Sage Sharp

There's no such thing as a free software feature. Yes to all technical decisions being political decisions, but who has a right to impose costs on others? Gov.s do now, think privacy, but gov.s have a poor record representing the marginalized.

I'm a bit confused by your first sentence. What I think you mean is that free software developers don't have a plan or roadmap of features. Is that correct?

My bad! Developers have plan/roadmap but features in the plan or added, have a cost. My Q was who gets to impose the requirement for a feature and its cost?

I think it's interesting that you use the word "impose" when talking about adding features that marginalized groups in tech need. What exactly do you mean by impose?

If not impose, require, mandate, to capture the idea of external to developers agency. One that does not bear the cost of development. Developers are free to agree to any feature. Curious about non-agreement cases.

It's just interesting to see that you assume free software developers aren't people from marginalized groups. That the needs of free software developers defer from marginalized groups, and that marginalized groups are "imposing" their needs and that cost on free software devs.

What your statements are doing is essentially creating an "in group" and an "out group". One group has power in free software, and the other is advocating for things people in power don't need. People from marginalized groups are "imposing" on a more privileged group.

There are several assumptions there. 1) That people from marginalized groups cannot rise to power in free software, and 2) that leaders in free software see meeting marginalized groups needs as an imposition. Neither of those assumptions are true. I suggest you examine your bias.

+1! on "All technical decisions are political decisions." All features have a cost. Who decides on the cost / feature tradeoff? Is an English only interface unjust if never marketed to a Hindi audience?