I've no doubt that this would be a different discussion if Mozilla was being funded by the Russian or Chinese (or any other country's) government. I've no doubt that many of the points you make would be relevant, and that I would resoundingly agree with them.
But almost everything you've said rests on this notion that Yandex and Baidu are de facto arms of the Russian and Chinese governments respectively. What is your reasoning for this, other than abiding by the laws of those respective countries? ~Leo On 25/11/14 17:29, Adam Porter wrote: > On Monday, November 24, 2014 12:09:21 PM UTC-6, Gervase Markham wrote: >> Having been recently in China, and seeing how broken Google's stuff is >> (like, everything, including analytics), your choice in China is to ship >> a search engine which does what the Chinese government wants, or not >> ship one at all. >> >> Are you advocating we not ship one at all? > > I advocate sticking to the principles upon which one's mission is founded. > If you compromise them, what do you have left? Utilitarianism does not lead > to liberty. > >> What would you have our policy be? We don't do deals with any company in >> a country where the government exercises control over the activities of >> those businesses, and has a poor human rights or international relations >> record? People from some perspectives might argue that list should >> include both the US and UK. > > There seem to be two separate issues here: > > 1. Which search engine to ship as the default > 2. From whom to accept funding > > People seem to be missing the point here. Hearing criticism of a > government, they leap at the chance to criticize the United States, a > popular pastime now. They reply with whataboutism, complaining about > the "evil" United States, implying that it's therefore acceptable to > be funded by what are effectively arms of the Chinese and Russian > governments. > > Hey, the U.S. government has done many things which were not good. > The United States itself was founded upon the premise that governments > have great potential to do evil; that's why the U.S. Constitution says > what it does. The U.S. government has also done many good things, and > continues to do so. The amount of foreign aid money given to nations > in trouble is enormous, and the U.S. military is even deployed to help > Ebola victims, building wards, testing blood, and flying people around > Liberia in helicopters. How easy it is to overlook one side and focus > on the other. > > But all that is beside the point, a distraction from the real problem. > Google and Yahoo--despite the existence of things like the NSA and > FISA courts--are not de facto arms of the U.S. government. Being > funded by them is not equivalent to being funded by the > U.S. government. > > That is not the case in China and Russia. > > One could make a case for shipping a functional default search engine > for a locale rather than shipping none out of protest. One could also > argue for shipping none out of protest; would doing so really stop > anyone from using the Internet? I think not--but taking a principled > stand might eventually contribute to positive change. > > But all of that pales in comparison to the issue of being funded to > the tune of, presumably, millions of dollars per year by the Chinese > and Russian governments. That is the real problem here. > > As I said, I don't see how that could be considered acceptable in > light of Mozilla's stated mission and values. Hey, I'm just a "fat > and happy" American armchair general who can sit back and write emails > from the comfort of my home. But what will people in these countries, > who are subject to these draconian laws and ruthless governments, > think about Mozilla when they hear that Mozilla is being paid by what > are effectively agencies of their oppressors? If the ends justify the > means, then we are no better than the governments whose policies and > actions we decry, and, in a sense, we have already lost. > _______________________________________________ > governance mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance >
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