Re: the right to rewrite history to rectify the past (was Re: Concerns/questions around Software Heritage Archive)

[pinoaffe <pinoaffe@gmail.com>]

Hi!

MSavoritias <email@msavoritias.me> writes:

> On 3/20/24 19:22, Giovanni Biscuolo wrote:
>> Disclaimer: I've still not read all the relevant threads [3] [4], so
>> please forgive me if I repeat some information already provided.
>>
>> What rights are we talking about?
>
> You are making the same misconception as some other people in the
> thread here.
>
> We are talking about social rules that we have here in the Guix
> community not legal/state rules.

Arborelia is clearly talking about legal/state rules in part of her
blogposts.  You can argue that the state rules aren't relevant here
(IMO, Giovanni's observations support this argument), but it's not a
"misconception" to think that the current discussion is at least
partially about the legal aspects.

> Specifically the social rules that we support trans people and we want
> to include them. Any person really that want to change their name at
> some point for some reason.
>
> To that end we listen to their concerns/wishes and we accommodate
> them.

I agree that we should listen to peoples concerns/wishes and accommodate
them out of basic respect, but we can only accomodate people's wishes
when those wishes fall within what is technologically feasible and reasonable.

When a person publishes books under a certain identity, it is not
feasible for *every* mention in every copy to retroactively be updated
to reflect a new name.  In a similar manner, it is (currently) not
always feasible to rewrite git history to change historic names.

I think we, as Guix,
- should examine if/how it is currently feasible to rewrite our git history,
- should examine possible workarounds going forward,
- should move towards something like UUIDs and petnames in the long run.

(see https://spritelyproject.org/news/petname-systems.html).

>> As a *free software* user do I have the right to redistribute /old/
>> copies of the source code and documentation I got in the past from the
>> copyright holder, in any form (e.g. print)?... or to use old sources or
>> documentation to develop derived work, with _attribution_, without
>> asking for consent from the original authors and/or contact the original
>> authors to ask them what is their current name?
>
> Copyright is not consent. When we are talking about consent we are
> talking about it in social rules.
>
> See also
> https://www.consentfultech.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Building-Consentful-Tech.pdf
> as a nice paper for consent in tech.
>
>> If yes, I would like to exercise all my rights without being harassed.
>
> Again this has nothing to do with rights granted by states. This is
> about including people and making them feel safe and respected.

I fully agree with you here, rights such as the right to free speech and
copyleft don't mean that any action that falls within those rights
should be free of consequences, especially when such an action excludes
others, disrespects them or makes them feel unsafe.

>> [...]

kind regards,
pinoaffe