On 20/02/07, Shlomi Fish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi Ashley!
On Tuesday 20 February 2007, Ashley Pond V wrote:
> I didn't want to feed this so responded personally to a couple off
> list. Y'all couldn't resist sharing your politics and goofs though so…
> I apologize to the disinterested if this just feeds it.
>
> I find it difficult to believe, being a middling hacker compared to
> some of you guys, that I'm the only one on this list who has ever
> written code that ended up used by a military group; or the only one
> who regretted it.
>
> I expressed interest in such a license getting hammered out by some
> experts because I don't like being a party to mass murder. Between
> 200,000 and 750,000 (depending on whose figures you prefer) Iraqis have
> died at the hands of the US government since 1990. They can take my tax
> money to do it at the threat of prison but I would like to think it
> *might* be possible to stop them from taking my otherwise freely given
> work (the lack of Earth-moving nature of which is entirely irrelevant
> to any such debate) to do it. If such a license would be immaterial
> then so are all other petitions.
>
> The license I'd love to see would be a Non-Governmental (Personal and
> Private Industry Only). One can crack wise or politicize the idea but
> it is worth bringing up. Whether or not others would honor such a
> license does not mitigate one's attempt to live ethically.
>
As you may well be aware the Free Software Definition:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Specifically says that the software should have:
<<<
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
>>>
The Open Source Definition ( http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php )
in articles 5 6 prohibit discrimination against persons or groups or against
fields of endeavour.
Thus, if you prohibit use of your code by militaries or otherwise government
entities, it won't be free software or open source. Furthermore, your code
will be rendered incompatible with the GPL and similar licences that can only
be linked against a certain subset of such licences. See for example:
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html
Now, why was free software defined as such that is available to be used "for
any purpose"? I don't know for sure, but I have my own reasons for that.
Let's suppose you and a few people make your software prohibited for used by
armed forces. Now there are also many anarchists in the world, who dislike
governments, and some of them are going to restrict their software from being
used by governments. Then I would decide that due to the fact I hate racism,
then my software cannot be used for racist purposes. And a bunch of
Antisemites are going to restrict their software from being used by Jews.
As a result, the "open-source" software world will become fractured by such
restricted software, and people who would like to make use of various pieces
of software for their own use will have to carefully look at all of their
licences for such incompatibilities with their purposes.
Furthermore, let's suppose I'm a consultant who sets up web-sites. I'd like to
write a Content Management System for facilitating my present and future
work. However, since I don't know who my future clients are going to be I
won't be able to use any of this software for fear my future client would be
a military group, a government, a racist person or organisation, a Jew or
someone whose first name starts with the letter "S". Eventually, I may have
to implement everything from scratch.
Isn't that the point? If you object to group A then you'll be quite
happy when people who want to work with group A have to implement
everything from scratch. This is exactly what happens if you base your
code on GPL code and then want to turn it into a closed product.
Of course it makes you less likely to receive code contributions from
other but that's obviously the price you're willing to pay for your
politics,
F
As someone wise has once commented "The road to hell is paved with good
intentions", and what I said just proved it.
I find a lot of value in keeping open source software usable by everybody for
every purpose. If you want to make your software unlike this, you have the
right to, but be aware that I and many other people won't get near it with a
ten foot pole, and it won't become part of most distributions, or be used by
most open-source projects. So you'll essentially make it unusable.
So you should choose whether you want to make your software popular, or you
want to protect its "abuse" but also prevent almost every legitimate use of
it.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Homepage: http://www.shlomifish.org/
Chuck Norris wrote a complete Perl 6 implementation in a day but then
destroyed all evidence with his bare hands, so no one will know his secrets.
