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This discussion about enforcing specific ethical standards in software licences is nothing new, freeware licences that forbade specific usage (like in military

This discussion about enforcing specific ethical standards in software licences is nothing new, freeware licences that forbade specific usage (like in military) existed quarter century ago. That is why freedom 0 (the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose) in free software definition is important, and rejection of enforcement of specific ethical standard was intention and not omission. This reflects modern liberal society, which accepts diversity of ethical systems and positions, accents civil cooperation and enforces just common necessary rules through law. It is true that copyleft licences like GPL enforce free software idea itself, and are ideological in that sense. But such ideology is restricted in scope, so people with diverse ideological positions (say RMS and ESR) can accept it as a common ground. And even with this there is fracturing on copyleft vs non-copyleft free licences. If 'free' software licences commited to some wider range of ideological and ethical positions, then it would lead to fracturing of communities along those lines and to endless infighting. I would expect that such change would be advantageous to people with mainstream ethical positions, but oppressive to people with heterodox ethical positions. It would be ironic if free software would be more oppresive that commercial one (who is at least limited by consumer protection laws). In conclusion, seems to me that such change is not benefical to free software and its users as a whole, but may be benefical to people who want to use free software as a power lever to force their ethical positions on others. (There are also technical problems, like such software would be incompatible with GPL, and if forced as a new version of GPL that could delegitimize 'any newer' ammendment in GPL-3+ licences.)

bitwize 7y ago
Indeed. As I put it on Reddit the other day: > Maybe you think that allowing people with a broad spectrum of opinions to work together on open source was only necessary in the early days when the movement was small and obscure, and now that it's popular and successful, those on the Right Side of History are justified in closing ranks and purging all who disagree because it's Their Movement. But I would say: why do you think the movement was successful in the first place? If you kill the common ground between hackers of all stripes, you're slaying the golden goose. The movement will not only resume languishing in obscurity, it will collapse in a series of petty squabbles over who has the correct exegesis of bell hooks's Ain't I A Woman with respect to routing underprivileged TCP/IP packets and who is obviously wrong and a cryptofascist and must therefore be expelled. Because that's where the movement will end up, once the current contingent of people pressing for power in FOSS get their way. (There is another theory which states that this has already happened; RMS is no right winger after all.) > And that will be music to the ears of upper management of Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. They will then drop their façade of loving open source. The peace floats will stop dead in their tracks and the tanks will roll out.

bitwize 7y ago

Indeed. As I put it on Reddit the other day: > Maybe you think that allowing people with a broad spectrum of opinions to work together on open source was only necessary in the early days when the movement was small and obscure, and now that it's popular and successful, those on the Right Side of History are justified in closing ranks and purging all who disagree because it's Their Movement. But I would say: why do you think the movement was successful in the first place? If you kill the common ground between hackers of all stripes, you're slaying the golden goose. The movement will not only resume languishing in obscurity, it will collapse in a series of petty squabbles over who has the correct exegesis of bell hooks's Ain't I A Woman with respect to routing underprivileged TCP/IP packets and who is obviously wrong and a cryptofascist and must therefore be expelled. Because that's where the movement will end up, once the current contingent of people pressing for power in FOSS get their way. (There is another theory which states that this has already happened; RMS is no right winger after all.) > And that will be music to the ears of upper management of Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. They will then drop their façade of loving open source. The peace floats will stop dead in their tracks and the tanks will roll out.