
Uninstall Notepad++ if you have voted for FN - Raed667
https://www.facebook.com/Notepad.plus.plus/photos/a.415602275158777.114707.172758639443143/1036894516362880/?type=3
======
codeshaman
Software licensing under politically motivated terms is not entirely
unreasonable and I think we should start doing it more.

For instance, I totally disagree with the fact that open source software ends
up powering weapons or are used as tools to repress and control people.

GPL is one example of a socio-political cause enforced upon it's users. So why
not use licensing for other socio-political causes ?

My next open source library will definitely have clauses like:

\- Cannot be used for terrorist activities of any kind. May God strike you
down if you do.

\- Cannot be used inside military apps. You agree to immediate capitulation
the moment the first line of my code is executed inside a military appliance.

\- Cannot be used by certain political parties, governments, etc.

I mean, it's nice to be nice to everyone, but fuck it. There're lots of
assholes out there who's success is not in my interest or anyone else's
interest, except a group of delusional leaders. I don't want to be a
contributing factor to their success. Let them write their own software.

So free software developers can and should get creative with this. I don't
know a lot about this particular Notepad++ case, but I totally agree with what
the author did - it's his choice after all.

~~~
dchest
Remember that license is not something you just write and feel good about:
with copyright laws, you are granting governments a permission to use violent
force to enforce its terms. Make sure you _really_ want to do this.

~~~
codeshaman
True. Copyright laws are a sneaky backdoor which I can use to install my own
political agenda. The government will be using the threat of violence to
enforce _my rules_ against violence. Muhaha :)

------
song
During the SOPA/PIPA legislation, multiple websites went dark to protest
against the legislation. People in HN applauded it. Why is it now childish for
an opensource software developer to express his disappointment in this way?

What is the difference?

The FN is a fascist party, as an immigrant living in France the author is
concerned about this development and I understand him. Plus, honestly for
people who voted FN, they might as well follow their "thoughts" (prejudices)
through and stop using software made by hated immigrants.

As a French person, I'm ashamed that this country will now join the ranks of
Italy and Austria as a country that elected fascists leaders.

~~~
thiht
>The FN is a fascist party

No it's not, if it was it would have been forbidden long ago according to
french laws.

I suggest you check the definition of fascism, you'll be surprised who
currently fits in the definition in France.

~~~
LBarret
It is not forbidden, but it was condemned many times including for talk about
concentration camps or jews. For a long time, it was borderline.

And It has a very dark history: \- During the Algeria war, its founder (JM Le
Pen), then in the army, used torture. \- In the 90', the security force of the
FN (Skinheads) killed a man (throwing him in the Seine).

Nowadays, its communication is way less agressive but it is the same core.

Currently, of its voters : \- 92% thinks there are too many non-white people
in france \- 36% of its voters thinks some races are superior to others.

FN played its card well : it convinced many french that their current economic
distress is caused by immigrants, Europe and anything coming from outside. Its
political agenda is a big pile of fantasy about the France of 50' (powerful
and white). And its economic program is laughable.

Well, that would be fun if it wasn't so serious and so sad.

------
mrmondo
Is it just me or does Facebook seems like a really strange place for software
announcements?

~~~
fenomas
It's more of a random political rant, surely. (and what better place than
Facebook for that?)

------
r-w
I’m no fan of any party that advocates xenophobia in any form, but this is no
way to change minds. Still, I wouldn’t call it childish for the dev to use his
platform to speak out against anti-immigration policy: calling someone
“childish” is an unnecessarily condescending way of saying you think their
actions aren’t well-thought-out. If you argue it’s an abuse of power, take a
look at the Web’s response to SOPA/PIPA and tell me the objective difference.

------
gotchange
Very childish of him to make this statement.

He could have presented his case to his constituency and demonstrated that
immigrants bring a lot of positive things to their new communities and
persuaded them to change or soften their position without being rash or
confrontational.

Very disappointing and counterproductive.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
This is merely a form of protest. Are you claiming that any form of protest
other than the - rather vague - one you've proposed is invalid?

~~~
gotchange
I didn't question his rights to protest however he deems fit. I just brought
up the point that he could have done better to achieve his political goals
without resorting to escalation or inflammatory rhetoric esp. since this is
his first communique regarding this issue.

Brinkmanship and belligerence don't work most of the time and you have to seek
a gradual and pragmatist approach to tackle social causes.

------
zapu
Gladly. There are better editors out there whose authors do not try to make
political statements, as if their opinion mattered more because of software
they happened to produce.

~~~
mintplant
You know FN is Front National, France's neo-Nazi party - right? I don't see
the problem with an open source project using what influence it has to take a
stand against that.

~~~
jdjdhnxn
This is wrong. It may have in the past, but now it's more like the Donald
Trump party. They've expelled neo-Nazi members like Le Pen's father.

~~~
mintplant
It was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a well-known and outspoken neo-Nazi, who
led the party up until just four years ago. Currently his daughter is in
charge.

edit: jdjdhnxn edited their comment either while I was responding or after I
had responded. I'm not sure which.

~~~
jdjdhnxn
Yes, and they've excommunicated him from the party as well as every other Nazi
sympathizer. The Democratic Party had KKK members too in the past. Is it fair
to call them a neo-Nazi Party too?

~~~
mintplant
You're comparing a span of decades to a span of _four years_. And I dispute
the claim that every neo-Nazi influence has been expunged from the party,
especially when control remains in the same family as the original leadership.

~~~
jdjdhnxni
The FN is seeing a very rapid rise in support among French Jews. I don't see
how you can call them a neo-Nazi party when (a) they've publicly taken a stand
against anti-semitism, (b) they've expelled all Nazi sympathizers, and (c) a
large number of French Jews support them.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-24/anti-
immig...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-24/anti-immigrant-le-
pen-finds-rising-jewish-support-in-france) Opinion polls like Ifop show
Cukierman’s comments reflect a growing reality. Between the last two
presidential elections in 2007 and 2012, Jewish voters supporting the FN, the
party’s acronym, more than tripled. The shift came after Marine Le Pen took
over the helm in 2011, steering clear of her party-founder father Jean-Marie
Le Pen’s anti-Semitic stance. In a comment to Bloomberg on the side lines of a
conference in Paris Tuesday, Marine Le Pen made common cause with France’s
Jews.

“It’s the rise of Islamism that hits, hurts and kills,” she said. “It’s time
to fight the danger threatening French Jews.” She welcomed Cukierman’s
comments, saying “his words reveal an internal debate within the Jewish
community. The comfortable idea that anti-Semitism is a right-wing theme is
not true anymore and hasn’t been for decades.”

------
restalis
Wow, this is radical! Don't forget that politics is a miserable thing
(although we'd love to dress it clean about the topics we care). There is
enough politics in FOSS about the FOSS, we surely don't need to bring more
about something else! Please abstain yourselves from following this
regrettable example of Notepad++.

------
SnaKeZ
Unprofessional, this kind of announcement is childish

~~~
morsch
I agree on both counts. Whereas voting for the racist FN is detestable.

~~~
hbogert
Not respecting a democratic party is detestable.

~~~
charliesome
What?? So all parties, no matter how vile or detestable their actions or
beliefs, deserve my respect simply because they exist within a democratic
system? That is a ludicrous argument.

------
nraynaud
In France the left is still feeling guilty about the 1938 Munich conference
and the whole Pétain government, so we feel that if shit hits the fan, our
prior behavior will be judged too.

------
iqonik
Excuse my ignorance, what is FN?

~~~
sofaofthedamned
Front National, the right-wing anti immigration party in France. - clicked the
wrong 'reply' button before.

~~~
danilocesar
Far right, extreme right, radical right or even fascist right...

~~~
sofaofthedamned
Yeah I wasn't specific, was typing in a rush on the phone!

------
free652
He need to update his license from GPL then.

~~~
fenomas
Why? He didn't relicense his software to keep certain people from using it. He
just got on facebook and ranted. Everyone's still perfectly free to ignore
that and use his software, or not, or anything else.

I'm really confused why so many commenters seem so put off by this.

------
drinchev
Cool. I'm also living in a different country than the country where I was
born.

I also hate discrimination as much as the OP.

Sadly I don't believe the control is in our hands. Usually people choose their
governments via media nowadays and media are really, really bad.

I would suggest the author to forbid TV/Websites using his editor for
commercial purposes if they run political campaigns. That will surely have
great impact than discriminating people that have been vacuumed by that fake
rush of "loosing our nation", etc.

~~~
RightWingRabble
> Usually people choose their governments via media nowadays and media are
> really, really bad.

In the US maybe, but not in france. There's been very little pro-nationalist
coverage in france, even after the attack. The rise of nationalism has more to
do with the french observing the changes happening in their own neighborhoods
and not wanting their country to become an Islamic nation.

------
leni536
Better change the license then?

~~~
dchest
Maybe format the hard drive of FN voters?

------
hokkos
This guy is not very tolerant himself :
[https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=7828492418...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=782849241825586&id=100003015530248)

what he said is worst than anything the present FN has said.

------
egeozcan
I'm also an immigrant, I'm living in Germany. It is probably not surprising to
most that I despise all flavors of nationalism.

On the other hand, these are all irrelevant when I see someone abusing their
status or reach to spread a political message, whatever the content. It's
irritating.

~~~
notjosh
Hehe, well if you're in Germany, you can't use Treefinder
([http://www.treefinder.de/](http://www.treefinder.de/)) then.

> Starting from 1st October 2015, I do no longer permit the usage of my
> TREEFINDER software in the following EU countries: Germany, Austria, France,
> Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark - the countries that
> together host most of the non-european immigrants.

~~~
egeozcan
Ah, exactly what I'm trying to point. Now we would have to find a liberal-
friendly version of that software if we needed it? It would really hinder
progress if this were to become a "thing". I find it destructive when authors
of software with a "Google Reader effect" on their market (maybe this is not
so for the "Treefinder" example, I'm talking in general), abuse their position
to push for their political agenda.

------
chatsap
People have their own POV. It should be respected. There are other ways to
voice intolerance for a particular political party or belief. Arm twisting
people because you have the best text editor doesn't sound right.

------
746F7475
Does someone actually still use Notepad++? Everyone I know has moved on years
ago and now with Atom and stuff there really doesn't seem to be any selling
points.

~~~
free652
It's much faster than Atom, try big log files :-)

~~~
746F7475
Why wouldn't you just less that?

------
lostmsu
Seems like it is a good way to peacefully fight religion.

------
TurboHaskal
Typical leftist reaction on undesired democracy outcomes.

~~~
pluma
As a German let me be the first to point out that "democracy outcomes" aren't
inherently morally superior.

Pre-WW2 Germany was a democracy. The NSDAP was a political party in a
democratic system. Hitler was an elected official before Germany became a
dictatorship.

This is why most democracies have constitutions and a separation of power.
Without oversight holding it accountable, democracy is no different from mob
rule.

~~~
r-w
Cluocracy!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CLUE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CLUE)

