Open source has always been political.

Freedom of speech is political.

The right to privacy is political.

Letting people on to the Internet without censorship is political.

Government policies that support startups are political.

Threatening to arrest teens for pirating mp3s is political.

> I can engage with politics in a social context, when political messaging isn't interrupting something else I'm doing; that's a better place for activism, IMHO.

For the people actually impacted by politics, reality rarely waits for a convenient time to interrupt.

Political reality tends to knock down doors and blow up buildings when it wants to really get someone's attention. "Don't bother me during my software updates" is a privileged position to be able to take.