Mastodawn

Perhaps the uncritical use of LLMs in our FOSS ecosystem is a symptom of burnout in our maintainers and projects.

@onepict that is one reason, but another huge reason I see is just that so many devs have been trained to never think critically about their tools or industry to begin with. LLMs are just the shiny new toy, to be used without ever considering its impact on society, the way it redistributes power, or its long term legacy.

A huge amount of OSS people are not of the idealistic sort, they are of the "I'm apolitical and so is software, and humanities studies are worthless" sort.

Aral Balkan 3d ago

@ainmosni @onepict The term “FOSS” probably has more to do with why we keep getting surprised by these sorts of things over and over again more than anything else.

The F and the OSS are very separate things.

It’s like looking at the Corporate Democrats or New Labour and wondering why they’re not progressive.

The only thing “open source software” and the people who build “open source software” care about is that the source is open. Literally just that. It’s open as in open for business and it’s always been that. Associating with free software has always been a whitewashing effort. And we seem to freely allow it to the detriment of the latter.

@aral @onepict Yep, me omitting the F in my post was very much on purpose.

Esther Payne

@ainmosni @aral I started out on the Open Source side and gradually moved over to the free software side.

Although at times I'm not sure either side fits anymore. Especially with the definition of freedom, and the desire to not acknowledge the political influences and ramifications of what we code and how we act within our communities.

I'm at a stage now where I distrust folks who are apolitical.

@onepict @aral Same, and yeah... the main problem with the free software side is from its inception it's been a very libertarian movement. It can veer either left or right, depending, and we all know what side apolitical people tend to skew.

Aral Balkan 3d ago

@ainmosni @onepict Yep. Free as in freedom is a prerequisite. By no means is it sufficient.

@aral @onepict I also think it's a symptom of how we made political discourse a bit too uni-dimensional. We attribute sugar, spice, and everything nice to the left, and the rest to the right, totally ignoring you can be an authoritarian boot licker and still be left, or consider freedom for everyone essential and think it's every man for himself.

Esther Payne

https://dotart.blog/cobbles/the-spiral

@ainmosni @aral Folks also tend to not be that great at acknowledging power and responsibility.

We have a bad habit of bigging folks up because they expressed our frustration well without consideration about if we should have given them that power.

Power is a responsibility and it should be shared.

The Spiral

Let's tell a Fairy Story Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. One upon a time in the online realm a cis white man did a contr...

cobbles

@onepict @aral Agreed, I tend to have a bit of phobia of putting anybody on a pedestal, probably something born out of trauma, but I will assume everyone is messy, and so I can respect ideas without having to immediately accept the imperfect messy person who said it.