You are almost on point here, but seem to be missing the primary point of my work. I work as a researcher at a university, doing more-or-less fundamental research on topics that are relevant to industry.

This is something I’m very familiar with.

As I wrote: We develop our libraries for in-house use, and release the to the public because we know that they are valuable to the industry. If what I do is to be considered “industry subsidies”, then all of higher education is industry subsidies. (You could make the argument that spending taxpayer money to educate skilled workers is effectively subsidising industry).

This is largely the case, yes. Research universities do the basic research that industry then turns into a product and makes piles of cash from. And you are also correct that subsidizing STEM education is a subsidy for industry. It very specifically is meant to do that. It displaces industry job training and/or the companies paying to send their workers to get a degree. It also has the benefit of increasing overall supply in theur labor market, which helps drive down wages. Companies prefer having a big pool of potential workers they barely have to train.

We respond to issues that are related either to bugs that we need to fix for our own use, or features that we ourselves want. We don’t spend time implementing features others want unless they give us funding for some project that we need to implement it for.

That’s good!

In short: I don’t work for industry, I work in research and education, and the libraries my group develops happen to be of interest to the industry. Most of my co-workers do not publish their code anywhere, because they aren’t interested in spending the time required to turn hacky academic code into a usable library. I do, because I’ve noticed how much time it saves me and my team in the long run to have production-quality libraries that we can build on.

I think your approach is better. I also prefer to write better-quality code, which for me entails thinking more carefully about its structure and interfaces and using best practices like testing and CI.

If the government is the US (federal), I think you are technically supposed to release your code in the public domain by default. Some people work around this but it’s the default.

But anyways, the example you’ve given is basically that you’re paid with government funds to do work to assist industry. This is fairly similar to the people that do the work for free for industry, only this time it’s basically taxpayersl money subsidizing industry. I’ve seen this many times. There is a whole science/engineering/standards + contractor complex that is basically one big grift, though the individual people writing the code are usually just doing their best.

I’m also an idealist of sorts. The way I see it, I’m developing publicly funded code that can be used by anyone, no strings attached, to boost productivity and make the world a better place. The fact that this gives us publicity and incentivises the industry to collaborate with us is just a plus.

Perhaps it makes the world a better place, perhaps it doesn’t. This part of the industry focuses a lot on identifying a “social good” that they are improving, but the actual impact can be quite different. One person’s climate project is another’s strategic military site selector. One person’s great new standard for transportation is another’s path to monopoly power and the draining of public funds that could have gone to infrastructure. This is the typical way it works. I’m sure there can be exceptions, though.

Anyways, I would recommend taking a skeptical eye to any position that sells you on its positive social impact. That is often a red flag for some kind of NGO industrial complex gig.

Calling it a self-imposed unpaid internship, when I’m literally hired full time to develop this and just happen to have the freedom to be able to give it out for free, is missing the mark.

Well you’re paid so of course it wouldn’t be that.

Also, we develop these libraries primarily for our own in-house use, and see the adoption of the libraries by others as a great way to uncover flaws and improve robustness. Others creating closed-source derivatives does not harm us or anyone else in any way as far as I can see.

Sometimes the industries will open bug reports for their free lunches, yes. A common story in community projects is that they realize they’re doing a lot of support work for companies that aren’t paying them. When they start to get burned out, they put out calls for funding so they can dedicate more time to the project. Sometimes this kind of works but usually the story goes the other way. They don’t get enough money and continue to burn out. You are paid so it’s a bit different, but it’s not those companies paying you, eh?

You aren’t harmed by closed source derivatives because that seems to be the point of your work. Providing government subsidy to private companies that enclose the derivative product and make money for their executives and shareholders off of it.

Oh no I mean that there are companies that just don’t care about licensing and plod ahead hoping it’s never an issue. Like having devs build a “prototype” that they know uses AGPL code and saying, “we will swap this out later” and then 6 months later the “prototype” is in production.

Personally, I make a lot of my personal projects’ code closed because I specifically don’t want it to be useable by others. Not for jerky reasons, but strategic ones. IMO common licenses don’t achieve what a lot of people hope they do.

Software licenses don’t change ownership. That requires transfer of copyright, like with contributor agreements.

Though I am aware that a small set of people seek less copyleft licenses because they think they’re better. They are usually wrong in their thinking, but they do exist.

I’m not sure what you are referring to about ontologically bad. Has someone said this?

Yes you can. You just change the license that lives with the code.

What it changes depends on the project, how it’s used, who uses it, etc. It’s really a social question of how people might interact with your project differently.

The MIT license guarantees that businesses will use it because it’s free and they don’t have to think about releasing code or hiding their copyright infringement. The developers I’ve seen using that license, or at least those who put some thought into it, did do because they want companies to use it and therefore boost their credibility through use and bug reports, etc. They knowingly did free work for a bunch of companies as a way to build their CV, basically. Like your very own self-imposed unpaid internship.

The GPL license is also good for developers, as they know they can work on a substantial project and have some protections against others creating closed derived works off of it. It’s just a bit more difficult to get enterprise buy-in, which is not a bad thing for many projects.

killing or ejecting

So you have more accurately revised your claim. I’m glad that I could help you reach a better understanding.

I could go point by point debunking a number of your claims and exaggerations, but there’s clearly no point in wasting any more time conversing with you.

Okay bye then.

Ah okay. Thank you for helping me understand!

I was referring to the primary aid borde crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Maybe I had a typo, maybe not. If my next word has “removed” in it, then part of the name is censored. Rafah. If not, I originally had a typo.

Thanks again!

Hamas were elected to power by winning a plurality of the votes, whereupon they formed a coalition government. Then they killed their coalition to make a single-party government.

An absurd falsehood. Fatah refused to form a government with Hamas, but the idea that Hamas simply killed them I’d an absurd invention. A child’s fantasy.

The lack of elections in Gaza since then is because Hamas and Fatah can’t agree on the terms and conditions of the next election, which had been scheduled and postponed multiple times prior to this war.

As an occupied people this onus actually falls on the occupier, believe it or not.

In my opinion, the main problem is that Hamas was afraid of losing seats to Fatah, because they were getting very unpopular before the war.

Congratulations on having a wrong opinion.

The fact is that elections are not actually blocked by Israel. Good to see that you spout bullshit in your first sentence without checking facts first, though. That tells me how seriously I should take the rest of your comment.

Israel is an occupying power and culpable for all that occurs under their occupation. They are an illegitimate and racist government that has always dramatically meddled in these elections. Or are you unaware of what happened in East Jerusalem in 2006? Your narrative conventiently ommits any mention of this.

International law does not give any government the right to resist occupation by any or “all necessary means.” That’s another little lie you slipped in. The territory of Palestine is a signatory to the Geneva Convention, which means that the laws of war apply.

‘UNGA Resolution 37/43 (1982) reaffirmed the “inalienable right” of the Palestinian people “and all peoples under foreign and colonial domination” to self-determination. It also reaffirmed the legitimacy of “the struggle of peoples for […] liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”’

It is not difficult to find and establish the right for the Palestinian people to fofhyan armed struggle against all occupiers. This has been affirmed and reaffirmed many times. I mention this under the presumption that you or others care about “the rules” this being foundational to pretenses of legitimacy.

Palestine was not a signatory to the Geneva convention, this is a ahistorical nonsense. The PLO unilaterally declared it in 2014, that’s a decade ago. When the Geneva Convention was drafted, Palestine was “legally” under British control and was not in a position to have such sovereignty.

I am amused by your little attempts at jabs, though. They are revealing.

But Hamas does not follow the laws of war… They target civilians instead of military installations, they engage in perfidy through the use of civilian clothes, which puts the actual civilian population of Gaza in great danger.

No more than any other group.

You’d feel better if you told the truth. There are strong truthful arguments against both Israel and Hamas. Because both are directly responsible for the genocide of Palestinians.

Hamas is not responsible for the genocide of Palestinians. That falls on the greater occupying powers that forced displacement, disposession , and mass murder upon them, which is of course Western powers and their Zonist compatriots. You are carrying water for them by promulgating these falsehoods.

I suggest you focus on the parties which are directly responsible, rather than moaning about the “complicity” of random foreigners in an attempt to disparage everyone who doesn’t buy into your terrorist whitewashing and disinformation campaign.

I am focused on the parties directly responsible. Only you are under the delusion that a militarized resistance to occupation is somehow responsible for the apartheid regime imposed by another power, the indiscriminate civilian bombing campaigns carried out by that power, the full blockade of Gaza by that power, the storming of refugee camps by that power. It is a twisted and dishonest rationalization that blames the resistance to oppressio for the oppression itself, absolving the holders of the guns, the missiles, the planes, the invading forces, the village burners.

I’m not going to feel guilty for ensuring that Hamas gets their fair share of the blame.

I hadn’t asked you to feel guilty. But it seems you have an inkling that you support genocide and need a way to absolve yourself. You won’t find that absolution from myself. Perhaps you will find it in a truck marked for aid for Palestinian refugees that is actually full of IOF soldiers ready to help kill 200 refugees in exchange for 4 Israelis. Perhaps you will find absolution in the propaganda campaigns to demonize some of those 4 Israelis who say their experience during capture amounted to having to clean and cook and receive birthday cakes. How dare they humanize Palestinians. Somewhere in that mess of thought, you might find the train of thought that resolves the inconsistencies you are clearly concerned about, though making the wrong choice at every turn.

Personally, I have not focused on your absolution. That is something you have raised. I hope that you find it honestly and with a prioritization of humanity and truth, which stands in contrast to the lazy read or propaganda you have offered.

Ha sorry this is probably a lot simpler than I’m making it.

From my instance, the comment that doesn’t make sense to me says, “You can’t properly comment from your instance.”.

I was guessing that maybe this was an awkwardly phrased dig at lemmy.ml, but from your responses I’m now wondering if it is some kind of instance-edited message.

I appreciate any clarity you can bring to this! I feel like I’m missing something obvious, lol

Hamas are the ruling party of Gaza, a region occupied by Israelis and not permitted elections for over a decade. By international law, they have every right to resist occupation by all necessary means. I have plenty of criticisms of Hamas, but they are not the primary oppressor in Gaza. That is, obviously, reserved for the occupiers that prevent Palestinians from having food and clean water. From having the right of return. For being permanent refugees.

If Palestine falls, the people who supported their disposession will hold land acknowledgements for them. They refuse to oppose actual genocidal and apartheid regimes. They will only feel guilty after the systems they support have finished the deed. This is the outcome produced by comlicity in oppression and disposession.

You will feel better if you reject these horrors.

I’m still confused, unfortunately, and thank you for bearing with me! I’m used to the word filter just saying “removed” for a single word but this looks different. Any chance you can help me understand what’s different about their comment?

Is it like a bot that edits comments containing censored content to make them look like odd message?

I still don’t understand but maybe I’m missing something related to what the other commentor said about autocensor. The previous comment does not make any sense.

The ruling class of the United States has always been like this. This is a country founded by and for slaveowners that gladly governed in their own favor.

This is how the American system works. He’s just not being classy about it.

Congressmembers do insider trading all the time and move into industry positions after they leave, having helped those exact industries (following the requests of their lobbyists). Congressmembers go straight to the top of boards for weapons manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, etc.

Regulators and other officials do the same thing. They cycle back and forth between the industries they’re supposed to reign in and supposedly the job where they do reign them in. Work for the FCC -> work for a telecom -> FCC -> telecom.

In terms of the Supreme Court itself, it is an illegitimate body that has legitimacy only because the other two branches give it to them. Their major powers are not in the constitution and they have very few rules to follow.

You are right that gaining power to establish justice is what really matters, not “the rules” (which are always selectively applied). But it really depends on what you mean by the “good guys”. If you mean Democrats, unfortunately they are also deeply embedded in this system and are not champions against it. They maintain power through the same kinds of industry connections and exit strategies and insider training. Their electoral apparatus is built on getting donations from companies and their executives so that they can buy ads and canvassers and phone bankers and data nerds to reach out and drive likely voters to turn out for them.

I’ve been in high-ish level Dem offices on various occasions. They put a lot of effort into shmoozing with donors and doing everything they can to get more money from likely donors. Big and small, though big get the most attention. The idea of building their base of power from the action of motivated grassroots individuals is rejected. And that’s the only real base of power that is likely to reflect justice.

You’d need to exclude the United States, France and the UK in that case.

What do you mean?

High drug prices are the result of monopoly capital. There are actually very few pharmaceutical companies. They have dominant control over the industry and careers for relevant STEM majors and applying university research. They charge exorbitant prices through market domination and the US government gladly support this, as it is largely just a proxy for business interests. The temporary monopoly of IP is protected at all costs (it was even used to weaponize COVID vaccine access!).

However, this is not something that will be solved by simply asking politicians to regulate the market. Monopolization is a core outcome of capitalism, it increases the overall volume of profit that a company can make and therefore destroy the competition. And capture of the political system the default, it’s an expression of the dominant economic forces. Both parties are capitalist and do the bidding of their business factions, often the same factions at the same time. Expecting a capitalist politician to act against the interests of their donors, their party, and the complicit media apparatus that keeps them in their position is absurd.

Instead, you will only see some PR attempts at the margins, like specifically capping the price of insulin. Access to insulin without impoverishing yourself is of course a dramatically good thing, but it is also a drop in the bucket compared to the overall grift that will remain firmly in place.

A question to ask yourself is: if I cannot reasonably expect capitalist politicians to address this and it’s a core feature of the economic system, what should I do instead?

Aid trucks remain stranded at the Southern entry points, with Raremoved closed over Israel crossing Biden’s supposed red line. Israeli citizens - not IOF - routinely block the trucks and destroy their contents while the IOF watches. Israel maintains its blockade of Gaza that it has imposed since 2007 that prevents aid from entering any other way and used pressure campaigns on Turkey and Guinnea-Bissau to hamstring the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

It’s important to remember that the oppression of Gaza and Palestinians is a central project of Zionism that spans multiple leaders and requires the active consent of several coordinating parties, with the US imperial apparatus at the top and the Israeli Zionist project just below. If Netanyahu died today virtually all of Zionists’ policies would remain in place. Netanyahu was not in power when most of them were instituted.

Opinion polls now show increased support for Netanyahu since October and if you dig just a little deeper you’ll find that the primary complaint of Israelis is that he’s not even more militaristic, more brutal, and “protecting” Israelis in this fashion. In other words, the illusion of immunity was broken and they are lashing out. Imagine who would have power if Netanyahu died.

Biden provides unconditional support to this genocidal project and this is more or less in line with decades of US policy, although he is even to the right of Reagan in that he won’t pick up a phone and actually draw a line. A return to the status quo, which was still horrible for Palestinians, is a bridge too far for the Biden administration. And as you can see, that administration enjoys wide cover from tired and bad faith talking points from a media apparatus that equates the humanization of Palestinians with antisemitism.

If you oppose genocide and consider Palestinians human, then our shared enemies include but also go beyond the current leaders of the United States and Israel. The deeper underlying forces are political economic. They’re why when students demand divestment the University administrations would rather sic cops on them than lose a little cash. They’re why military contractors nearly always get their way. They’re why people like Biden and Netanyahu receive support in the first place, including the tired and politically incompetent lesser evil vote nagging. Political power is not to be a sheep following the orders of wolves, but to become educated and work together.