The GPL is the GPL... for good and bad (and even Ugly!)

Today I got a "follow" from Podblanc on my twitter account. I get dayly followers I do not know, mosty stupid bots disguised as attractive girls that folow 5k people and have 20 followers (extreem stupid people who fail the Turning test Smiling ).

I always checkout my followers before follwing them, and it looked that this podblanc was human and ... is running a Drupal site at podblanc.com.

There are days that I feel proud. Proud to be part of a community that builds software that helps people to communicate. Proud to be in that community from the early days. So I have seen the tech communities that embraced Drupal as a tool to communicate. And then gave the media companies -new and old media- that had a good and cheap option to facilitate users. And then came the (from US PoV liberal) political parties in the US that enabled relativly unknown persons to run for president-candidate. Then the small local communities around churches, local red cross organisations and even the big ones like Amnesty. And I am proud that I was a very very small part in the world that enabled this.

But I never NEVER have been "proud" to be white. I never thought that one race, religion or sex is superiour above another. I have the luck to have old parents, who have been through what in central Europe is called "The War" (World War II) and have told me about the horrors. I have had the luck to have travelled around the world to see other people, get in touch with other cultures and to have visited Auschwitz. I know the horrors, I know the pain, I know about the waste of lifes.

I am not the hating kind of person, but somewhere deep in me, I hate people who hate people. And yes I do understand the paradox there. But I am not to keen on right winged Neo Nazi's who refuse to learn from the past, or even to accept the past.

So I am not proud that this white-site is using Drupal. I am sad that we created something that can be misused in this way. But like any tool, it can be used for good and bad. It is the person holding the knife that decides to create a sculpture or go for the kill, not the maker of the knife.

Sometime.. just like now. I wish the GPL was "a bit discriminating" for who it was legal to use and for who not. But you can not have a "bit of freedom"; you have it or you dont. And if that is what we are facing, I am proud that I am part of a freedom where stupid white (or black) people can say stupid things about (white or) black people ... using Drupal.

Proud but with a bad taste in my mouth.

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link

you should've not linked him. these people should not get to much attention and links.

@Bert, but cheer up, Drupal

@Bert, but cheer up, Drupal can be at least proud of you.

@Stefan, they are nofollowed, so they won't get much juice here.

I feel sorry for them

I share your feelings Bert, but i do not hate those haters. It think it is a lot easier to feel sorry for them. Sorry that they have been brought up in an environment that didn't teach them the value of all humans. Sorry that they haven't been gifted with enough talents to be able to rationalize their racist thoughts. Sorry that they have a hard time differentiating the good from bad. Sorry that ...
Hating them allows them to take a part of your hard and make it theirs, feeling sorry for them puts them in a more correct perspective: They are sad sad people, and we are lucky not to be in their situation, and to be able to use Drupal for the good.

Be Proud

As long as there have been tools for improving the world, people have been misusing them. I feel proud about modules I've developed and can see on sites like Amnesty International and Greenpeace. For whatever reason, I feel that ultimately what I've done will be used for good. The Drupal community certainly seems to be oriented in such a way. We have a very heavy history in non-profits and for-good measures. That's an encouraging thought, and maybe the future of Drupal will continue to look like it's past.

Thanks for the excellent post and insight to what we're really putting together, better or for worse.

Good Night White Pride!!

Sorry Bert, but I agree with Stefan.
In a better world these people would be ignored by anybody but the law, and straved for attention.
(Here in Berlin often a times it's the same people)

early adopters

Seems they are following this story:

http://podblanc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=859

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