A Cautionary Tale of Open Source Social Technologies

eweekhickins writes "The 'country' drop-down menu on one organization's donations pages omits Israel as a country and includes 'Palestine.' Among other things, this means that Israelis can't donate to the organization from these pages; it also presents the risk of a PR nightmare for the organization. This EWeek story cautions that while basic Web 2.0 technologies combined with open source can be incredibly powerful and productive, they can also lead to disastrous results for an organization that isn't paying close enough attention."

Not just Open Source

[quanticle]

I don't know why EWeek is specifically highlighting open source software. I don't see how closed source software is immune from this concern.

If you're a nonprofit, you need to look at all the software you're, open-source or not. If you're using software you need to examine it to make sure its not sending a message at odds with your organization.

Re:Not just Open Source

[HiThere]

It actually makes a bit of sense, as FOSS projects are more likely to make choices that a business might recoil from.

More likely though, EWeek is just being afraid of the new and different.

You mean that clicking "Accept Defaults" is risky?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This particular anecdote is rather punchy, as stories of the "OMG if I say something about geography on te7 interwebs someone willz hate me!!!111" variety generally are; but the connection with open source software seems deeply tenuous and circumstantial.

I, for one, am shocked, shocked that a program might not have sane defaults for every situation, particularly if "sane" is not terribly well defined.
As for the payment processing thing, various sorts of black holing of countries based on their dubious reputations is not an "open source" thing, or a "closed source" thing or, for that matter, anything to do with code at all. It is wholly a matter of CYA and cost/benefit calculations, no matter what software the vendor doing the deciding is running. An interesting anecdote about the complexity of doing stuff that seems simple; but barely source related at all.

Re:OMG! OSS means people can make a statement

[Tubal-Cain]

OSS means people can make a statement

The problem is that the developer made a statement that the non-profit didn't want to make, and the non-profit didn't notice beforehand.

Fuck em

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife is in charge of online donations for a large international relief agency, and she recently received a strongly worded e-mail from the leader of a pro-Israeli group accusing her organization of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and threatening to spread the word among potential Jewish contributors--not a good thing.

I'd be tempted to tell them to go away on principle, until they can be a little more polite. This group should be ignored until they start to act rationally, why can't they politely ask for -- what is obviously a mistake -- to be rectified?

If this is how pro-Israeli interests work. It tells us a lot about their occupation of Gaza and attitude to groups outside their own.

Long story short: get back to the kids table, come back when you've got the maturity to treat other human beings as equals.

so fix it already!

[spikedvodka]

It's Open Source... How hard can that be! I mean really. it might be 2 lines of code more, or (if done right) just another database entry.

It isn't rocket surgery people. that's the strength of OSS, you *can* fix it without having to beg for a fix from your vendor!

Re:Interesting story...

[Brian Gordon]

I'm sure to classify it as FUD. They're just bawww bawing because someone forgot to add their country to some (noncomprehensive) list. If Madagascar or something were missing, nobody would bat an eye.. but just because it's Israel it's a huge issue. Come on, by shrieking foul over non-issues like this they muddy the waters of real problems with racism.

I pointed out that this isn't just any omission and addition. When you omit Israel and add Palestine (which is not even recognized as a country by the United Nations) to a country drop-down menu, you seem to be making a very loaded political statement.

Ugh, this is not a story.

This isn't the case on the agency's own site, but it was the case on the pages for Causes, which puts widgets...

Facepalm.

Re:Possibly.

[drooling-dog]

And unless you have a similar political bent, you'd never notice it. At least until someone who did have such a bent brought it to your attention.

Of course if it's FOSS you could fix the problem right away, with or without the cooperation of the original developer(s)...

Re:so fix it already!

[Tubal-Cain]

The lesson to be learned here isn't that FOSS is bad, but that people using FOSS should look at what they are using a little more closely before the public gets to interact with it.

Web 2.0

[kaos07]

Wtf does this have to do with the crap that is "Web 2.0"? When has giving a donation been considering "Web 2.0"? Online donations have been around since forever. Well I guess everything else that is labelled "Web 2.0" such as social networking and user generated content has been around forever as well, so from that stupid and pointless viewpoint I guess it would be "Web 2.0". Did Kdawson post this story?

Re:Not just Open Source

[morgan_greywolf]

If you RTFA, you'll find that the reasoning behind the decision is one you're more likely to find from businesses than from FOSS projects. Israel was among the list of countries from which they were receiving overly many fraudulent donations.

So an organization that is developing a particular open source -- or even closed source -- software tool might make business decisions that are incompatible with your own?

Shocking! Shocking, I tell you!

Re:So What?

[Vectronic]

Not really, its a decent immediate decision for a temporary duration (over the weekend maybe), but what they should have done is made the sign-up/donation system to better to weed out bogus donations.

Just because Israel may not support them as much as a different country, it may not mean that the per-capita support wasn't equal.

I'm sure they get a lot of bogus donations from the US, UK, etc, but they also get a lot of legitimate ones as well. So they were just willing to sacrifice Israel as a whole, and thus the bogus, as well as the legitimate donations.

So yeah, I agree, "so what" but I don't think it was the right decision from either a profit, or a beneficial to the cause perspective.

Can't understand where is the problem

[gmuslera]

neither why is open source per se or social networking potential culprits there.

- Palestine appearing in the countries list because is a (valid?) short form of "Palestinian Territory, Occupied". If isnt valid is not Web 2.0 or open source fault, was a developer decision that could had been taken in any part of the chain (i agree that the chain in this particular case is pretty long).

- Israel not listed because, as with other 14 countries, their IP space is very used by fraudsters. Maybe with spam is easier to understand... If Israel were responsible for 80% of world spam, and because of that becomes filtered from a lots of mail servers (lots of countries used to be widely filtered because of spam coming from them), that would be anti-semitism of those servers admins? Maybe a bit worse, if an israeli ISP a lot of spam is being sent, and it ends a rbl (if behaves badly that way, will end in most), would be antisemitism too?

Is a nice spin to blame web 2.0 and open source for things that dont implies them to happen. Next big hurricane, if being tracked by web 2.0 sites and with open source software, will be blamed to them too.

Free will and determination.

[lightversusdark]

My company does exactly this, and it is a conscious decision.
Anyone that tries to tell us that we "can't" do business like this needs to join the free world.
And to be blunt, it is really only a PR nightmare for American companies.

No trolling in submissions please

[martin-boundary]

Please don't bring the Israel/Palestine mudwrestling into slashdot. The walls have just been freshly painted, and it's not fundamentally a technology issue anyway, since those lobby groups will latch onto anything for publicity.

Meh

[sentientbeing]

FUD. The pro-Israel activists are more annoyed that Palestine is recognized and is in the drop down menu more than Israel being omitted.

They spend a lot of time discouraging recognition of Palestine as an independent state and at every opportunity. Re-read the article again with that in mind. Palestine certainly IS a country and is recognized by many others around the world. The UN reference is a red herring. Israel occupies Palestine with military force.
Take note that it was a pro-Israel pressure group that started this 'controversy' with immediate threats to the developers.

Re:Interesting story...

[Detritus]

So you would be happy if they replaced "Israel" with "The Zionist Entity"? Whether or not you think it matters, it's important to many people. Maps are political statements, as are lists of countries and their names. Pretending that Israel does not exist is a common practice in the Middle-East.

What a dumb conclusion...

[Viceroy Potatohead]

It might as well read: "A Cautionary Tale of Closed Source Social Technology". Go check ten random sites with nationality registration. Chances are, "Israel" is on the list, but "Palestinian Territory" isn't. They are no more indicative of the failure of closed source than this is of a failure of open source.

I wonder how many times they've bitched about the omission of Palestine... gee, none? What a surprise. Hypocrites.

I'm a little bitchy, but one can't play the anti-semitic card every time Israel is omitted/criticised. It devalues everybody.

Re:Interesting story...

[Bandman]

While I sympathize with the Israelis in this case, it's open source, right?

Fork it and add your country. Then make it better software than it was originally. Hit them where it hurts.

Re:Fuck em

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a mistake?

The courteous way to deal with people is to assume that they've made an honest mistake before throwing around conspiracy theories and wild accusations of rascism and religious hatred.

Their stance is reasonable.

What their stance: that a product should be boycotted and that an organisation must be anti-Semite and anti-Zionism, based on a country options drop-down box is reasonable?

Someone who isn't acting like an arrogant, spoilt child would simply point-out the error and ask that it be fixed. Then if nothing happens, perhaps send a stronger letter. Sending a threatening flame-mail, right off the bat, makes this group look like a bunch of arseholes (in my opinion).

They look even more antagonistic and stupid when the reason for the ommission of Israel is taken into account. It is due to being on an online fraud black list:

Due to high rates of fraud, donations to U.S. non-profits are not accepted for cardholders from the following countries: Ukraine, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Israel, Nigeria and Ghana. We apologize for any inconvenience, and are working hard to support donations from more of these countries.

Re:What a dumb conclusion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many times they've bitched about the omission of Palestine... gee, none? What a surprise. Hypocrites.

Hypocrites? Hardly. Palestine is not a country. Period. It might be in the future, but it isn't a country right now. On the other hand, Israel is a country, recognized by the UN, and all countries except most of the Arab/Muslim countries.

Given that most of the Arab/Muslim world denies that Israel has a right to exist, they are sensitive to things which make it look like Israel does not exist.

FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

This is nothing but FUD and here's why.

Any organization using FOSS and/or COTS has to understand its need to QA the combination of parts. This is also true when you write your own software.

Don't be so gullible.

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[bsDaemon]

Yes, that would be anti-semitism by the new definition.

An anti-semite used to be someone who hated Jews. Now an anti-semite is someone hated BY Jews. YOu don't need to look much farther past Jimmy Carter to see what I mean.

Carter, who is hardly a skinhead, was recently lambasted for being an "anti-semite" for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, its not OK to use tanks to fight kids with rocks.

Apparently, if you don't support the murder of palestinians, you must clearly support the murder of Jews. If you're not 100% pro-israel, then you'll hear the bloody curdling screams of "racist nazi holocaust 911" until you relent.

There is really no way to win. Sucks, but there it is.

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

An anti-semite used to be someone who hated Jews. Now an anti-semite is someone hated BY Jews. YOu don't need to look much farther past Jimmy Carter to see what I mean.

Carter, who is hardly a skinhead, was recently lambasted for being an "anti-semite" for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, its not OK to use tanks to fight kids with rocks.

Absolutely false. Israel doesn't use tanks to fight kids with rocks. Israel uses tanks against fighters well-armed with rifles, machine guns, mortars, rockets and RPGs.

Carter was criticized by many for suggesting that Israel was akin to Apartheid South Africa. There is no apartheid in Israel.

Arab & Muslim citizens of Israel can vote, run for office, say anything they want, print anything they want, follow any religion they choose, work in any profession they choose, serve on the supreme court, and sue the government (and sometimes win). Doesn't sound like apartheid to me.

These are all things that are sadly lacking in most Arab & Muslim countries. Why are Arab & Muslim countries not accused of apartheid?

In fact, refugees from Sudan [npr.org] try to get to Israel. Isn't that odd? Even more strange, Sudan is actually still at war with Israel. Why would someone voluntarily choose to live in an enemy foreign country under apartheid?

Re:What a dumb conclusion...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this flamebait?

Palestine is not currently recognized as a country. Israel is currently recognized as a country.

Those are objective facts. If you can't accept objective facts you really ought to get your head examined.

Re:Fuck em

[vandan]

This group should be ignored until they start to act rationally, why can't they politely ask for -- what is obviously a mistake -- to be rectified?

That's not how the Zionist lobby operates. They don't rely on courteous behaviour and goodwill. They bully people into submission by crying 'anti-semite!' and threatening to 'go and tell the whole Jewish community'.

Bad, bad title

[rootpassbird]

So, the next time we write code using FLOSS libraries, we must read every line of code?
How productive is that?
Where should I stop - 1000 lines, 10k, 100k, or all of the millions of the Linux kernel?

From the Big Fucking Manual:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#believe2 [catb.org]

Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better.

Bah! stop the discrimination, you lofty fscking overlords.
Umm..... "You know who you are."

Re:What a dumb conclusion...

[daliman]

Israel, like Palestine, is recognised by some countries and not by others. If Israel happens to be recognised by your country and Palestine not, that doesn't make it more a country than Palestine.

The status of a country is hardly an objective fact. Consider Taiwan - country or not? As above, it depends who you ask.

Re:Interesting story...

[h4rm0ny]

That is true, but it strikes me as pretty anti-semitic to suggest that Jewish people are that easily manipulated by bigots as to....

Looks outside window at UK society. I don't see why you think jewish people should be any more immune than the rest of us... :(

Re:OMG! OSS means people can make a statement

[mrbluze]

I know this is slashdot, but would it kill maybe 3 or 4 people to actually RTFA before going off on rants?

If it would accidentally kill 3 or 4 people, I think it would happen much more often. But no, to RTFA means you will end up making an insightful comment somewhere far down a thread where chances of upward moderation dwindle.

and the problem would be... what?

[speedtux]

I don't see any risk here that's particular to open source. Analogous issues have come up with proprietary vendors, including Microsoft. And often, there is no way to win, because no matter what you do, someone will be upset.

As for Israel, personally, I think it is a country and it has a right to exist and I'm glad that the US supports Israel.

But it is simply a fact that hundreds of millions of people do not share this view. Odd as that view may seem to you or me, it doesn't seem odd to them. And some of those people are open source developers as well.

Self-important posturing or attempts at trying to control their minds through controlling language isn't going to work. What does work is dialog and compromise. For example, I think Israel should be on the list, as should be "Palestine (occupied territory)". There is also no requirement that these lists be mutually exclusive, so if there are different views of how the world should be divided up, put all of them on there.

And if you don't like a software product or don't like to support the author because you disagree with his politics or ethics, then simply don't.

Re:What a dumb conclusion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, so how should people logging on from Nablus, Gaza, Ramallah, etc, indicate their country?

Palestine has its own telephone code (970), its own top level domain (.ps), and snail mail sent from anywhere in the world, addressed to "Palestine" arrives there.

And don't start with the "right to exist" bullshit. Israel doesn't recognize Palestine's right to exist, now does it.

Re:Fuck em

[Repossessed]

So basically, if I get you right, you're pissed because they left Israel out. But also because they are not denying the existence of Palestine?

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[LingNoi]

Actually, yes, it is. Israel bulldozes homes of suicide bombers (basically the only way to punish a dead man, and discourage imitators - put his family out into the street)

That's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. If you can't figure out what's wrong with punishing innocent people then you don't deserve to live on this planet.

Re:Interesting story...

[pm_rat_poison]

They can (and have) alter the borders of countries. For example, they can place a "contested" territory according to their whim and not according to the UN.

Re:Interesting story...

[MACC]

The inital list was "feature" complete.

Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Russia and a couple of other countries were ommited via the credit card processor.
( professedly due to exessive fraud.)

The person from israel who could not donate
found instant and easy issue with Palestine
being included.

The author blew it up for clicks or a donation
from Bill of Borg.

End of story.

G!
MACC

Re:Interesting story...

[MACC]

  Are French, German, or United Statesian children in a situation where they require the assistance of UNICEF?

Well, for the US: the high underage pregnancy numbers would indicate so. ( about 20fold compared to OldEurope )

G!
MACC

Contested territory

[qbzzt]

Does the UN objectively determine what is contested territory? How do you determine something like that objectively? If England were to claim Normandy is English (as it has been in the past), would it make it contested territory?

Re:Yes Minister

[gbutler69]

So, have WW III then and get is sorted out. Let the best survive.

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[nidarus]

That's ridiculous. Palestinians outnumber Israelis. So why is the Israeli government so anti-Palestinian? The only answer, of course, is that there is no Palestinian representation.

Israeli Palestinians (or Arab Israelis) do not outnumber Jewish Israelis. They are outnumbered 1:5. Palestinian who live in the PA don't get to vote in the Israeli elections because...

Also, Israel holds key members of the Palestinian government on gaol.

... that's right, they have their own government.

It even holds some Jews prisoner.

You don't say.

So... you object the ideas of jails in general, then?

Remember that brave man who blew the whistle on your weapons-of-mass-destruction program? He was thrown in gaol for telling the trust and branded a traitor.

He breached several government NDAs and revealed sensitive military secrets. There's no country in the world that wouldn't have thrown him in jail.

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes, it is. Israel bulldozes homes of suicide bombers (basically the only way to punish a dead man, and discourage imitators - put his family out into the street)

That's the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. If you can't figure out what's wrong with punishing innocent people then you don't deserve to live on this planet.

More disgusting than deliberately trying to kill as many random civilians as possible?

(Not defending the bulldozing like GP, just pointing out that it is all relative.)

Re:Can't understand where is the problem

[pchan-]

Israel uses tanks and bulldozers to demolish Palestinian houses, often with children inside who are too young to throw rocks.

Bullshit. Israeli demolitions are announced in advance and are done by bulldozers which are fairly slow moving and need to come in from Israeli lands, which gives everyone involved considerable time to evacuate. If they wanted to destroy a house with everyone in it, they would have used missiles.

The problem is that all of that is a lie. I don't know why you Zionists bother spreading this BS - anyone actually interested in the conflict already knows the horrors that you are inflicting upon the Palestinians. The only thing you're doing is further entrenching anti-semitic views, by inflaming anger against you.

Obviously you've chosen what you want to believe, disregarding the facts. There are Arabs, Muslims serving in Israeli government. There are Arab citizens there that have all the rights of Jewish citizens. They are covered by the Israeli national health care. They vote. They pay taxes. You've made the mistake of comparing the rights of citizens (Arabs and others) with non-citizens (refugees that live in the Palestinian territories). The refugees have their own government (Palestinian national authority), their own courts, and their own war going on with the Israelis. And while they wage their war, they conduct a rather effective propaganda campaign which seems to have hooked many people such as yourself by using charged terms such as apartheid and genocide.