Comment by totony | Hacker News Reader

Comment by totony | Hacker News Reader

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>If it's just because "but they claim to value free software", see my reply (which included ninja edits): free software != free speech.

I agree with you on this. The reason I believe they're somewhat related is that free software ensures users always have access to a software and can modify it if they disagree with the author. The spirit of that I think concedes that users should be allowed to use the software whoever they are/whatever they say/etc.

Now of course free software doesn't require you to provide them with the platform to run the software, but in spirit it definitely enables a discrimination-free permission to use it. EDIT: So having a platform deny access when it values such spirit is somewhat disagreeable.

"free software ensures users always have access to a software and can modify it if they disagree with the author."

IMO this is a really terrible reason to use free software/open source, and not a positive point in its favor. Forking is a really costly process and leads to fragmentation and most of the time is unnecessary. To me the main benefit of open source is that it leads to a global collaboration and cooperation, and it gives new avenues for people to be able to agree with each other. From what I've seen, projects where the maintainers are just disagreeable all the time usually don't even tend to get off the ground at all.

> So having a platform deny access when it values such spirit is somewhat disagreeable.

If Android required a platform for software distribution, I might agree, but Gab can (and does) post their APK right on their website. So Gab is experiencing no curtailment of their speech rights by FDroid refusing to traffick in their speech, nor are the users experiencing any curtailment in their right to use their device, or the software, as they see fit.

You'd have more of a leg to stand on if this was about iOS and the Apple store, which doesn't allow for any kind of sideloading.

But Android? Sorry, I have no sympathy and I see no hypocrisy in FDroid's actions.

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