The Xz story from [last month](https://simonwillison.net/2024/Apr/5/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor/), where a malicious contributor almost managed to ship a backdoor to a number of major Linux distributions, included a nasty detail where presumed collaborators …
  • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
    7·
    6 months ago

    Meredith Whitaker, the president of Signal, said “I keep brooding on the way the xz backdoor was enabled in significant part via weaponizing the FOSS [free and open source software culture of shitty behavior and abuse.”

    “What is striking is that the uncool, mean standards of FOSS conduct that many of us have decried for years, and that many defended as authentic, tough, etc., ended up not just being exclusionary loser behavior, but a significant attack surface.”

    Emphasis mine.

    A software economy based around sharing and openness is not compatible with whatever the fuck you want it to be. If you want decent software, provided for free, then be a decent human.