Comment by orochimaaru
4 days ago
I’ve said this before and cannot be said enough. Palantir is a data platform. I think they optimize for knowledge graphs (ontology). It has several uses. It’s seems to be fashionable to blame Palantir these days. But then wouldn’t you also blame other things - Java and database open source, Python, Linux foundation, etc. for all this.
I think people just want to blame without analyzing what else could be blamed to. Really it’s most of the free software community too.
Disclaimer: I don’t consider what Israel did unlawful. They were under attack by hezb and Hamas. They were within rights to retaliate. And no, hezb and Hamas don’t care about civilian casualties.
Palintir is people, specifically people who are tasked with onboarding customers to use the data platform. They get to choose their users in a way that Java and Linux do not. (I hold no ill will against them, I'd rather Israel win than the other guys)
Yes the foundations can mandate that the tools are forbidden to use in military and intelligence applications.
But they won’t. And I’m fine with that. My point is foundations have licensing power while corporations regulate it through sales. Each decision is connected to money. And no one is going to say no to more money.