[libre-riscv-dev] [Bug 374] add repo on github that points to git.libre-soc.org as a way to increase searchability

[bugzilla-daemon at libre-soc.org]

https://bugs.libre-soc.org/show_bug.cgi?id=374

--- Comment #10 from Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> ---
(In reply to Yehowshua from comment #7)
> > sadly whilst very "convenient", this indicates that our project endorses
> > github's
> > unethical practices.  this includes censorship and government sanctioning.
> 
> I disagree. Mirroring indicates that we do not endorse their practices.

it sounds reasonable, doesn't it?  simply mirror the code, therefore
we're not actively endorsing unethical practices.

unfortunately, this is a false correlation, that takes some time to unpack.
normally i would explain it in detail, however unfortunately with whitequark
and many many other people who are prominent free software developers
with respected positions and responsibilities believing that i am ordering
people about, dictating to them what to think and what to do, i'm not going to
do that, because if i do so, it would seem like i am simply trying to force
my quotes beliefs quotes onto you.

so i'm going to leave this one to you to work through, to work out what the
false correlation is.

i will however give a starting point, with some questions, and a scenario.
this is something that i do all the time: i deploy reverse-engineering
skills - developed over a 25 year period - to *people*.

this skill is something that many people find alarming and scary (hence
the *real* reason why they think i am quotes ordering them about quotes).


imagine that there is a person, technically capable, who hears of libre-soc.
this imaginary person, they are both ambivalent and also completely unaware
of the ethical aspects of "Libre".  nobody has ever had a conversation with
them about the unbelievably damaging aspects of arbitrary application of
technology without thought.

nobody has ever discussed the Hippocratic Oath as adapted to Technology
and Engineering with them.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer#Oath)

now let us imagine that there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds
of thousands of such people.  given that github probably has tens of millions
of users by now, this is not unreasonable.

however the reason for mentioning it is because that implies that there
are thousands to hundreds of thousands of engineers out there who will
see our project and have *NO IDEA* about the ethical responsibilities that
are associated with software and engineering in general.

thus if we have any way of influencing that, we achive a far larger impact
than we might otherwise have expected.

so that is background.


now let's ask some questions.

1. when these hypothetical (ethically ambivalent) people come to a straight
  *MIRROR* of our code, on github, what will they see?

2. what *ACTION* will they take?  in GUI web-development terms, what will
  their browsing profile look like?  what landing pages will they go to?
  what pages will they click through?

in particular - bear in mind that you (and others) have been advocating that
all documentation - basically the entirety of the wiki - be moved to a "docs"
directory, because "this is how github does it".  so this should be taken into
consideration as part of the answers to the questions.


now let us move on to what we would *like* their browsing profile to look
like:

3. where would we *LIKE* them to be browsing?

4. what pages and services would we *LIKE* them to be looking at?


so here is the key:

5. do we want these people to remain 100% on the github pages?

6. do we want them to be on http://libre-soc.org and http://systemes-libre.org?


so, let me know.  (6) is really important.  we might *actually* want people to
completely fail to come to our websites.  we might actually want to send out
the message, "hey, we are completely technically incompetent, we are unable to
find the technical skill and take the responsibility for hosting our own
material, we completely abdicate that responsibility to an outside third party
known by the name 'github'."

whilst this may sound completely ridiculous and over-the-top, i *genuinely* and
honestly don't know, Yehowshua, because you keep advocating that we should use
these services.

so please note: there's no "demands" here.  these are *open* questions that
people need to decide *for themselves* whether they should be discussed and
evaluated.

or ignored.

i have, personally, gone through these questions over a period of about 20
years and come to my own conclusions.

however it is clear to me - and continues to be clear - that many people simply
*do not* go rigorously through this process of evaluation.

i cannot force *anyone* to go through this process.  that is not how it works.

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