@lykso @hipsterelectron @mhoye @froztbyte It is a chosen tradeoff, I suppose.
if it is coopted then it becomes irrelevant whether I am maintaining a "good" version; it gets drowned out. Worse, my maintenance may be upstreamed and used to benefit the capitalist version.
It being preserved and public does enable the chance for it to be rediscovered at any time, and possibly in ways that inconvenience malicious parties (if they haven't died out prior).
Ideally we would be actively undermining this system.
Of course. Though the overthrow of capitalism will not come purely from software.
I would like to avoid a situation where the people responsible for the disease, where the diseased system itself, can use my work to save themselves/itself.
That would be unfortunate. Although I deem it extremely unlikely.
Most work that promotes autonomy and agency is worthless to them at best or inimical to their interests.
Most work that puts autonomy, security and control in the hands of the people/users, especially ones who use it to enact their agency & assert autonomy, is actively unwanted to the point that direct hostile intervention has been undertaken at points in the past over it.
(Not only in software work there.)
Collective access to and control of this technology is a form of power; it would be fantastic if I could find a way to direct that power into a political form which may challenge the current form.
A direct challenge seem unlikely, but if what its purpose is and what it enables is contrary to the malicious interests, then it does have good odds of providing indirect challenge or contribution to a direct challenge.
And of course, some in quest of liberation may use it to survive or save themselves long enough for the wider overthrow to take place (hopefully).
Although it may be that the system is so diseased and falling apart so quickly that the pace of my work will render it useless in that regard.
That would be a Plan9 ending.
Were you luckier, you might complete your work after the hostile system's crumbling and see it finding use too.
Good chance as well that the system finds no use for what I'm doing, having other tools better suited already at hand.
Quite.
Still, it's a risk I'd rather not take just now, I guess.
Fair enough. You do have that choice, and your discomfort is not groundless.
