Ask HN: Are there any tools you don't use/support for ethical reasons?
Just wondering if anyone eschews something like the recent React Native release on the grounds of opposing Facebook corporate policy (on patents, press baronage, or what have you)?
I will admit to using what I think are the best tools, even when I worry about where they're coming from. I'm split though if this is necessarily bad.
Sure I'm supporting Facebook (who does bad things) but I'm also supporting Facebook open-sourcing their code (which is a good thing).
Thoughts?
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[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 57.1 ms ] threadEnabling the location services on your phone in example, asks you only once to "increase" the precision by using using cellular, gps and nearby WiFi SSIDs. That's because Google lost a lawsuit for illegaly collecting a database of all SSIDs. Now they let you do it.
But think about it, how can they improve the precision of your phone's location services, when GPS + Celular already are accurate within 1-2m? I mean nearby SSID's won't magically give you military precision and more precision than what you have with GPS+celular alone is not even required.
I'm using https://swisscows.ch instead of http://google.com, because it's more secure, faster, less personalized, equally strong in features and provides me with more accurate results than duckduckgo.com + it has semantic filtering tiles that I really started liking.
It's a similar group behavior to how towns can form a hate for the opposing town's soccer team. In that case, it can get so carried away as to lead to physical violence between the groups. This is the same level of backing as there is for some of the things Reddit and HN are constantly repeating that they hate. Pure emotion, basically.
iojs
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GPL advocates say that doing right by my users amounts to providing them with 100% of the source code of the applications that I and any collaborators write.
Most of my users are not technical, and could not care less about the source code behind the apps they use. They just want something that's easy to use and reliable.
Some people see this very differently than I do, but my take is that being moral means doing right by and for yourself first, where "yourself" includes concern for the specific people and things that are important in your life. For people you don't know personally, the right attitude is benevolence (unless and until a particular person gives you a good reason to avoid them.)
Maybe some people say that I could live by that standard with the GPL, but my own judgement is that I (as well as the people and things that I care about) am far better off without being encumbered by it in the slightest.
For non-compiled software (e.g. Javascript, PHP, Python, Perl, Shell), license doesn't matter to me since I can just see the damn code. Unless it's obfuscated.