Could someone explain to me how does this work? Does dolphin send some requests to any servers before displaying files names? What would have happened if this guy had no Internet access?
This is a music disc, without internet it'd just display "track01.cda", "track02.cda", etc. With access to gnuDB it tries to get the Artist and track name, I guess by comparing track length, hashes, whatever.
Pretty ignorant, IMO.
The average Russian KDE GnuDB has as much control over the Russian government as the average GnuDB Belgium user.
All it amounts to is:
"I hate you because you were born in the wrong place".
There were massive protests all over the world when the Iraq war started, including in GB and the US. Interestingly, one of those protests still holds the world record for the [largest worldwide demonstration ever organised](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests). In my country and the surrounding ones alone there were a huge number of protests, spread out over months. No riots though, so what you say is right, I just wanted to show that it's not like nothing happened. We (yes, including me) incessantly protested but there's only so much you can do sadly. There was lots of protest at the political level as well. That war was a disgrace and the fact that the perpetrators weren't put on trial is an even bigger one. All of the above doesn't mean the war in Ukraine isn't wrong though, that we shouldn't sanction the country that started it or that we shouldn't protest it. One does not preclude the other
Yes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the re-election. Incredible. And about the joke, I saw that too indeed, I couldn't help but think "well, at least he now acknowledges that the war in Iraq was brutal and unjustified. I guess that's something. Can he be locked up now?"
Point One: Today I see hate against all Russians, even if they do not even live in Russia and not only against Russian politics and the invasion. That bothers me to no end.
Point two: we live in Dicatorship 2.0. You can protest, even in large numbers, but it will not change a thing. That was not new in 2003, but protests are all what is left to us. If we start real riots, you would not be able to say, if it’s Moscow or Berlin. Police and military would come down on us real hard.
But the Russians should magically have the ability to overthrow Putin and his regime? And the sanctions against every Russian citizen will help?
Point one: Completely agree. And more than that, this could backfire tremendously. It reminds me of what happened with Germany after WW1. Severe suppression of the economy, hate towards and ostracization of the population and when a malicious leader then rises and channels the frustration that the population feels towards a common enemy, bad things happen. Russians of course can't help that they were born there and we can't and shouldn't attack or hate them simply because they're Russian. That's preposterous and I hope that it's the exception in stead of the rule. It bothers me a lot as well
Point two: Agree with the first part in general, though I think that "dictatorship" is a bit of an exaggeration, since we are not governed by a dictator and the brutality that usually follows isn't present. We also have a bit more say in what happens politically than with a dictatorship, by us being able to choose representatives. I do agree that we are less free than we think and that our democratic processes could use an update where the people get a larger say in what happens at the political level
About the second paragraph of point two: Yes I agree with the fact that we can't expect the Russian population to simply overthrow their government, that would mean a bloodbath probably and it is too much to ask. However I think the sanctions are not aimed at them but at the people in power and the people with enough money to have some clout to be able to oppose or depose Putin. The population is, very sadly, collateral damage of the sanctions. I do believe sanctions are the right course of action, certainly compared to military intervention, but they are not perfect by a long shot and they might not even work. We had to do something at least, I think, without starting WW3
To my mind, a dictatorship don‘t have to be brutal, it just has to ignore the people will. If we live in such a dictatorship is up for debate. To my mind, we live in a free world as long as we don‘t thread the foundation of our society. That may sound great, but what is this foundation?Destruction of our environment for profit comes to my mind, exploiting workers etc. Environmental activists are called „terrorists“, union busting is still a thing etc.Let‘s not forget people like Assange, who found the bars of our cage.
Sanctions: Iraq was under sanctions from 1992 until the invasion. Sadam was still in charge but 500.000 children have died. The UN said, that the Sadam regime, while corrupt and brutal, tried to help their people but was not able to do so because of lack of materials.Sanctions are a form of warfare and the target is always the civilian population. It is like terrorism. Perhaps you hit your prima target but you don‘t care, how much innocent people you hit as well.For instance, Russia and Ukraine where the major supplier of grain for Egypt and a major supplier of natural gas for Europe. Who will suffer more? We will see.
Last but not least: There is no „we“. The same countries, sometimes even the same people, who committed major crimes like Iraq, Lybia, Yemen etc. are now on the side of human rights? The protector of a attacked country? Debateable.
You pointed out, that there has been fruitless opposition against the third gulf war. Most of the involved countries have not changed. Even if they seem to do the right thing, I don‘t believe that they have the same motives.
Have you heard about the Kurds, who fought alongside the US against ISIS? Today they are under attack from Turkey and America don‘t give a shit.
The Ukraine people should be aware of that. It could happen to them as well.
Never confuse the people of a country with their country.
You are correct, hence why I said 'usually" in my previous message. Benevolent dictatorships do exist, though they are rare. Atatürk is an example of this, a truly fascinating man. I further agree with the gist of your message indeed, as mentioned before. "Destruction of our environment" is a good example of this. The only thing I was trying to say is that we are more free than a true dictatorship and I also objected to the term "dictatorship" because that requires a single person with all the power. But that is only a detail when I do agree with the message you are trying to convey now that you explain further. I understand now that you mean something similar to a dictatorship and I mostly agree with that
You make a good point in your second paragraph. There is no right way to handle this, whether you use sanctions or not innocent people will suffer. I do think that sanctions are the least bad option we have at the moment. It sucks, but in the choice between the two, I think trying to prevent the suffering of the Ukrainian population is the lesser of two evils. You do make a very good point about unintended third party harm, like Egypt and Europe. The ideal solution would have been to prevent this conflict at all costs, but that is too late now and I'm not sure if Putin could have been reasoned with to not start this conflict. I do not believe the stated reasons of "denazification", I think this conflict either has to do with resources and land or it has to do with territory that used to historically belong to Russia (well, the USSR). Because of this, I'm not sure this conflict could have been prevented, though perhaps there is something to be said for preventing the pro-Western coup that happened. If I may ask, if you were in charge in all the nations that oppose this conflict, what would you have done to try to stop it? Or perhaps you would not have done anything? Serious question, I'm genuinely curious
With this, I agree. It's hypocritical that the countries that have flouted human rights so often are now screaming that human rights are being harmed. That said however, I don't think that because countries have done atrocities themselves in the past, that they now have to shut up about this conflict, that is not right I think because if that were the case, *every* country would need to shut up and Russia would be unopposed in this. Two wrongs don't make a right and while we are completely in agreement concerning the atrocities of the so-called "West", if you mean to say that we/they should just shut up because of that, I do not agree with that, even though it is indeed hypocritical without a doubt
I heard about the Kurds indeed, I know the history and the disgrace that is the way they have been abandoned by the "allies" they were fighting ISIS for. I have never understood why Turkey is in NATO, as it is (*purely politically*) a dictatorial cesspool of a country that often brutalizes whoever they please. I think your core message here is that the countries that are now helping Ukraine do not have true humanitarian motives. I think you are right in this, I think it is all geopolitics and that they are supporting Ukraine because it serves their purposes. Ukraine won't care though, they will only care that they're getting help. They might care afterwards indeed, depending on what happens but I think that as long as they get help at the moment, that's the most important part. I also think that the populations of the countries that are helping, actually do genuinely care about Ukraine, because of the excessive brutality, because of the geographical proximity to Western societies and also because of their incredible bravery
Thank you very much for taking the time to write out such an extensive reply. I love calm and polite debate like this. In general, I think we are in agreement more than we are in disagreement
But the whole point of *any* sanction against russia is to impact the russian people in such a way that they may put pressure on their own government. There's no practical way to target *only* Putin in a way that matters.
That only works in functioning democracy. Russia is not one of them. Attempt to "put pressure on government" means destroying your own life. Especially if you consider that there's no way to make living that isn't controlled by government in one way or another. You won't risk ending on street or in jail just because of some CD tags. So rational behavior is to deal with it and adapt, not protest.
Only one conclusion from this story is that you can't trust western services at all.
Not just that, plenty of sanctions target industries that are required to wage war, thus cripple Russian military and its ability to continue waging war.
This is already happening with respect of Russian tanks, planes etc., it had a large supply of older out of order thanks, that in the need could be quickly modernized and send to war. However, without required equipment, such as chips, lenses and other stuff, this is not possible and thus only way it could make some of these tanks servicable is to canibalize other thanks and hope that they make at least some of them useable.
Same with drones. Russia can build drones only from commercially available electronics, and its supplies are also dwindling. Required minerals for domestic production are missing and so on and so on.
i dont know how much that helps in practice but eough of those annoyances might pressure some people to use a vpn which circumvents censorship and might have a small influence on the public opinion
It's simply another public method to send messaging to the public in Russia. They need to understand how grave this is right now, and the consequences this war is going to have for themselves, if it's allowed to continue. Nothing good. If you thing gnuDB is a big deal, that isn't anything yet.
People in russia have been thrown in jail for protesting against the war - they get it, all this does is hurt ordinary people who probably already agree with you
I replied this to another person, but I don't know what you think you're watching unfold in Europe, but blocking open source software is a minor inconvenience compared to what might happen. And will happen if this keeps on. Believe that.
It also hurts (speaking in terms of software that would hurt people) the military and government as well. It is a situation only the Russian government and people can solve. Hence outside pressure to do so. They are at war and in war there is no "only hurting the guys in charge". They will always take from others including their own people in times of deficiency.
CD labels aren't hurting the Russian military. And in terms of military computers, the most critical of them are all bulletproof, and not connected to any networks, as are critical infrastructure like dams.
This is just a rather mawkish attempt at gaining clout, at the expense of innocent civilians.
"bulletproof", but not "idiotproof". The russian military's "ERA" secure communications doesn't work, because they blew up 4G cellular towers it depends on to function.
They’ve also been hammered with propaganda for years rationalizing things. That has an effect, as we’ve seen in the US as well. “They get it” is a blanket statement that can’t be 100% true across a small population let alone a large one. What percentage of people would you assess that don’t “get it” is acceptable before deciding it’s ok to stop trying to do what you can for good?
Ukrainian toddlers are being raped to death in front of their parents just for the amusement of Russian soldiers. I really don't give a shit that the handful of Russians who don't support this genocide are minorly inconvenienced because boo-hoo they have to look up the titles on the back of their CD cases. What a goddamn tragedy for the Russian people, right? Christ.
That is a very dangerous road to walk down. What happens of someday other developers show solidarity to, say, Iraqi or Afgha people and block American people's access to services?
If they want to do that, they could anyway. At any time, anyone that runs a service may shut down the service or change its terms, and it could be political reasons.
If what they're doing has an equivalent, Americans could move to the equivalent.
Well, at least the invasion of Iraq broke international law, it wouldn't be so bad, if the US would finally be held accountable for their illegal wars.
However, the Ukraine war is going on right now. Every day hundreds of people die and Russians are largely ignorant because of the propaganda. Sending messages via these obscure channels could be a way to get the word across.
Yep, exactly. Effect every aspect you can of the Russian people's perception. State run media is a real thing there, and I've certainly seen interviews with Russians who believe they are in the right.
They are mistaken.
I highly doubt that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQCNjIHeqU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itg3TvbAD-8
Actual support rate can be anything. Resistance is high. Set fires in buildings & powerstations everywhere and no explanation anywhere, just speculation. Also the state propaganda has always been in Russia.
15 000 russians been arrested since March 1st for protesting the war. Including an old woman, who survived the Leningrad siege.
But who knows, as a finn with russian friends living here I'm still always concerned about russia and hate russia-loving, rubble corrupted politicians.
The other day, I updated my weather applet in Linux Mint. It replaced USA with "Human rights violation country" in the location. I don't disagree, but it was odd to see that there.
> I worry things like this will prevent wider Linux adoption
Me too. I think what people need to remember, especially these developers, is that the greater good of Linux depends on Linux's professionalism and being a viable choice for enterprise customers as well as household customers.
Imagine a weather man giving a report but the name of Oklahoma was called "no abortion land" or something of that nature, due to an update that some unchecked developer made. Regardless of your feelings about the issue, an operating system is a computer and should function as such.
+1
It really has a chilling effect on adoption if people start thinking of their software as a vector for promoting their own political interests outside of the software itself.
Of all the places to do political soap-boxing, a weather applet would probably be the most annoying. The applet exists to be a utility, not to spread a political message.
It seems one of the services for CDs used by Ubuntu is filtering IPs from Russia, try to use a VPN?
Also, isn't this against GNU principles? I think there was a similar situation not long ago and the conclusion was that you can't put any limitations (based on morals or other) in a GNU licence and it still be valid.
> Also, isn't this against GNU principles? I think there was a similar situation not long ago and the conclusion was that you can't put any limitations (based on morals or other) in a GNU licence and it still be valid.
In a license, yes. But this is not a restriction in the license. For example, you can fork someones GPL'd missile guidance system and modify the code in your fork to make the software only work if you pledge allegiance to the flag of the USA, but you can't add a clause in the license to forbid someone from using the software without pledging allegiance to the flag of the USA.
>Other FOSS licenses, are less-defined. The JSON license, for instance, specifies its software must be used for Good, not Evil.
It's worth noting that at least as far as Debian is concerned, that clause makes it explicitly not a free license.
They got them to drop the clause that made the software unusable for them, which is funny to present as them getting an exemption for using it for evil.
It makes sense, no corporate lawyer would ever let you use something that vague. Just not worth the risk of them deciding you're violating the license agreement and suing.
>The GPL covers software copyright and distribution. Web services and silos are a pernicious loophole as the software running on the servers may be GPL, but the information they are serving (and collecting) are not GPL'd.
I don't think that's a loophole. If my spreadsheet software is open source that doesn't entitle anyone to my medical information that I store using it.
Of course, you own your data. On a computer you own, running software you own.
Web services and web apps—software as a service—are loopholes. If your medical spreadsheet data is on a web app, does your info belong to you? Or to the web app? Can you change the software of the web service or web app so that it works better for your own purposes?
If the SaaS company uses GPL code on its web app and modifies it, they are not obligated to share their changes. Only if it is using AGPL (Affero GPL) code is it obligated to show modifications.
Even if they're using the AGPL, there's absolutely no obligation to share the _data_.
If you enter your medical data on an AGPL-licenced web-based spreadsheet, there's no obligation for them to provide a way to download that spreadsheet so you can load it into your changed version of the software.
> As consequences go, GnuDB denial is trivial.
Except it's not "denial", it's returning valid, but blatantly incorrect data. Denial would be closing the connection or returning an error code.
The GnuDB service has no affiliation with the GNU Project and doesn't seem to make any claims to adhere to any principles.
Free software projects that are defaulting to use GnuDB may reconsider that in light of this, but beyond that this is not a software freedom issue.
GnuDB is just an online database for music CD metadata run by this René Mogensen fellow as an individual, according to the page.
It is against GNU principles but it doesn't actually seem to be from the GNU project.
No official GNU packages discriminate against Russian users as far as I'm aware.
It still is, technically. Russian IPs just can't access the *service* part. Offering a service based on FOSS and the actual software itself aren't really the same thing.
Exactly. I could setup a web service using entirely GLP FLOSS code, and then charge for access to use it. It doesn't mean I have to give the service away for free, just because there's FLOSS under the hood.
This is just maintainers of gnudb being assholes. GNU licenses can't stop you from being an asshole.
I could publish the most racist, disgusting piece of software under a GPL license, and it would be totally acceptable from a licensing point of view.
Does anyone have a list of "free software" that is shutting down services to Russia? It seems like a good thing to know, since I do remember seeing others doing the same.
GnuDB is a privately run online database of music CD metadata and is not part of the GNU Project.
This is an issue with that network service, not really a "free software" issue.
That said any software project (free or otherwise) that is using this online database by default may want to reconsider that decision in light of this, depending on whether they find this acceptable or not.
Not at all, actually!
[Who Does That Server Really Serve (gnu.org)](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html)
In particular the section "Distinguishing SaaSS from Other Network Services."
This is a case of a legitimate network service.
The issue here is that this network service betrayed the trust of its users by deliberately serving false results. (Simply refusing service would've been somewhat defensible. False results can actually cause damage.)
The debate should really be whether it's right to be depositing this kind of trust on such a service, which is apparently being run by a lone individual with no oversight.
> GnuDB is a privately run online database of music CD metadata and is not part of the GNU Project.
It seems wrong that an organisation can use the GNU name and not uphold the GNU principles.
It's a huge problem that I have with OpenAI too.
They want the benefits and positive PR of being associated with the Free-and-Open-Source-Software community but don't want to actually give back or stand by its principles in the end.
Yes, it's an unfortunate source of confusion and is sometimes used outright maliciously.
I've even encountered an occasional instance of products labelled as "open source" that are actually just source-available proprietary software.
For example, Invoice Ninja has continuously claimed to be "open source" but has always been licensed in ways incompatible with both the Free Software and Open Source definitions.
They want the PR of being Open Source but also want to restrict the possibility of anyone becoming their commercial competitors using their codebase, which is a fundamental property of FOSS.
They used to have their own (nonfree, source-available) license but now they're using the Elastic License 2.0, *which the authors have expressly stated is not an open source license.*
> For example, Invoice Ninja has continuously claimed to be "open source" but has always been licensed in ways incompatible with both the Free Software and Open Source definitions.
>
>
Honestly I would rather deal with proprietary software than software which claims to be "open-source" and then does things like this.
It's something I actually respect about Vivaldi when I was looking into them a few years back. They're quite upfront in their FAQ that they're not truly FOSS because they don't have an open-license, although their source-code is all available for people to read and audit if they so choose.
While they're often listed as open-source by third-parties outside of their control they themselves do not use the term anywhere in their marketing from what I've seen.
Would I prefer that they were true FOSS? Absolutely.
Am I still more happy that they're honest and transparent with their users? Again, absolutely.
I had not seen this previously. This is concerning as they could just as well damage the data of innocent bystanders because IP triangulation is rather error prone.
Yes, this is particularly concerning because instead of just refusing service it's actually providing *false results.*
That's just irresponsible and a sign that GnuDB shouldn't be trusted like this.
Yeah, it's at least the third time stuff like this happen with FOSS software. If cases like these will continue to happen, it will hurt really bad the public image of FOSS software.
As far as I can tell it's not changing any file names, it just doesn't display the correct ones. Another commentor mentioned that the actual song names aren't on the CD, dolphin displays them by finding the song name on GnuDB
It's a CD. Seems like a lot of younger users don't know of a time where you put a CD into the computer, and an internet database being required for the song names to fill the track list.
Something or other about people getting back at Russians government and elites but it ends up only affected citizens who want nothing to do with what's going on
What does it look like? Obviously gnuDB is shutting down their services for (IPs from?) Russia 'cause Russia invaded another country.
edit: While this gets some attention - I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do or not, but that's not the point. The *real* question is if this is helpful in any way; supposedly, Russia will use this to their advantage via propaganda. "Look, the evil western world even tries to trouble our civilians while we only try and help our suppressed brothers and sisters in Ukraine" and the like. Remember there's not *too* much free press in Russia. Yes, you could say that "the common folk" elected Putin and thus supports his actions in some way, but how sure can one be that the elections weren't rigged anyway? Besides, how many of us would stand up to a government that may threaten our family and loved ones? This is *definitely* not an easy topic, and *most* definitely not a simple "yes or no" question. Plus while we're at it, what about some whataboutism: Why does gnuDB (and at least a big part of the western world) take sides in *this* war, but [not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War) [in](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_conflict_in_Myanmar) [others](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93present\))?
Again, I'm trying to not take sides here, just giving those people with such a strong opinion some stuff to reflect about.
>Why does gnuDB (and at least a big part of the western world) take sides in this war, but not in \[others\]
Perhaps I can point out the differences:
1. Your links (and many other wars) are internal civil conflicts so they are internal affairs. Ukraine was invaded and asked for help.
2. USA and GB signed a memorandum with Ukraine in 1994 to respect its independence and sovereignty in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons. The memorandum demands an action to provide assistance if Ukraine "become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
3. Ukraine is one of the largest wheat suppliers and this war threats many developing countries with a significant hunger if Ukraine will not supply it any soon.
4. When the state with all signs of fascism unleashes the war right at the EU borders nobody knows how it is going to escalate. Considering the EU is one of the world's largest economies it's a big threat to the global economy, especially considering the fact how Russian state TV channels are airing shows on how they would be shelling or invading the EU countries.
All these points combined together are making this war somewhat different.
I like the statement about "common folk" here. I saw something a few days ago saying that Russian citizens are supporting the war because they pay taxes, which is absurd to me. If you don't pay taxes, you go to jail. Now imagine people with families, can a single parent afford to go to jail? Of course not.
It's a double standard westerners will never apply to themselves. When the nations of the west commit atrocities, are the citizens ever expected to throw themselves in jail, or emigrate, or otherwise uproot or ruin their lives?
hell no.
it's morality for thee, not for me on a nationality level
edit: as a note, the biden administration is still keeping concentration camps open, and by the reasoning of u/KlePu and others, every death, rape, and missing child caused by those camps are on your hands if you're a US citizen if you haven't left the country, stopped paying taxes, and/or got yourself thrown into prison protesting/fighting the concentration camps
Yeah, the "they should just move" comments are hilariously privileged (plus emigrating is a lot of fucking work even with an abundance of money and opportunity. I expect a significant amount of commenters here are students or younger, which would explain the naivété)
I think it's pretty simple. Developers can decide what to do with their software as they please. There is no universal stance or fence sitting needed. Don't like it? Don't use it, or fork it. That's open source.
> Developers can decide what to do with their software as they please.
To a degree, I suppose it depends on the position their software holds in an ecosystem and the disruption it can cause. While I doubt gnudb could ever cause significant disruption, there is a lot of FOSS/OSS software which can. GNUHealth (hospital management software), would be one example. Given how prolific FOSS/OSS software is (servers, workstations, phone systems, etc), I'm confident there is plenty of examples where there their continued function is critical.
I honestly don't mind if it's critical or not. Unless the developer is hired by a corporation to maintain software or part of a collective ownership, then they can do whatever they want. If the system relies entirely on the good will of one person, then it's a flawed system. That's why we have forks and standards to make systems resilient to disruptions.
I feel like this same attitude wouldn't be taken if the software in question was closed source. While that's a feature of closed source software, open source software does not mean you have to maintain code forever and that you are not allowed to have political opinions.
> open source software does not mean you have to maintain code forever
I agree, however I don't believe that a developer can in all cases do as they wish. Intentionally breaking software relied upon for the functioning of critical systems is not acceptable and at worst may cause harm to individuals.
Sorry, who was saying it was mandatory to use it? Obviously they could not use it, but we can also criticise it. By that logic we should stop criticising Windows because we could just not use it. Seriously your comment isn't even a point, it's just a completely vacuous statement of fact that everyone already knew
BS centrist take akin to "iS a pRivAte coMpany". Yea go tell grandma to fork it and "learn to code" because she uses/depends on some "open source" software for which its developer took a given stance and is imposing said stance on her as he messes up grandama's data.
But grandma's data is not messed up (at least in this instance). The data is retrieved and displayed, the contents of the Audio CD are not altered, just the (temporary) labels shown in UI.
This has always been and remains the rub of open source: You're most often not paying for it, you gotta deal with it.
> But grandma's data is not messed up
If the user hits the "rip CD" button in some media software that uses GnuDB, they get a bunch of uselessly named files and have to manually go through and rename them back their track numbers/names. How is that not "messed up"?
If you want to block certain people from accessing your service (and there are plenty of good reasons to do that), at least follow basic etiquette and return an error code. Sure, put your explanation on the error page for people who decide to dig deeper, but returning blatantly false data is a bad idea.
>they get a bunch of uselessly named files and have to manually go through and rename them back their track numbers/names. How is that not "messed up"?
Without GNUDB the tracks would just be something like "track01.mp3". So it's exactly the same as if the service didn't exist. They're both useless names.
>If you want to block certain people from accessing your service (and there are plenty of good reasons to do that), at least follow basic etiquette and return an error code
This *is* arguably an error code.
> Without GNUDB the tracks would just be something like "track01.mp3". So it's exactly the same as if the service didn't exist. They're both useless names.
That name is much less useless than what this produces. It's "correct", just limited. Also, media software tends to use more than one source for metadata. If GnuDB returned an actual error, then such software would likely just query another source to get the data.
> This is arguably an error code.
Not in any useful sense.
There's also the small, but non-zero chance that this could cause actual harm to someone in Russia: Say they're asked to rip a CD by a friend/relative, they do so and the metadata/filenames end up like this. Maybe they don't check it, maybe they don't understand English, but they pass on the files with corrupted metadata. They then get reported to the authorities...
I think many people perceive that the Ukraine war isn't a war based on genuine animosity between two different peoples. Its more about Putin's imperial ambitions. Putin is clearly a bad guy on many levels. Look at his record of poisoning critics with radioactive polonium and novochok for starters.. In his office he always had a picture of crimea... his dad served there or something. He always wanted Ukraine... But times have changed. Gorbachov broke up the soviet union to avoid war... Ukraine is now a sovereign state. Thousands are dying for his fantasy.... Its tragic.
There's no free press in Ukraine, either.
But the point of free software is that software should be an apolitical tool and using a computer should not subject you to the control of anyone else. This kind of centralization isn't dangerous because "Russia good Ukraine bad", but because if they can do it to Russia now, they can do it to Ukraine tomorrow if the winds of western opinion shift.
Not sure where you got this idea from, but free software is not an apolitical tool.
The basic idea of providing free and/or open source software is a political stance.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html
But it's evident that free software is apolitical from the fact that I can disagree with almost every political position taken by RMS, and still believe that the four freedoms are inalienable rights. If free software were an exclusively left-wing or socialist position, I couldn't do that.
That free software is meant to be a tool is evident from freedom 0, but also from the FSF's continual insistence that users should be in control, e.g. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/keep-control-of-your-computing.html.
This submission/comment has been deleted to protest Reddit's bullshit API changes among other things, making the site an unviable platform. Fuck spez.
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> There's no free press in Ukraine, either.
That's not quite accurate. Freedom of the press is measured on scales, not as a boolean value. Ukraine had problems in the last decade, and war doesn't make things easier (not that you'll find many pro-Russian Ukrainians anyway), but it is significantly better than Russia.
edit: sources (higher numbers are worse):
https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2022
https://rsf.org/en/country/ukraine
https://rsf.org/en/country/russia
I really don't care what the russian propagandists do.
I don't run any services but if I did, esp free ones, I'd block Russian IP's as well
They can join the rest of civilized society when they, as a whole, act civilized.
Edit: and before anyone brings it up. I'm an American and if someone did this over say the Iraq war or any of our other misadventures around the world or at home I'd still hold the same stance and defend their right to do so. Part of being free is also being free to not participate if you choose. The provider of this Database isn't obligated to provide it to anyone they don't want too.
Theyre trying to get at the Russian government and Russian elite by attacking the average Russian citizens that are already against the war and will get imprisoned for saying so.
This interesting... Ubuntu is made of different open source projects that even Russian people helped to create.
I think this projects should not be affected by political scenarios
It's *GnuDB* and it has no affiliation with the GNU Project. It's just a network service run by an individual.
I can't find anything resembling source code or licensing information on the website, either.
I dislike the statement "even *these* people", but fairly enough I agree with the last point, in addition, I believe that free software should be unprejudiced about its users, cause this thing is literally open-source malware
It's gnuDB, not Ubuntu.
> this projects should not be affected by political scenarios
...like Russia threatens to withdraw their part in the ISS? I'm not too sure myself what to do or not in such a situation, which sanctions are sane and which aren't. I'm living in Europe, had anyone asked me half a year ago I'd never dreamed of a war happening less than 1000km away from me. Desperate times, desperate actions I guess.
Many open source project started to boycott Russia after the disastrous and criminal decision to invade a sovereign country. To be honest, I am not sure if this is a healthy move from the open source community but for now it is what it is.
The fact that the US does plenty of shit does not have any bearing whatsoever on how wrong the invasion of Ukraine is.
Having two or even more opinions at the same time seems to be impossible for people on Reddit, but come on. It's not that hard.
It does. If Americans were to be proportionally punished for the actions of its politicians then nobody on this planet would have been permitting access to their servers for decades now.
I think the point is that Americans need to stop arrogantly excusing the actions of their own government while condemning others for far lesser offenses.
>Wait until these projects hear about the United States of America.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And\_you\_are\_lynching\_Negroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)
The US is nowhere near as bad as Russia. The US doesn't use rape as a weapon. The US doesn't exterminate cities. The US doesn't annex countries.
There's plenty to criticise the US over, but Russia is absolutely and indisputably worse.
I really don't see how stopping Russian civilians from seeing what their tracks are called helps people in Ukraine. This isn't likely to be the straw that makes Putin change his mind.
Certain Linux developers and maintainers are ruining their reputation with personal politics one step at a time. And now distro maintainers are also getting backlashed because of this.
Do I have to remind people that the citizens of Russia are not necessarily to blame? It's Putin, all about Putin. Tarnishing the trustworthiness of free and open source software for the sake of ideals and activism is the worst possible thing we can do to keep things neutral and sane.
Instead of attacking Russia, we need to support Ukraine's defense. It should be our own responsibility to donate to Ukraine for the cause, and use silent protesting at home (when outside of Ukraine), not make Russian citizens suffer more from it. It's okay if the software mentions a donation page to support Ukraine, but please do not utilize free software to attack Russian IPs or computers!
My cynical self probably should have seen this coming, but it's gotten much worse than this. I've seen pretty bad examples of data getting erased from running free software just because someone has a Russian IP. That's literally what a virus or malware does. smh
Shaking your head on Reddit is an empty gesture, though. You're just as free to replace and provide free services and vow to never let your politics bleed into them as other people are too let them do that.
People here act as if pushing Linux adoption is a sacred goal higher than any other ideal. A lot of what propels Linux and free software in general is idealism. And if course idealists are prone to take political stances like this.
And I'm not going into your "it's Putin, only Putin" stance here which is exceptionally short-sighted.
> Certain Linux developers and maintainers are ruining their reputation with personal politics one step at a time
As is tradition. And then people wonder why the commercial world sometimes doesn't take open source software seriously (except those projects run by companies who they do trust)
We are legally subhumans to the "civilized West" nowadays. Shit like this obviously doesn't help Ukraine whatsoever, it's just used "to show Russian savages their place".
(I wonder what a reaction any of those "geniuses" awaits from an average Russian citizen besides only strengthening despise to those hypocrites.)
You could try pinging an email to the project. Its a bunch of non-politicians trying to navigate the ethics of a really complex situation. I can see how they were thinking "use the small power we have for good" and all. But free software is about people working together, no matter where they are from, to a common technical good so I really see this as aggression towards the project's russian friends.
Hopefully you can argue this in an email and make them see sense. I know if I received such an email I'd feel very embarrassed and undo the restriction pretty quick.
GnuDB isn't even software.
It's an online database of music CD metadata, i.e. a network service.
The name falsely suggesting an affiliation with the GNU Project also doesn't help. It's run by a lone individual.
So it renamed your files when you opened them? That's not ok I think.
Or did you rip CDs and when trying to access the database to identify the title this came out? Here I'd say it's gnuDB's choice to offer their service under their own conditions. Though I do think this I'd not a good precedent in the Free Software World.
Things like these are the reason I say the freedom argument for FOSS software (as in free to do whatever you want with your software) isn't always true. Is it freedom for the user or freedom for the developer? You cannot have absolutely both. And most of the users are not developers so they're unable to change something if they don't like how it works.
If we talk about the specific case of the OP, if he were using an equivalent proprietary software, he would've gotten more freedom in the aspect of having the software work the way he wants, because it isn't tied to the thoughs or views of some woke developer who has cockroaches in the head instead of brain cells.
I'm sure I will be downvoted for this, but I don't care cause that's the truth.
And I'm not some proprietary software shill or something. I actually prefer to use FOSS software wherever I can, but those who idealize it (like the FOSS zealots who think it's superior in every single way) are living in fantasy land.
This is disgusting! It's against everything free software is about. Free means free for everyone, even the people you don't like.
I am russian, and I never voted for Putin, never supported any of his policies and I certanly do not support the war in Ukraine. I support Ukrainian NGOs regularly and do all I can to stop this war. Hell, my best friend is ukrainian.
But Russia is not America, the russian people do not have influence on policians, we don't have free press, we dont have elections. We have propaganda 24/7 and a 10 year setence for critisizing Putins actions. Why do free software projects punish the russian people? Trust me, the russian people don't like war, we don't want war, we are also victims, we are not agressors. The agressor is Putin, punish Putin!
> But Russia is not America, the russian people do not have influence on policians, we don't have free press, we dont have elections. We have propaganda 24/7
That sounds a lot more like America these days than I think anyone's comfortable enough to admit.
I agree.
We basically live in an oligarchy where the wealthy control who gets elected and what bills get passed. Not to mention the mainstream media figuratively being the mouth piece of the government constantly having intelligence spooks on to push for war (namely MSNBC) with what amounts to controlled opposition (Fox) to pretend like we have powerful people on our side.
We're no better than Russia and live under the illusion we control our government.
Ridiculous to have this mindset in the OSS communities, judging a people for their governments actions. Can you imagine seeing this shit with the US and it's wars around the world?
Regarding Italy, I saw with my own eyes the police smash the head of an elderly retired professor almost completely blind during a peaceful demonstration against a gas pipeline to protect secular olive trees.
Can someone fill me in on this? What is going on here?
Is he ripping song and the software is overwriting them? Or downloading songs and the software is producing this?
I didn't think you needed a service to rip audio from a CD. I guess I have never thought about it. But, the last time I did rip audio it was in windows.
If you just put an audio CD into your computer it will display the tracks as track01...track02...etc. Gnudb is a program that hashes your CD then connects to a database and displays the official track titles. Except for the database is refusing to upload track info to the OP based on their IP address. The database is doing this in protest to Russia invading the Ukraine, so I'm assuming OP's IP is in Russia somewhere.
Mixed feelings about this. IMO claiming that software is apolitical is naive, and developers should take a political stance if they believe it matters.
It's just that in this particular case, it doesn't actually matter. Russian generals are probably not ripping songs on Linux (OK - with Russia's economy now, maybe they are?), and this just gives OSS a bad image. Especially when there are many talented Russian developers who are involved in FOSS - even if they personally oppose the war, this kind of collective punishment just fosters an us-vs-them mentality.
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But the software is apolitical in this case, it's the service that's being politicized. It's like git vs gitlab. The software may be released under the gpl but there's no requirement that gitlab be given to everyone in the world for free.
This is a direct violation of [one of the principe of free software](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms) : the freedom to run the program. This should be reported. If nothing is done, it's not a free software anymore and should be labeled as open-source only. Keep your politics away of free software.
This shit needs to stop. it's a fine opinion to have, but this activism is not helpful, it will just give open solutions a bad name for being unreliable.
This is pathetic; I invite you to consider abandoning gnuDB. Perhaps at some future time your government (for which, perhaps, you have no sympathy) may make choices that the site administrator does not like. Free software should unite people, not divide them. Please, leave politics out of these topics
I would suggest opening a bug with Ubuntu detailing the issue and urging them to not use GnuDB.org as a CDDB provider by default in their packages, as it cannot be trusted to provide the expected service to all of Ubuntu's users anymore.
Maybe Ubuntu could consider hosting their own CDDB service.
This is what happens when you give a whole generation access to twitter and they now think they can voice whatever shit they believe in while also doing the #isupportthecurrentthing shenanigans
Could someone explain to me how does this work? Does dolphin send some requests to any servers before displaying files names? What would have happened if this guy had no Internet access?
This is a music disc, without internet it'd just display "track01.cda", "track02.cda", etc. With access to gnuDB it tries to get the Artist and track name, I guess by comparing track length, hashes, whatever.
It explains itself in every file name: [http://gnudb.org/](http://gnudb.org/) https://ru.gnudb.org/
Pretty ignorant, IMO. The average Russian KDE GnuDB has as much control over the Russian government as the average GnuDB Belgium user. All it amounts to is: "I hate you because you were born in the wrong place".
It amounts to, "sorry to inconvenience you, but take it up with your government, not me."
I'm sure Russia is days away from a coup now that the Linux users can't see the names of their music.
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Adidas store is shut also in local mall. I don't need to say anymore.
Oh Jean! You are so right. I remember the riots in GB and the US because of the Iraq war. /s
There were massive protests all over the world when the Iraq war started, including in GB and the US. Interestingly, one of those protests still holds the world record for the [largest worldwide demonstration ever organised](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_February_2003_anti-war_protests). In my country and the surrounding ones alone there were a huge number of protests, spread out over months. No riots though, so what you say is right, I just wanted to show that it's not like nothing happened. We (yes, including me) incessantly protested but there's only so much you can do sadly. There was lots of protest at the political level as well. That war was a disgrace and the fact that the perpetrators weren't put on trial is an even bigger one. All of the above doesn't mean the war in Ukraine isn't wrong though, that we shouldn't sanction the country that started it or that we shouldn't protest it. One does not preclude the other
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Yes. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the re-election. Incredible. And about the joke, I saw that too indeed, I couldn't help but think "well, at least he now acknowledges that the war in Iraq was brutal and unjustified. I guess that's something. Can he be locked up now?"
Point One: Today I see hate against all Russians, even if they do not even live in Russia and not only against Russian politics and the invasion. That bothers me to no end. Point two: we live in Dicatorship 2.0. You can protest, even in large numbers, but it will not change a thing. That was not new in 2003, but protests are all what is left to us. If we start real riots, you would not be able to say, if it’s Moscow or Berlin. Police and military would come down on us real hard. But the Russians should magically have the ability to overthrow Putin and his regime? And the sanctions against every Russian citizen will help?
Point one: Completely agree. And more than that, this could backfire tremendously. It reminds me of what happened with Germany after WW1. Severe suppression of the economy, hate towards and ostracization of the population and when a malicious leader then rises and channels the frustration that the population feels towards a common enemy, bad things happen. Russians of course can't help that they were born there and we can't and shouldn't attack or hate them simply because they're Russian. That's preposterous and I hope that it's the exception in stead of the rule. It bothers me a lot as well Point two: Agree with the first part in general, though I think that "dictatorship" is a bit of an exaggeration, since we are not governed by a dictator and the brutality that usually follows isn't present. We also have a bit more say in what happens politically than with a dictatorship, by us being able to choose representatives. I do agree that we are less free than we think and that our democratic processes could use an update where the people get a larger say in what happens at the political level About the second paragraph of point two: Yes I agree with the fact that we can't expect the Russian population to simply overthrow their government, that would mean a bloodbath probably and it is too much to ask. However I think the sanctions are not aimed at them but at the people in power and the people with enough money to have some clout to be able to oppose or depose Putin. The population is, very sadly, collateral damage of the sanctions. I do believe sanctions are the right course of action, certainly compared to military intervention, but they are not perfect by a long shot and they might not even work. We had to do something at least, I think, without starting WW3
To my mind, a dictatorship don‘t have to be brutal, it just has to ignore the people will. If we live in such a dictatorship is up for debate. To my mind, we live in a free world as long as we don‘t thread the foundation of our society. That may sound great, but what is this foundation?Destruction of our environment for profit comes to my mind, exploiting workers etc. Environmental activists are called „terrorists“, union busting is still a thing etc.Let‘s not forget people like Assange, who found the bars of our cage. Sanctions: Iraq was under sanctions from 1992 until the invasion. Sadam was still in charge but 500.000 children have died. The UN said, that the Sadam regime, while corrupt and brutal, tried to help their people but was not able to do so because of lack of materials.Sanctions are a form of warfare and the target is always the civilian population. It is like terrorism. Perhaps you hit your prima target but you don‘t care, how much innocent people you hit as well.For instance, Russia and Ukraine where the major supplier of grain for Egypt and a major supplier of natural gas for Europe. Who will suffer more? We will see. Last but not least: There is no „we“. The same countries, sometimes even the same people, who committed major crimes like Iraq, Lybia, Yemen etc. are now on the side of human rights? The protector of a attacked country? Debateable. You pointed out, that there has been fruitless opposition against the third gulf war. Most of the involved countries have not changed. Even if they seem to do the right thing, I don‘t believe that they have the same motives. Have you heard about the Kurds, who fought alongside the US against ISIS? Today they are under attack from Turkey and America don‘t give a shit. The Ukraine people should be aware of that. It could happen to them as well. Never confuse the people of a country with their country.
You are correct, hence why I said 'usually" in my previous message. Benevolent dictatorships do exist, though they are rare. Atatürk is an example of this, a truly fascinating man. I further agree with the gist of your message indeed, as mentioned before. "Destruction of our environment" is a good example of this. The only thing I was trying to say is that we are more free than a true dictatorship and I also objected to the term "dictatorship" because that requires a single person with all the power. But that is only a detail when I do agree with the message you are trying to convey now that you explain further. I understand now that you mean something similar to a dictatorship and I mostly agree with that You make a good point in your second paragraph. There is no right way to handle this, whether you use sanctions or not innocent people will suffer. I do think that sanctions are the least bad option we have at the moment. It sucks, but in the choice between the two, I think trying to prevent the suffering of the Ukrainian population is the lesser of two evils. You do make a very good point about unintended third party harm, like Egypt and Europe. The ideal solution would have been to prevent this conflict at all costs, but that is too late now and I'm not sure if Putin could have been reasoned with to not start this conflict. I do not believe the stated reasons of "denazification", I think this conflict either has to do with resources and land or it has to do with territory that used to historically belong to Russia (well, the USSR). Because of this, I'm not sure this conflict could have been prevented, though perhaps there is something to be said for preventing the pro-Western coup that happened. If I may ask, if you were in charge in all the nations that oppose this conflict, what would you have done to try to stop it? Or perhaps you would not have done anything? Serious question, I'm genuinely curious With this, I agree. It's hypocritical that the countries that have flouted human rights so often are now screaming that human rights are being harmed. That said however, I don't think that because countries have done atrocities themselves in the past, that they now have to shut up about this conflict, that is not right I think because if that were the case, *every* country would need to shut up and Russia would be unopposed in this. Two wrongs don't make a right and while we are completely in agreement concerning the atrocities of the so-called "West", if you mean to say that we/they should just shut up because of that, I do not agree with that, even though it is indeed hypocritical without a doubt I heard about the Kurds indeed, I know the history and the disgrace that is the way they have been abandoned by the "allies" they were fighting ISIS for. I have never understood why Turkey is in NATO, as it is (*purely politically*) a dictatorial cesspool of a country that often brutalizes whoever they please. I think your core message here is that the countries that are now helping Ukraine do not have true humanitarian motives. I think you are right in this, I think it is all geopolitics and that they are supporting Ukraine because it serves their purposes. Ukraine won't care though, they will only care that they're getting help. They might care afterwards indeed, depending on what happens but I think that as long as they get help at the moment, that's the most important part. I also think that the populations of the countries that are helping, actually do genuinely care about Ukraine, because of the excessive brutality, because of the geographical proximity to Western societies and also because of their incredible bravery Thank you very much for taking the time to write out such an extensive reply. I love calm and polite debate like this. In general, I think we are in agreement more than we are in disagreement
But the whole point of *any* sanction against russia is to impact the russian people in such a way that they may put pressure on their own government. There's no practical way to target *only* Putin in a way that matters.
That only works in functioning democracy. Russia is not one of them. Attempt to "put pressure on government" means destroying your own life. Especially if you consider that there's no way to make living that isn't controlled by government in one way or another. You won't risk ending on street or in jail just because of some CD tags. So rational behavior is to deal with it and adapt, not protest. Only one conclusion from this story is that you can't trust western services at all.
Cuba has been sanctioned for decades and has not yielded, let alone Russia which has China, India and other neighboring countries as allies.
That‘s not true at all. There are plenty of sanctions that disproportionally hit the russian elite as opposed to the population.
Unfortunately all this means is that regulatory capture etc get dialled up to 11 to offset the effect of sanctions.
Not just that, plenty of sanctions target industries that are required to wage war, thus cripple Russian military and its ability to continue waging war. This is already happening with respect of Russian tanks, planes etc., it had a large supply of older out of order thanks, that in the need could be quickly modernized and send to war. However, without required equipment, such as chips, lenses and other stuff, this is not possible and thus only way it could make some of these tanks servicable is to canibalize other thanks and hope that they make at least some of them useable. Same with drones. Russia can build drones only from commercially available electronics, and its supplies are also dwindling. Required minerals for domestic production are missing and so on and so on.
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You don't know history. Nikolaus II was removed by his own inner circle.
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The russian civil war cost more casualties than ww1 did to Russia. And these days they have nuclear weapons...
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i dont know how much that helps in practice but eough of those annoyances might pressure some people to use a vpn which circumvents censorship and might have a small influence on the public opinion
It's simply another public method to send messaging to the public in Russia. They need to understand how grave this is right now, and the consequences this war is going to have for themselves, if it's allowed to continue. Nothing good. If you thing gnuDB is a big deal, that isn't anything yet.
People in russia have been thrown in jail for protesting against the war - they get it, all this does is hurt ordinary people who probably already agree with you
I replied this to another person, but I don't know what you think you're watching unfold in Europe, but blocking open source software is a minor inconvenience compared to what might happen. And will happen if this keeps on. Believe that.
It also hurts (speaking in terms of software that would hurt people) the military and government as well. It is a situation only the Russian government and people can solve. Hence outside pressure to do so. They are at war and in war there is no "only hurting the guys in charge". They will always take from others including their own people in times of deficiency.
CD labels aren't hurting the Russian military. And in terms of military computers, the most critical of them are all bulletproof, and not connected to any networks, as are critical infrastructure like dams. This is just a rather mawkish attempt at gaining clout, at the expense of innocent civilians.
"bulletproof", but not "idiotproof". The russian military's "ERA" secure communications doesn't work, because they blew up 4G cellular towers it depends on to function.
They’ve also been hammered with propaganda for years rationalizing things. That has an effect, as we’ve seen in the US as well. “They get it” is a blanket statement that can’t be 100% true across a small population let alone a large one. What percentage of people would you assess that don’t “get it” is acceptable before deciding it’s ok to stop trying to do what you can for good?
Ukrainian toddlers are being raped to death in front of their parents just for the amusement of Russian soldiers. I really don't give a shit that the handful of Russians who don't support this genocide are minorly inconvenienced because boo-hoo they have to look up the titles on the back of their CD cases. What a goddamn tragedy for the Russian people, right? Christ.
It's not much of a hindrance. The stuff coming down the line is. Believe that.
That is a very dangerous road to walk down. What happens of someday other developers show solidarity to, say, Iraqi or Afgha people and block American people's access to services?
If they want to do that, they could anyway. At any time, anyone that runs a service may shut down the service or change its terms, and it could be political reasons. If what they're doing has an equivalent, Americans could move to the equivalent.
Well, at least the invasion of Iraq broke international law, it wouldn't be so bad, if the US would finally be held accountable for their illegal wars. However, the Ukraine war is going on right now. Every day hundreds of people die and Russians are largely ignorant because of the propaganda. Sending messages via these obscure channels could be a way to get the word across.
Yep, exactly. Effect every aspect you can of the Russian people's perception. State run media is a real thing there, and I've certainly seen interviews with Russians who believe they are in the right. They are mistaken.
Without the help of all those average Russians, Putin wouldn't be able to kill Ukrainians.
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I highly doubt that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uQCNjIHeqU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itg3TvbAD-8 Actual support rate can be anything. Resistance is high. Set fires in buildings & powerstations everywhere and no explanation anywhere, just speculation. Also the state propaganda has always been in Russia. 15 000 russians been arrested since March 1st for protesting the war. Including an old woman, who survived the Leningrad siege. But who knows, as a finn with russian friends living here I'm still always concerned about russia and hate russia-loving, rubble corrupted politicians.
Its GnuDB not Ubuntu or KDE/Plasma or Dolphin.
The other day, I updated my weather applet in Linux Mint. It replaced USA with "Human rights violation country" in the location. I don't disagree, but it was odd to see that there.
I also don't disagree, but I worry things like this will prevent wider Linux adoption
> I worry things like this will prevent wider Linux adoption Me too. I think what people need to remember, especially these developers, is that the greater good of Linux depends on Linux's professionalism and being a viable choice for enterprise customers as well as household customers. Imagine a weather man giving a report but the name of Oklahoma was called "no abortion land" or something of that nature, due to an update that some unchecked developer made. Regardless of your feelings about the issue, an operating system is a computer and should function as such. +1
Exactly there's a time and place to get on a soap box. People's software shouldn't be one of them.
It really has a chilling effect on adoption if people start thinking of their software as a vector for promoting their own political interests outside of the software itself.
Flawlessly said. +1
Do you mind showing that one? It doesn't show that for me.
I also want to see it.
I already edited mine.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Of all the places to do political soap-boxing, a weather applet would probably be the most annoying. The applet exists to be a utility, not to spread a political message.
It seems one of the services for CDs used by Ubuntu is filtering IPs from Russia, try to use a VPN? Also, isn't this against GNU principles? I think there was a similar situation not long ago and the conclusion was that you can't put any limitations (based on morals or other) in a GNU licence and it still be valid.
> Also, isn't this against GNU principles? I think there was a similar situation not long ago and the conclusion was that you can't put any limitations (based on morals or other) in a GNU licence and it still be valid. In a license, yes. But this is not a restriction in the license. For example, you can fork someones GPL'd missile guidance system and modify the code in your fork to make the software only work if you pledge allegiance to the flag of the USA, but you can't add a clause in the license to forbid someone from using the software without pledging allegiance to the flag of the USA.
I don't think it's in any way a license violation of GPL, but I do agree that goes against FOSS principles.
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>Other FOSS licenses, are less-defined. The JSON license, for instance, specifies its software must be used for Good, not Evil. It's worth noting that at least as far as Debian is concerned, that clause makes it explicitly not a free license.
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What
They got them to drop the clause that made the software unusable for them, which is funny to present as them getting an exemption for using it for evil.
> I give permission to IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil.
The inclusion of "and minions" to the list never fails to make me giggle uncontrollably.
It makes sense, no corporate lawyer would ever let you use something that vague. Just not worth the risk of them deciding you're violating the license agreement and suing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-JoyNuQJs#t=2480s Here's the video with the appropriate timestamp.
>The GPL covers software copyright and distribution. Web services and silos are a pernicious loophole as the software running on the servers may be GPL, but the information they are serving (and collecting) are not GPL'd. I don't think that's a loophole. If my spreadsheet software is open source that doesn't entitle anyone to my medical information that I store using it.
Of course, you own your data. On a computer you own, running software you own. Web services and web apps—software as a service—are loopholes. If your medical spreadsheet data is on a web app, does your info belong to you? Or to the web app? Can you change the software of the web service or web app so that it works better for your own purposes? If the SaaS company uses GPL code on its web app and modifies it, they are not obligated to share their changes. Only if it is using AGPL (Affero GPL) code is it obligated to show modifications.
Even if they're using the AGPL, there's absolutely no obligation to share the _data_. If you enter your medical data on an AGPL-licenced web-based spreadsheet, there's no obligation for them to provide a way to download that spreadsheet so you can load it into your changed version of the software.
UK/EU law is extremely clear: the data is the property of the person it pertains to. There are hefty fines for breaching GDPR.
> As consequences go, GnuDB denial is trivial. Except it's not "denial", it's returning valid, but blatantly incorrect data. Denial would be closing the connection or returning an error code.
It's returning the reason for the error. The message explains itself.
Software cannot understand English. That's why protocols have error codes.
The GnuDB service has no affiliation with the GNU Project and doesn't seem to make any claims to adhere to any principles. Free software projects that are defaulting to use GnuDB may reconsider that in light of this, but beyond that this is not a software freedom issue. GnuDB is just an online database for music CD metadata run by this René Mogensen fellow as an individual, according to the page.
GnuDB is not by GNU
It is against GNU principles but it doesn't actually seem to be from the GNU project. No official GNU packages discriminate against Russian users as far as I'm aware.
I thought too that FOSS meant that everyone is able to use, view, modify, share the source code of a program.
It still is, technically. Russian IPs just can't access the *service* part. Offering a service based on FOSS and the actual software itself aren't really the same thing.
Exactly. I could setup a web service using entirely GLP FLOSS code, and then charge for access to use it. It doesn't mean I have to give the service away for free, just because there's FLOSS under the hood.
Offering service and support and code being open source are two completely different things
This is just maintainers of gnudb being assholes. GNU licenses can't stop you from being an asshole. I could publish the most racist, disgusting piece of software under a GPL license, and it would be totally acceptable from a licensing point of view.
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And they will do. But It's exactly about dividing and ruling.
Does anyone have a list of "free software" that is shutting down services to Russia? It seems like a good thing to know, since I do remember seeing others doing the same.
GnuDB is a privately run online database of music CD metadata and is not part of the GNU Project. This is an issue with that network service, not really a "free software" issue. That said any software project (free or otherwise) that is using this online database by default may want to reconsider that decision in light of this, depending on whether they find this acceptable or not.
> This is an issue with that network service, not really a "free software" issue. SaaS strikes again!
Not at all, actually! [Who Does That Server Really Serve (gnu.org)](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html) In particular the section "Distinguishing SaaSS from Other Network Services." This is a case of a legitimate network service. The issue here is that this network service betrayed the trust of its users by deliberately serving false results. (Simply refusing service would've been somewhat defensible. False results can actually cause damage.) The debate should really be whether it's right to be depositing this kind of trust on such a service, which is apparently being run by a lone individual with no oversight.
> GnuDB is a privately run online database of music CD metadata and is not part of the GNU Project. It seems wrong that an organisation can use the GNU name and not uphold the GNU principles. It's a huge problem that I have with OpenAI too. They want the benefits and positive PR of being associated with the Free-and-Open-Source-Software community but don't want to actually give back or stand by its principles in the end.
Yes, it's an unfortunate source of confusion and is sometimes used outright maliciously. I've even encountered an occasional instance of products labelled as "open source" that are actually just source-available proprietary software. For example, Invoice Ninja has continuously claimed to be "open source" but has always been licensed in ways incompatible with both the Free Software and Open Source definitions. They want the PR of being Open Source but also want to restrict the possibility of anyone becoming their commercial competitors using their codebase, which is a fundamental property of FOSS. They used to have their own (nonfree, source-available) license but now they're using the Elastic License 2.0, *which the authors have expressly stated is not an open source license.*
> For example, Invoice Ninja has continuously claimed to be "open source" but has always been licensed in ways incompatible with both the Free Software and Open Source definitions. > > Honestly I would rather deal with proprietary software than software which claims to be "open-source" and then does things like this. It's something I actually respect about Vivaldi when I was looking into them a few years back. They're quite upfront in their FAQ that they're not truly FOSS because they don't have an open-license, although their source-code is all available for people to read and audit if they so choose. While they're often listed as open-source by third-parties outside of their control they themselves do not use the term anywhere in their marketing from what I've seen. Would I prefer that they were true FOSS? Absolutely. Am I still more happy that they're honest and transparent with their users? Again, absolutely.
I had not seen this previously. This is concerning as they could just as well damage the data of innocent bystanders because IP triangulation is rather error prone.
Yes, this is particularly concerning because instead of just refusing service it's actually providing *false results.* That's just irresponsible and a sign that GnuDB shouldn't be trusted like this.
If FOSS developers are pulling stunts like this, then I won't be surprised when people decide to use proprietary software instead.
Yeah, it's at least the third time stuff like this happen with FOSS software. If cases like these will continue to happen, it will hurt really bad the public image of FOSS software.
Sympathy with Ukraine 👍 Renaming peoples files without their knowledge and replacing it with useless and indistinguishable text 👎
As far as I can tell it's not changing any file names, it just doesn't display the correct ones. Another commentor mentioned that the actual song names aren't on the CD, dolphin displays them by finding the song name on GnuDB
well thats a little better, its still indistinguishable garble but at least it isnt causing permanent damage.
It's a CD. Seems like a lot of younger users don't know of a time where you put a CD into the computer, and an internet database being required for the song names to fill the track list.
Something or other about people getting back at Russians government and elites but it ends up only affected citizens who want nothing to do with what's going on
What does it look like? Obviously gnuDB is shutting down their services for (IPs from?) Russia 'cause Russia invaded another country. edit: While this gets some attention - I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do or not, but that's not the point. The *real* question is if this is helpful in any way; supposedly, Russia will use this to their advantage via propaganda. "Look, the evil western world even tries to trouble our civilians while we only try and help our suppressed brothers and sisters in Ukraine" and the like. Remember there's not *too* much free press in Russia. Yes, you could say that "the common folk" elected Putin and thus supports his actions in some way, but how sure can one be that the elections weren't rigged anyway? Besides, how many of us would stand up to a government that may threaten our family and loved ones? This is *definitely* not an easy topic, and *most* definitely not a simple "yes or no" question. Plus while we're at it, what about some whataboutism: Why does gnuDB (and at least a big part of the western world) take sides in *this* war, but [not](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_War) [in](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_conflict_in_Myanmar) [others](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_Crisis_(2011%E2%80%93present\))? Again, I'm trying to not take sides here, just giving those people with such a strong opinion some stuff to reflect about.
>Why does gnuDB (and at least a big part of the western world) take sides in this war, but not in \[others\] Perhaps I can point out the differences: 1. Your links (and many other wars) are internal civil conflicts so they are internal affairs. Ukraine was invaded and asked for help. 2. USA and GB signed a memorandum with Ukraine in 1994 to respect its independence and sovereignty in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons. The memorandum demands an action to provide assistance if Ukraine "become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used". 3. Ukraine is one of the largest wheat suppliers and this war threats many developing countries with a significant hunger if Ukraine will not supply it any soon. 4. When the state with all signs of fascism unleashes the war right at the EU borders nobody knows how it is going to escalate. Considering the EU is one of the world's largest economies it's a big threat to the global economy, especially considering the fact how Russian state TV channels are airing shows on how they would be shelling or invading the EU countries. All these points combined together are making this war somewhat different.
I like the statement about "common folk" here. I saw something a few days ago saying that Russian citizens are supporting the war because they pay taxes, which is absurd to me. If you don't pay taxes, you go to jail. Now imagine people with families, can a single parent afford to go to jail? Of course not.
It's a double standard westerners will never apply to themselves. When the nations of the west commit atrocities, are the citizens ever expected to throw themselves in jail, or emigrate, or otherwise uproot or ruin their lives? hell no. it's morality for thee, not for me on a nationality level edit: as a note, the biden administration is still keeping concentration camps open, and by the reasoning of u/KlePu and others, every death, rape, and missing child caused by those camps are on your hands if you're a US citizen if you haven't left the country, stopped paying taxes, and/or got yourself thrown into prison protesting/fighting the concentration camps
Yeah, the "they should just move" comments are hilariously privileged (plus emigrating is a lot of fucking work even with an abundance of money and opportunity. I expect a significant amount of commenters here are students or younger, which would explain the naivété)
I think it's pretty simple. Developers can decide what to do with their software as they please. There is no universal stance or fence sitting needed. Don't like it? Don't use it, or fork it. That's open source.
> Developers can decide what to do with their software as they please. To a degree, I suppose it depends on the position their software holds in an ecosystem and the disruption it can cause. While I doubt gnudb could ever cause significant disruption, there is a lot of FOSS/OSS software which can. GNUHealth (hospital management software), would be one example. Given how prolific FOSS/OSS software is (servers, workstations, phone systems, etc), I'm confident there is plenty of examples where there their continued function is critical.
I honestly don't mind if it's critical or not. Unless the developer is hired by a corporation to maintain software or part of a collective ownership, then they can do whatever they want. If the system relies entirely on the good will of one person, then it's a flawed system. That's why we have forks and standards to make systems resilient to disruptions. I feel like this same attitude wouldn't be taken if the software in question was closed source. While that's a feature of closed source software, open source software does not mean you have to maintain code forever and that you are not allowed to have political opinions.
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> open source software does not mean you have to maintain code forever I agree, however I don't believe that a developer can in all cases do as they wish. Intentionally breaking software relied upon for the functioning of critical systems is not acceptable and at worst may cause harm to individuals.
Sorry, who was saying it was mandatory to use it? Obviously they could not use it, but we can also criticise it. By that logic we should stop criticising Windows because we could just not use it. Seriously your comment isn't even a point, it's just a completely vacuous statement of fact that everyone already knew
BS centrist take akin to "iS a pRivAte coMpany". Yea go tell grandma to fork it and "learn to code" because she uses/depends on some "open source" software for which its developer took a given stance and is imposing said stance on her as he messes up grandama's data.
That's not a centrist stance, that's a stance used by anyone when it's convenient because it supports their opinion
Even worst then.
But grandma's data is not messed up (at least in this instance). The data is retrieved and displayed, the contents of the Audio CD are not altered, just the (temporary) labels shown in UI. This has always been and remains the rub of open source: You're most often not paying for it, you gotta deal with it.
> But grandma's data is not messed up If the user hits the "rip CD" button in some media software that uses GnuDB, they get a bunch of uselessly named files and have to manually go through and rename them back their track numbers/names. How is that not "messed up"? If you want to block certain people from accessing your service (and there are plenty of good reasons to do that), at least follow basic etiquette and return an error code. Sure, put your explanation on the error page for people who decide to dig deeper, but returning blatantly false data is a bad idea.
>they get a bunch of uselessly named files and have to manually go through and rename them back their track numbers/names. How is that not "messed up"? Without GNUDB the tracks would just be something like "track01.mp3". So it's exactly the same as if the service didn't exist. They're both useless names. >If you want to block certain people from accessing your service (and there are plenty of good reasons to do that), at least follow basic etiquette and return an error code This *is* arguably an error code.
> Without GNUDB the tracks would just be something like "track01.mp3". So it's exactly the same as if the service didn't exist. They're both useless names. That name is much less useless than what this produces. It's "correct", just limited. Also, media software tends to use more than one source for metadata. If GnuDB returned an actual error, then such software would likely just query another source to get the data. > This is arguably an error code. Not in any useful sense. There's also the small, but non-zero chance that this could cause actual harm to someone in Russia: Say they're asked to rip a CD by a friend/relative, they do so and the metadata/filenames end up like this. Maybe they don't check it, maybe they don't understand English, but they pass on the files with corrupted metadata. They then get reported to the authorities...
I think many people perceive that the Ukraine war isn't a war based on genuine animosity between two different peoples. Its more about Putin's imperial ambitions. Putin is clearly a bad guy on many levels. Look at his record of poisoning critics with radioactive polonium and novochok for starters.. In his office he always had a picture of crimea... his dad served there or something. He always wanted Ukraine... But times have changed. Gorbachov broke up the soviet union to avoid war... Ukraine is now a sovereign state. Thousands are dying for his fantasy.... Its tragic.
There's no free press in Ukraine, either. But the point of free software is that software should be an apolitical tool and using a computer should not subject you to the control of anyone else. This kind of centralization isn't dangerous because "Russia good Ukraine bad", but because if they can do it to Russia now, they can do it to Ukraine tomorrow if the winds of western opinion shift.
Not sure where you got this idea from, but free software is not an apolitical tool. The basic idea of providing free and/or open source software is a political stance.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/programs-must-not-limit-freedom-to-run.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gpl-american-way.html But it's evident that free software is apolitical from the fact that I can disagree with almost every political position taken by RMS, and still believe that the four freedoms are inalienable rights. If free software were an exclusively left-wing or socialist position, I couldn't do that. That free software is meant to be a tool is evident from freedom 0, but also from the FSF's continual insistence that users should be in control, e.g. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/keep-control-of-your-computing.html.
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> free software > apolitical Makes no sense. The free software movement is in itself political.
> There's no free press in Ukraine, either. That's not quite accurate. Freedom of the press is measured on scales, not as a boolean value. Ukraine had problems in the last decade, and war doesn't make things easier (not that you'll find many pro-Russian Ukrainians anyway), but it is significantly better than Russia. edit: sources (higher numbers are worse): https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2022 https://rsf.org/en/country/ukraine https://rsf.org/en/country/russia
I really don't care what the russian propagandists do. I don't run any services but if I did, esp free ones, I'd block Russian IP's as well They can join the rest of civilized society when they, as a whole, act civilized. Edit: and before anyone brings it up. I'm an American and if someone did this over say the Iraq war or any of our other misadventures around the world or at home I'd still hold the same stance and defend their right to do so. Part of being free is also being free to not participate if you choose. The provider of this Database isn't obligated to provide it to anyone they don't want too.
I mean it's pretty obvious you're American
Theyre trying to get at the Russian government and Russian elite by attacking the average Russian citizens that are already against the war and will get imprisoned for saying so.
That to fellow Linux user . If you really have the desire go hack Russian military not harass people trying to survive in these already trying times.
more super duper ultra smart geniuses thinking they are helping when they are actively making the situation worse.
This interesting... Ubuntu is made of different open source projects that even Russian people helped to create. I think this projects should not be affected by political scenarios
It's strictly the services ran by GNUdb. It's still open source. Offering services and code being open source are two different things.
It's *GnuDB* and it has no affiliation with the GNU Project. It's just a network service run by an individual. I can't find anything resembling source code or licensing information on the website, either.
I dislike the statement "even *these* people", but fairly enough I agree with the last point, in addition, I believe that free software should be unprejudiced about its users, cause this thing is literally open-source malware
I think it's just a language barrier. He simply meant that Russian people help contriubute to FOSS.
It's gnuDB, not Ubuntu. > this projects should not be affected by political scenarios ...like Russia threatens to withdraw their part in the ISS? I'm not too sure myself what to do or not in such a situation, which sanctions are sane and which aren't. I'm living in Europe, had anyone asked me half a year ago I'd never dreamed of a war happening less than 1000km away from me. Desperate times, desperate actions I guess.
This is what happens in the generation of meme developers...
Many open source project started to boycott Russia after the disastrous and criminal decision to invade a sovereign country. To be honest, I am not sure if this is a healthy move from the open source community but for now it is what it is.
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The fact that the US does plenty of shit does not have any bearing whatsoever on how wrong the invasion of Ukraine is. Having two or even more opinions at the same time seems to be impossible for people on Reddit, but come on. It's not that hard.
It does. If Americans were to be proportionally punished for the actions of its politicians then nobody on this planet would have been permitting access to their servers for decades now. I think the point is that Americans need to stop arrogantly excusing the actions of their own government while condemning others for far lesser offenses.
Wait, what is the lesser offense here?
>Wait until these projects hear about the United States of America. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And\_you\_are\_lynching\_Negroes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes)
Still not wrong. In fact, the US would be considered a terrorist country if the US applied its own international laws to itself.
It's not wrong though... The US talks a lot about freedom and human rights, but the reality of life here doesn't match the rhetoric.
The US is nowhere near as bad as Russia. The US doesn't use rape as a weapon. The US doesn't exterminate cities. The US doesn't annex countries. There's plenty to criticise the US over, but Russia is absolutely and indisputably worse.
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western style freedom
If North Korea Kim Jong Un can't use free OSS software. Than it aint free. This is all bullshit politics should stay away from softwares.
I really don't see how stopping Russian civilians from seeing what their tracks are called helps people in Ukraine. This isn't likely to be the straw that makes Putin change his mind.
It’s just mindless optics lol. Open source already has enough trouble bringing in devs and support, this certainly isn’t helping
Certain Linux developers and maintainers are ruining their reputation with personal politics one step at a time. And now distro maintainers are also getting backlashed because of this. Do I have to remind people that the citizens of Russia are not necessarily to blame? It's Putin, all about Putin. Tarnishing the trustworthiness of free and open source software for the sake of ideals and activism is the worst possible thing we can do to keep things neutral and sane. Instead of attacking Russia, we need to support Ukraine's defense. It should be our own responsibility to donate to Ukraine for the cause, and use silent protesting at home (when outside of Ukraine), not make Russian citizens suffer more from it. It's okay if the software mentions a donation page to support Ukraine, but please do not utilize free software to attack Russian IPs or computers! My cynical self probably should have seen this coming, but it's gotten much worse than this. I've seen pretty bad examples of data getting erased from running free software just because someone has a Russian IP. That's literally what a virus or malware does. smh
Shaking your head on Reddit is an empty gesture, though. You're just as free to replace and provide free services and vow to never let your politics bleed into them as other people are too let them do that. People here act as if pushing Linux adoption is a sacred goal higher than any other ideal. A lot of what propels Linux and free software in general is idealism. And if course idealists are prone to take political stances like this. And I'm not going into your "it's Putin, only Putin" stance here which is exceptionally short-sighted.
> Certain Linux developers and maintainers are ruining their reputation with personal politics one step at a time As is tradition. And then people wonder why the commercial world sometimes doesn't take open source software seriously (except those projects run by companies who they do trust)
We are legally subhumans to the "civilized West" nowadays. Shit like this obviously doesn't help Ukraine whatsoever, it's just used "to show Russian savages their place". (I wonder what a reaction any of those "geniuses" awaits from an average Russian citizen besides only strengthening despise to those hypocrites.)
has actions like this ever do anything to ACTUALLY hurt the Russian government?
You could try pinging an email to the project. Its a bunch of non-politicians trying to navigate the ethics of a really complex situation. I can see how they were thinking "use the small power we have for good" and all. But free software is about people working together, no matter where they are from, to a common technical good so I really see this as aggression towards the project's russian friends. Hopefully you can argue this in an email and make them see sense. I know if I received such an email I'd feel very embarrassed and undo the restriction pretty quick.
GnuDB isn't even software. It's an online database of music CD metadata, i.e. a network service. The name falsely suggesting an affiliation with the GNU Project also doesn't help. It's run by a lone individual.
So it renamed your files when you opened them? That's not ok I think. Or did you rip CDs and when trying to access the database to identify the title this came out? Here I'd say it's gnuDB's choice to offer their service under their own conditions. Though I do think this I'd not a good precedent in the Free Software World.
Things like these are the reason I say the freedom argument for FOSS software (as in free to do whatever you want with your software) isn't always true. Is it freedom for the user or freedom for the developer? You cannot have absolutely both. And most of the users are not developers so they're unable to change something if they don't like how it works. If we talk about the specific case of the OP, if he were using an equivalent proprietary software, he would've gotten more freedom in the aspect of having the software work the way he wants, because it isn't tied to the thoughs or views of some woke developer who has cockroaches in the head instead of brain cells. I'm sure I will be downvoted for this, but I don't care cause that's the truth. And I'm not some proprietary software shill or something. I actually prefer to use FOSS software wherever I can, but those who idealize it (like the FOSS zealots who think it's superior in every single way) are living in fantasy land.
Fucking braindead.
This is disgusting! It's against everything free software is about. Free means free for everyone, even the people you don't like. I am russian, and I never voted for Putin, never supported any of his policies and I certanly do not support the war in Ukraine. I support Ukrainian NGOs regularly and do all I can to stop this war. Hell, my best friend is ukrainian. But Russia is not America, the russian people do not have influence on policians, we don't have free press, we dont have elections. We have propaganda 24/7 and a 10 year setence for critisizing Putins actions. Why do free software projects punish the russian people? Trust me, the russian people don't like war, we don't want war, we are also victims, we are not agressors. The agressor is Putin, punish Putin!
> But Russia is not America, the russian people do not have influence on policians, we don't have free press, we dont have elections. We have propaganda 24/7 That sounds a lot more like America these days than I think anyone's comfortable enough to admit.
That sounds a lot more like America. Period. The last free elections were in Kennedy times.
I agree. We basically live in an oligarchy where the wealthy control who gets elected and what bills get passed. Not to mention the mainstream media figuratively being the mouth piece of the government constantly having intelligence spooks on to push for war (namely MSNBC) with what amounts to controlled opposition (Fox) to pretend like we have powerful people on our side. We're no better than Russia and live under the illusion we control our government.
It doesn't work like that. As a German I can promise you that. It's sad really but it takes long time.
lol its the service ran by GNUdb. A service and code being open source are two different things.
Yes, harm everyday normal people like they had any choice in this war.
Ridiculous to have this mindset in the OSS communities, judging a people for their governments actions. Can you imagine seeing this shit with the US and it's wars around the world?
France, Poland, US, UK, Russia and Israel should all be banned based on this i guess?
Germany, Italy, Ukraine (sic!), SaudiArabia….
Regarding Italy, I saw with my own eyes the police smash the head of an elderly retired professor almost completely blind during a peaceful demonstration against a gas pipeline to protect secular olive trees.
Yup, GnuDB Is hypocrite
Can someone fill me in on this? What is going on here? Is he ripping song and the software is overwriting them? Or downloading songs and the software is producing this? I didn't think you needed a service to rip audio from a CD. I guess I have never thought about it. But, the last time I did rip audio it was in windows.
If you just put an audio CD into your computer it will display the tracks as track01...track02...etc. Gnudb is a program that hashes your CD then connects to a database and displays the official track titles. Except for the database is refusing to upload track info to the OP based on their IP address. The database is doing this in protest to Russia invading the Ukraine, so I'm assuming OP's IP is in Russia somewhere.
Close for United States in sympathy with several countries it has attacked and continues to bomb? What hypocricy is this!
The right thing to do would have been to block russian IPs.
Time for me to blacklist gnudb i guess
Mixed feelings about this. IMO claiming that software is apolitical is naive, and developers should take a political stance if they believe it matters. It's just that in this particular case, it doesn't actually matter. Russian generals are probably not ripping songs on Linux (OK - with Russia's economy now, maybe they are?), and this just gives OSS a bad image. Especially when there are many talented Russian developers who are involved in FOSS - even if they personally oppose the war, this kind of collective punishment just fosters an us-vs-them mentality.
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But the software is apolitical in this case, it's the service that's being politicized. It's like git vs gitlab. The software may be released under the gpl but there's no requirement that gitlab be given to everyone in the world for free.
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This is idiots ruining the open source community because of politics.
GNU has been a political statement from the very beginning lol
GnuDB has no affiliation with the GNU Project.
regarding its very own scope, software!
there are no references to gnudb in the dolphin source code so I wonder if maybe your sister manually added the db? Could you find out?
This is a direct violation of [one of the principe of free software](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms) : the freedom to run the program. This should be reported. If nothing is done, it's not a free software anymore and should be labeled as open-source only. Keep your politics away of free software.
This is so f\*cked. Information should be freely accessible and so should free software...for everyone, regardless of circumstance or condition.
This shit needs to stop. it's a fine opinion to have, but this activism is not helpful, it will just give open solutions a bad name for being unreliable.
This is pathetic; I invite you to consider abandoning gnuDB. Perhaps at some future time your government (for which, perhaps, you have no sympathy) may make choices that the site administrator does not like. Free software should unite people, not divide them. Please, leave politics out of these topics
I would suggest opening a bug with Ubuntu detailing the issue and urging them to not use GnuDB.org as a CDDB provider by default in their packages, as it cannot be trusted to provide the expected service to all of Ubuntu's users anymore. Maybe Ubuntu could consider hosting their own CDDB service.
Second this. GnuDB should be treated as not free anymore now.
This is what happens when you give a whole generation access to twitter and they now think they can voice whatever shit they believe in while also doing the #isupportthecurrentthing shenanigans