@Elucidating are there many people who take an ethical stance about favoring Linux *because* of RH and Canonical's contributions?

personally, my experience with running Linux has only been positive *despite* their presence in the ecosystem.

@lifning It's sorta agnostic to your distribution since corporate sponsors support so much of linux development.

@Elucidating is using a small, independent distro rewarding those corporations in a meaningful way?

and on the other side of the table, are equitable hiring practices sufficient to ethics-wash Microsoft's actions?

@varx Even though they do and/or fund a *massive* amount of the actual day-to-day development.

The notion Linux is volunteer funded is only true for a few distros. And even then we could apply similar logic to the projects.

@Elucidating This seems upside-down and backwards. You're asking me to judge the value of a thing by the practices of some of its largest users.

That kind of guilt-by-association only works when the alternatives are much, much better. And even then it's a pretty sketchy basis on which to evaluate something.

Should I stop shopping at my lcoal grocery store because it is also patronized by someone I disagree with politically?

@varx By some of its largest and primary *contributors*, yes. This is exactly the same logic.

Canonical is not a "user" of Ubuntu. Red Hat is not a "user" or red hat linux. These businesses fund core linux development.

That kind of "guilt-by-association" is putting your principles for social and economic justice before your desire for products. That is difficult (sometimes impossible) to do in a capitalistic environment, but I think we should try.

@varx If my local supermarket is spending lots of money hosting and wooing Trump-supporters, I'd certainly boycott it. Yes. Absolutely.

@varx Looking at it from this angle you shouldn't use linux at all. As a lot of kernel work is done by sponsored developers. Same goes for any other open source OS out there that can be used a productive desktop OS.

@sebastian @varx

*any* tech choices are what might be called in German "zwischen Pest und Cholera wählen" (choosing between plague and cholera).

but consider the job of a healthcare worker or even a janitor in places where these nasty things are; you take precautions to minimise the contamination, and this is alas quite some part of what working with tech can be (both in 1980s and now..)

@sebastian Yep, guess I just can't use computers! c_c

@Cedara I don't think that's a problem, and it makes total sense.

I'm talking about how people say that running linux is somehow more socially just than, say, OSX or even FreeBSD.

@Elucidating I only saw the boosted toot. Thank you for explaining.

@Elucidating @Cedara Why would someone think #Linux is more ethical than #BSD? The only reasons that come to mind are:

1. The #RandiHarper nonsense
2. The use of #MIT and #ISC licenses instead of #GPL2

@USBloveDog @Cedara A tighter binding with Stallman's vision, I guess?

@USBloveDog @Elucidating Errr... I went for Linux because that was one I knew of. Nothing with ethical, just with practical.

@gme Microsoft's changed a lot of stuff that makes it MUCH better for employees. Their diversity-in-hiring efforts are, from the published literature I have, ahead of most of their peers and OS vendors. Their benefits are focusing on gender and LGBT equality more, and they have baked in protections now for whistleblowing which *ends their arbitration clause*. That's pretty dang huge for a company in the US to do. Shareholders hate it.

@gme I want to see Canonical and Red Hat do this.

@Elucidating there's no reason they can't except perhaps that their leadership doesn't want to.

@gme I agree, and that's probably the worst reason I can think of!

@nev This is the grim truth. These ultra-large organizations often have much stricter accountability and oversight than what's perceived as a group of volunteers.

@Elucidating Also, policies! And they are big enough to be bound by human rights/anti-discrimination laws

@nev @Elucidating They’re called the drones in HR. Turns out they do have a beneficial purpose.

@shadowfirebird @vfrmedia

Interesting points. But I'm not sure I agree with all of them. For example, lots of FOSS products are for-pay practically because of support issues.

I also think the bar is only low if you're a straight white dude who is fine with hearing any and all types of slurs.

But I do think the "less is hidden" is true, there's a lot less blowback from whistleblowing so people have more incentive to do it.

@Elucidating @shadowfirebird @vfrmedia
Using the software and engaging with the support community are two very different things. The later can certainly come with toxic baggage but I have yet to have an actual program insult me. I'm a ciswhitdude, but pretty sure that's not the reason…
Also, Point Of Information. Hardly any FOSS software comes with a paid support option. Remember that a distro is made up of thousands of tiny projects. The real support cost is the above engagement, which, yes.