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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In our increasingly politicized world, it has become popular to chant "all software is political." Software builds the systems that free or constrain us, the thinking goes, and so we should withhold it from bad people. This is the thinking that has led Microsoft employees and others to decry contracts tech companies have with ICE (US Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement), insisting that their software only be sold to people they like.
[...] Over the years we as an open source community have experimented with all sorts of stupid ideas, like efforts to block anyone from using code for commercial purposes unless they pay. Each time, we've realized that as good a goal as it is for developers to get paid, for example, the destruction caused by closing off the code to uses we don't like ends up ruining the foundations upon which open source rests.
This is dramatically more important, however, when it comes to attempts to politicize open source software.
As developer Chris Cordle stated, "Nobody wins" and the "whole idea [undergirding open source] dies" ... "if an author arbitrarily picks and chooses who can and can't use it based on whoever Twittersphere is mad at this week." It doesn't matter if there is tremendous cause for that anger. Open source dies when it becomes politicized.
Source: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-politicizing-open-source-is-a-terrible-idea/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:25PM (23 children)
We should act in a way that, to the best of our ability, promotes "good" (where I subscribe to a utilitarian model of ethics, but that is a detail). Attempting to exclude bad actors from using my (presumably beneficial) code surely promotes "good".
The (very short) article relies on the premise that Open Source is inherently "good" and slightly not Open Source is inherently "bad" without any justification.
Take a thought experiment:
I have developed a blob of code that drives a centrifuge for making heavy water. The head of Koristan wants to make nuclear bombs to drop on people's heads. Surely it would be evil/wrong/bad for me not to do whatever I can to stop my code from getting to Koristan?
(Score: 3, Informative) by insanumingenium on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:56PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:58PM (8 children)
Wrong. If people can't use your software to build a puppy mulcher, it is not OSD compatible. Period, full stop. These issues were debated and settled decades ago.
Yes if you know the naughty Elbonians are building a nuke you should act. Do you -really- think they are going to respect a license clause forbidding using your software for WMD production? Yeah, right. Drop a dime to the CIA, that is what you are already being taxed to fund as part of the National Defense. And if they ask you to help, unless it would endanger a lot of innocents, do it. Then when the Elbonians download your software, they will get a 'special edition' that will make the centrifuges fall over and all of their workstations get infected with a virus that makes them order a bunch of busty lesbian porn.
The problem with putting field of use restrictions in is that no larger distribution can touch it. No two packages will have developers flogging the same hobby horse political ideology so any aggregated distribution would have the union set of all of the restrictions, probably with contradictory ones. Not only could no project, not even RedHat, hope to pay enough lawyers to wade through all of the licenses (most written poorly by non-lawyers) but the customers certainly couldn't hope to figure out if they can use it.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:11PM (6 children)
The argument isn't about what the OSD does or does not allow; the argument is whether or not the OSD is some kind of infallible moral compass.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." This idea that one is no longer responsible for the effects of their actions as soon as there's one other person involved in the chain of command is precisely why our world is in the state it is in today. The NSA isn't trying to divorce their production from their politics. Nor is Google or Amazon or Microsoft. If we do, then we give them our code to use against us and we get nothing back in return.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:23PM
Brother, you and I showed up to different arguments.
If you think the best way of fixing evil is to put an exclusion on your open source license than that quote would appear to me to be a harsh condemnation of your stance.
On the contrary, what is perfectly black and white clear is that open source itself is absolutely harmed by your useless and idiotic gesture.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:26PM
The fact that others do evil doesn't mean that we should do evil as well. And denying others their freedoms is, to me, evil. But maybe you don't care about software freedoms. If that is the case, then our goals are simply irreconcilable.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:28PM (3 children)
Software is knowledge, and like science in general works best in the open. Even when governments do science and try to keep it secret, it always comes out in the end. If we couldn't even keep the atom bomb secrets for a decade, with the full intelligence community trying, nothing you write is staying out of "the wrong hands" because of a license clause. Yes science works for bad people too. If you can't deal with the trauma that your creations might be put to uses you don't approve of, you need to find another business to be in.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:05PM (2 children)
...and yet I still can't run a 20 year old game because the source code is locked away and even attempting to get it violates numerous national and international laws and treaties. Some software is like science; but most of it is art. It's not discovering anything new, and it's a product of the time, culture, and technology which created it. There's no reason to think that somebody else is going to perfectly recreate that same software in the future. More likely it will just be lost to time.
Science works best in the open, but the same is not always true of art. Doing art in the open can be a great way to destroy the vision that the art was trying to represent in the first place. Of course, sometimes doing it in the open IS the vision, and that's great, but sometimes those two ideas are in conflict.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:26PM (1 child)
And we are supposed to be the ones object to that bullshit, not adding new rules.
And yeah, games and some art asset type titles aren't science. If we actually stayed within the limits of the Constitution it wouldn't be a terrible problem to allow copyrights for some software. We are now past the historically accepted limit of "perpetuity" with life of the author + 70 and Disney wants corporate copyrights extended past 99 years as well. A flat twenty year copyright would be workable. Even for Hollywood, if Return of the Jedi still hasn't "officially' broke even yet that is on them.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:42PM
Yes, we're supposed to OBJECT to that bullshit, not sit idly by and allow it to happen.
Most open source advocates aren't the biggest fans of modern copyright law, yet they utilize those very laws in order to build the open source licenses. The GPL is only enforceable through copyright law, yet it's pretty much designed to turn copyright against itself. Personally, I think we should continue to explore this concept of using our opponents' tools against them, as the results so far have been pretty damn good.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:26PM
Some might consider that not a bug, but a feature. Or so I read.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:58PM
If you think the head of Koristan is going to be stopped by an open source license I can't see a point in continuing down this track.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:01PM (8 children)
My thoughts exactly.
Feels to me a bit like saying we have to allow a slave market because the sellers have a right to free speech. Sure, they absolutely do, but their speech isn't really relevant to the issue at hand. If I'm writing code that's designed to help people maintain control over their computing devices, why is it so noble to then allow the NSA to use that same code for mass surveillance and other attacks against these same users? Granted, they're likely to do it anyway, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do what you can to discourage that usage...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:30PM (4 children)
It seems mete to me for developers to release their code to the public as OSS, and say, "I send this project out into the world in the hope that it will feed the hungry and cure the sick," but leave it at that. Now, if somebody comes along and uses that code for some other, nefarious purpose, then that's on the user, not on the dev.
Software is a tool, like any other tool.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:13PM (3 children)
Right, it's just a tool, like a table saw.
And when table saws are cutting peoples fingers off, the people designing the things don't just sit back and say "Read the manual; use a finger guard; it's not our fault it's just a tool" -- no, they go and invent technology that detects when the blade touches skin and destroys the blade rather than allowing it to harm someone.
If you know your tool is causing problems, you should do something about it rather than burying your head in the sand and claiming it's none of your business. Take some goddamn responsibility for the shit you create.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:38PM
This is a disingenuous comparison. In the table saw example, you enhance the saw with guards for everyone; you don't release a new version of the saw and only sell it to people you like.
In my mind the issue is actually, "Don't write software that can obviously be used for bad, instead of writing software that can obviously be used for bad and then try to limit who can use it."
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:48PM
Not only is that not why the sawstop was developed, what you would know if you had ever used one, is that the sawstop feature has a disable switch and doesn't stop intentional nefarious usage. Let me guess, you also want to sue gun makers when their tools are misused?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:28AM
Working on software for metal milling machines (CNC machines). Our software will make the machine cut your entire body in two halves if you go sit in the chamber. It will behead you in no time. Your body will be in pieces if you do so. Don't do this. It's a bad idea, and it's a lot of bloody cleaning up afterwards too. Sure by default the machine wont operate unless the chamber is closed. But some of those millingmachines can fit and mill an entire car and (much much) more (milling motors for shipping industry) . With you in it. And can mill the entire car, including you, into pieces and chips. The machine will not care and its power might not even register the additional resistance caused by your body.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
Slavery "ended[1]", not because of a license agreement but the guns of the British Navy. Expecting dirt world slavers to honor a license agreement is stupid, if you care about ending slavery and human trafficking you support sending men with guns and close air support to help the slavers transition to a "post living state."
[1] Slavery did not, of course, actually end. It probably never will end entirely. It did mostly end within the reach of Naval bombardment but that isn't the same thing. In fact, today in $current_year, there are more slaves than at any previous point in history, although as a percentage they are fewer than the norm.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:07PM
Right, it ended because people stood up and fought for the ideas they believed in, rather than sitting back and deciding that it wasn't their problem and that they should just remain neutral.
A license isn't the only way to do that in software; not even the best way; but it IS one weapon in the arsenal.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:20PM
Parent:
Reality:
There are plenty of slaves to go around. Plenty of law extant with no rational social value whatsoever (many of those laws having to do with unjustifiable interference in personal / consensual choice) to make more slaves, too.
* Google [google.com] puked up the 2013 numbers at the top to a request for the 2018 US prison population.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:23PM
Open source licenses are distribution licenses, the idea that loading a program into RAM represents commercial duplication is one most programmers scoff at. Then you run into the problem of who defines "good". But go ahead, why not start a business and refuse to sell wedding cakes to gay couples?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:54PM (1 child)
Maybe the answer is that you don't develop that code. Don't be in the business of writing code that can be used to dramatically increase an entity's capability to kill.
Writing killer code for a specific government to use against its enemies might be morally acceptable, if you are the sort of person for whom blind nationalism is good and just. But writing it for consumption by the general public, so that everybody has more killing power? There's only one word for that: evil.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:06AM
That's a naive approach. Code that drives a centrifuge, as in the example, has many uses for good. Just because it can be used to other ends doesn't make it bad. Most of the tools used to find flaws in networks for the purposes of breaking in, are also used by people to secure networks. Taking away everything sharp and pointy might make you feel safe, but it makes the chef's job pretty hard.