Developing software in ignorance of the surrounding social context is -- well, it's worse than writing a file picker and neglecting to add a thumbnail feature.

I recommend you read about Allison Parrish's new hacker ethic: http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting...

The core questions she proposes are essential things every software professional should ask themselves and keep in mind as they work. The political context, and which players in that context benefit from the work you do, is not unrelated at all.