It might actually be wise [1] to create a new, slightly less permissioned license for open source wherein the open is defined as anything that isn’t in a kill or surveillance chain or, more broadly, for military use…
[1] for the community
[0]: https://opensource.org/osd
Problem is in era de la grift we've sort of realized that they never needed permission - there's no precedent to set anymore.
Quite a lot of Richard Stallman's arguments are pure rhetoric, actually. And, I mean, I guess it worked, in that the GPL and FSF ended up being quite influential; but the trouble with building a philosophy on rhetoric is that people start to believe that rhetoric – including you –, and it erodes and replaces the foundations of their beliefs, so it'll all come crashing down sooner or later.
I don't really think we need to engage with the rhetoric on an intellectual level, since it's obviously wrong: far better to read philosophers whose reasoning is sound, or to come up with your own ideas.
For what it's worth, what I do believe is that our system of law was a good idea at one point but is totally ineffectual in the current context - that's my point about an era of grifters. Didn't get that one from stallman, measured that on the eyeball mark I.
I was abstracting Richard Stallman's argument to its (il)logical structure: P and ¬P are whether the license restriction is enforceable, etcetera. "Erosion" was talking about people who, seeing free software as a good idea, begin to adhere to Stallmanite orthodoxy (which is, largely, philosophically-unsound): that was not aimed at you, but at Richard Stallman himself (the Ur-Stallmanite, we could say). I saw this as generalising your criticism. I didn't notice you were making a broader point about the law, so this was somewhat of a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious non-sequitur; thanks for clarifying your point.
Being the most correct 20 years ago is fairly meaningless today - not making a judgement on whether D-Stall is, was, or wasn't. But it's important I think to deal with reality. Thanks for your clarification!
If you actually wanted to respect such a license,you would have to endlessly argue what is dual use technology for example, the same as people argue if advertisements on project website or tangentially related donations make the thing "commercial"?
While at the same time, any "bad guys" will just ignore both.
If better artillery is being built on open source tech then everyone has better artillery. Not just the people "protecting you" but also the people trying to kill those people
Only if the end product is released as open source or even source available, which in many cases (all?) it has not been.
(This has never been done with a Linux based artillery system to my knowledge, of which there are MANY)
I realize I don’t have any code that would be of any use to any military. If I did, I don’t see how I could write a license to allow the use of my code by only people I agree with.
The OSI might disapprove, but you don’t have to listen to them.
I'm not disputing that one of the links from the comment that gmerc made came from a US military domain, but that's moot. A licence against military use covers every army, not the one you happen to identify with.
As an aside, I'm curious what nationality user gmerc is. If they're the person in the video that they linked to it sounds like they're German?
And this isn't being nitpicky -- it's really important in the context of this discussion. People from certain countries more than others seem to lack this concept of civic hygiene and clam up when the discussion comes up.
We should push past that awkwardness and keep having these discussions about concepts like civic hygiene. It's important.
Hi. Veteran here. I protected his freedoms to do just that. You asking this question in that way insults veterans, whether you intended it or not. People using this line of thinking usually only care about veterans when it can win them arguments, and do not care any other time.
> I don't understand this thinking at all
Then, instead of asking questions with inflammatory language, you should humble yourself and ask respectfully so you can understand.
+
>risking their lives to protect your freedom
=
nonsense.
The only thing that protects my freedom is active peace-making at levels greater than active war-making.
We are all under a great deal of threat precisely because borderline religious warrior narcissism has taken precedence over emphatic, unstoppable peace-making.
The USA has been bombing people into oblivion "protecting peace", for decades now. Is the world safer now?
No, it very definitely is not.
>Why do you want the people risking their lives ..
I want people risking their lives to make great peace. That is not happening at the scale that it should be.
Instead, the lazy, less noble warrior narcissist, has the world by the nose. The only difference between an utter criminal and a war fighter is a very, very thin line of paper which makes murder in one case illegal and in another case, legal. This paper is tattered and torn and covered in the muck of the victims, held high by the victors to justify their crime.
However, we see today the fallacy of this condition.
If your country is going to shoot something, I want to be damn sure it has done everything ethically, technologically, and administratively possible to have first made peace, at all costs.
That is simply not evident in any of the current world conflicts.
Instead of engaging in foreign cultures, we in the West march in lock-step behind those who have deemed foreign cultures inferior and worthy of nothing but destruction and despair.
I want to see the warrior narcissist who profit from this condition, disarmed and made irrelevant. The only way that happens is if human life takes precedence over human identity.
No humans identity is worth more than another humans life.
Risk your life for true peace this way: Before you murder, abandon yourself!
I'm begging tech bros to understand that abusive governments _do not care about abusing you_