ariadne wait, wat
"must be YES"? is someone forcing the GNU project to accept all legally-valid contributions?
what kind of weak-ass nonsense is that
like regardless of what you feel about LLMs, it is very easy to just do/say anything other than "contributions resulting from slavery are good, actually"
@ariadne I feel that’s the point. There are mountains of tech people salivating at the restoration of slavery.
And it would be, because at some point people would start to be managed through LLM’s. But at that point the bros are already referring to and treating these machines as slaves.
What that will do to our society will not be pretty. No terminology borrowed from slavery should ever be used, not even for machines, because of what it will do to us!
Note that he clearly doesn't state that they are good.
@ariadne FWIW, The Nuremberg trials or vegans had/have to constantly deal with this question and drew the boundary between "I'm merely benefiting" vs "I'm actively encouraging it".
Basically you have three options accept it/ask for changes/reject it. Changes are out of the question since you are encouraging slavery.
The correct response* is to accept the contribution and inform the contributor that no further such contribution will be accepted so the harm has not been done in vain.
@ariadne can there be one CLI-based text editor that isn't maintained by chuds
heck, can there be one LSP-compatible text editor, full stop, that isn't maintained by chuds
deep sigh am I gonna have to learn KATE
@ariadne Somehow I am not surprized. Somehow.
@ariadne huh, so that settles vim vs emacs then
![illy [Shrimple-mode] :protomoji_orange_flag_lesbian:](https://shrimp.imsofucking.gay/files/public-5f69c6f8-29ee-4ab8-b7ba-9347e0f2dc6c.webp "illy [Shrimple-mode] :protomoji_orange_flag_lesbian:")
@wall_e@ioc.exchange @ariadne@treehouse.systems both lose!
![Lambda Crime [The Möth Society]](https://media.wetdry.world/accounts/avatars/112/982/397/274/118/763/original/091e2dea1f7f4b39.png "Lambda Crime [The Möth Society]")
@illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e new editor war: nano vs ed
@16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e ed wins by default as nano is GNU and also ed is no joke more usable once you gets its logic. Unlike nano which is like "oh ho ho this extremely common keybinding for cutting text actually quits the program! this is so easy", ed is more like "all your prior computing knowledge is void now so don't you dare feel safe!"
@librarysquirrel @16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e cat | cc and get it right the first time
@davidgerard @librarysquirrel @16af93 @illyBytes @ariadne @wall_e
Any true hacker, etc.
If a libertarian is accepting the product of slave labor, he may not be libertarian at least not the original definition
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @ariadne in the past few years i've been distinguishing "libertarians who actually care about the freedom of others"
@davidgerard @GhostOnTheHalfShell @ariadne which could be called anarchists, but that word has a pretty negative connotation. Still...
@ariadne goddamnit emacs could you stop embarrassing me when I recommend you for like five goddamn minutes
@glyph @ariadne I'm still disgusted and mad about this hours later
(but seriously, fucking text editors nowadays
vim: "we are now allowing slop"
neovim: "we are allowing slop and are also fascists"
emacs, months later: "we would totally accept slop, and also, we're super cool with slave labor (software freedom is more important than human freedom (except mine, obviously))")
@aud @glyph@mastodon.social @ariadne Wait, I missed the neovim discourse, have a link at all?
(The sheer amount of things I am having to change or give up on because of fascism at this stage is astounding. In all honesty, we should have an 'anarchistsforkeverything' thing but no one I know who is politically conscious and has abilities in the tech realm has the time or energy. Too busy doing on the ground things)
@davidgerard @aud @ariadne Thanks, appreciate that.
@glyph right? irregardless of his views on LLMs, it is very easy to just not engage with the argument at the very least. nothing made him reply that way.
@ariadne @gsuberland holy crap. Who? What project, or are they responsible for multiple projects, or policy, or…? When? Where?
This is not an expression of doubt. GNU and the FSF have a long and proud tradition of disappointing me greatly. I just need some context to hook it to.
@ariadne @randomgeek @gsuberland my favorite excerpt from this exchange:
There's a lot of evil in this world, and we meet it all the time. In
the Free Software movement, we only deal with evil that directly
affects or threatens software freedoms. Fighting the rest should be
left for other arenas.
as if the usage of LLM-generated code does not presently and significantly affect software freedoms (by flooding repositories with insecure garbage and making projects harder to support and maintain, and probably for other reasons i can't think of right now)
@ariadne entirely expected take from the "csam is fine actually" defenders
the stewards of the free software movement, everyone.
and then people wonder why FOSS has a misogyny problem.
@ariadne
WTAF!
Would love to find out who the moronic c**t is, that penned that utter fucking horseshit.