Ethical Considerations Towards Protestware

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Cheong, Marc, Kula, Raula Gaikovina, Treude, Christoph
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Cheong, Marc
Kula, Raula Gaikovina
Treude, Christoph
author_facet Cheong, Marc
Kula, Raula Gaikovina
Treude, Christoph
contents A key drawback to using a Open Source third-party library is the risk of introducing malicious attacks. In recently times, these threats have taken a new form, when maintainers turn their Open Source libraries into protestware. This is defined as software containing political messages delivered through these libraries, which can either be malicious or benign. Since developers are willing to freely open-up their software to these libraries, much trust and responsibility are placed on the maintainers to ensure that the library does what it promises to do. Using different frameworks commonly used in AI ethics, we illustrate how an open-source maintainer's decision to protest is influenced by different stakeholders (viz., their membership in the OSS community, their personal views, financial motivations, social status, and moral viewpoints), making protestware a multifaceted and intricate matter.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2306_10019
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ethical Considerations Towards Protestware
Cheong, Marc
Kula, Raula Gaikovina
Treude, Christoph
Computers and Society
Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
A key drawback to using a Open Source third-party library is the risk of introducing malicious attacks. In recently times, these threats have taken a new form, when maintainers turn their Open Source libraries into protestware. This is defined as software containing political messages delivered through these libraries, which can either be malicious or benign. Since developers are willing to freely open-up their software to these libraries, much trust and responsibility are placed on the maintainers to ensure that the library does what it promises to do. Using different frameworks commonly used in AI ethics, we illustrate how an open-source maintainer's decision to protest is influenced by different stakeholders (viz., their membership in the OSS community, their personal views, financial motivations, social status, and moral viewpoints), making protestware a multifaceted and intricate matter.
title Ethical Considerations Towards Protestware
topic Computers and Society
Cryptography and Security
Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.10019