The OP doesn't claim that anyone infringes any licences, just points out a relationship and political activism involvement. People are free to care or not care about it.
Actually, it would be wise to care about it because the political bias might need to be held in check. People from that ideology were involved in many very illegal stuff, including terrorist attacks or coup attempts. Some people might want to distance themselves from all that even if the developer doesn't have any involvement in the illegal part of their activism.
In the reality I live, people ignore or care about whatever they want. How does your reality look like?
Not even talking about contribution. I am talking about people trying to boycott those who simply use the software. There are actual mastodon admins who block instances on the mere grounds of having deployed soapbox.
- Yes. Disagree with tankies ? Don't help them write their software either. Tankies are absolute morons and a joke to much of the left. Don't like working with transphobes and people with ideologies fresh out of the 30s ? Don't help them write their software either. Unless you don't mind your name being a few lines under <notorious fascist> in the contributor list.
- Stalinism-Marxism ? Please stop letting Ronald Reagan write your history books, it's just Stalinism, which has followed Marxism-Leninism. Stalin was a notorious denier of Marx's theories. Ask Trotsky about that.
- Sure, use their software if it doesn't bother you. But pretending that it does not contribute to spread also the ideologies by giving them more importance is clueless.
Given how easy it is to obfuscate a vulnerability in code I would not want to run code programmed primarily by someone who has a peculiar world view (except in a sandbox). At least its a yellow flag to audit it well (but that is no guarantee). With regards to FOSS projects its just a time bomb till some nefarious actor (Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian, etc) does something bad to a popular FOSS project. But the worries are the same when the author is unknown (TrueCrypt, for example), and some people have been paranoid about SELinux ever since.
Taking above into account IMO the heads up is fair. And with all that, you're still free to make up your own mind. Nobody is telling you that you should avoid the project. They're suggesting you look into it.
I think it's worthwhile to note this. As I said elsewhere, my comment wasn't to tell people to avoid Soapbox (nor even to start a pointless debate like some sub-comments had) (and, heck, I even use an instance nowadays which sometimes use Soapbox; even if I personally despise the main author).
The fedi is also quite political, and as others and I said, just barely using Soapbox could get you auto-blocked or auto-judged.
Few things scream "I don't mind totalitarianism when it is pointed at those I don't like" more than that.
That i'm pro- or against this is out of the topic; but while I don't entierly agree with that, I can definitely understand the _reasons_ they are doing it.
And we cannot really call this totalitarianism, we are talking about a dozens of servers in a decentralized network, not about the government of a country, or laws.
It's similar to JK Rowling getting famous off the Harry Potter franchise and using that clout in a way that causes harm, prompting others to stop promoting her works and thus stop feeding her positive attention. Having read one of those books or having watched one of her movies doesn't make you a transophobe, but promoting her works gives her the means to do harm.
Moreover, the majority of soapbox instances tend to be freeze peach servers that either contain or amplify other harassers. Good soapbox instances tend to be the exception rather than the norm.