Open Source Developers: Don't Block Organizations You Don't Like

The author is not suggesting that developers outright support bad organizations:

> Of course, you can be an open source company and choose not to sell to an organization you find objectionable. At various open source companies for which I worked, we refused to do business with pornography or gambling companies, for example. Chef, in like manner, could choose not to do business with ICE. That said, at my open source companies, we could not block those same organizations from using our open source software (and some did), just as Chef couldn't block ICE from using its open source code.

If you put code into the world, you have to realize people you dislike are probably going to use it in some form. The alternative is keeping the code (and end product) closed and only giving it to people you vet.

No one is compelled or obligated to release their software under a free license. If you do chose to do so, then you are compelled to support indirectly whoever chooses to use the freedoms provided to them by that license.

It’s not about moral flexibility. If you want to control who use your software don’t release it under a free license.

It’s like people saying “well freedom of speech is obviously great, but some people use it to express bad things I disagree with, so let’s change it so it’s only a freedom for anyone I agree with”. That’s not freedom.