5 ms·
I have a question. It's pretty much a safe bet that the NSA runs Open Source Software. You can't do anything on the internet these days without using FLOSS. I
by Yuioup 13y ago
I have a question.
It's pretty much a safe bet that the NSA runs Open Source Software. You can't do anything on the internet these days without using FLOSS.
I'm not an expert in software licenses but can't GNU, Linus, Mozilla and all other Open Source contributers revoke the NSA's license to use their software?
Surely Open Source licenses, just like any other license, can be revoked?
- rquirk 13y agoNot likely to happen - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- davidw 13y agoIt's not open source if you specify who can and cannot use it. There was some bit of software years ago that had a clause like "no neonazis may use this software", and it got DQ'ed from Debian because that made it not free software. It's a bit like free speech: you really want to be very, very careful about limiting what people can say.
- johnsoft 13y agoThat reminds me of this blog post – http://dev.hasenj.org/post/3272592502/ibm-and-its-minions http://dev.hasenj.org/post/3272592502/ibm-and-its-minions
- random42 13y agoThey they can't. Most (all?) of the opensource licenses do not have the "revokable clause" with them.
- Yuioup 13y agoOk. What happens if GNU decides to Fork the GPL v3 and call it "GPLv3+NSA Exception" and then relicense all their code to this new forked license? A clause in this forked license is that the NSA can't use it.
- davidjgraph 13y agoThat's an addition, not an exception. An exception would say "you must the GPL, unless you are/are doing xyz, in which case you can use abc license". You are saying "you can use the GPL, unless you are/are doing xyz, in which case you can't". That clause cannot legally be inserted in the GPL.
- random42 13y agoYou cannot apply license _retroactively_. Once you release code version under a certain License, the License is associated with that version of the code.
- davidjgraph 13y agoNo, you can't revoke their license to use the software they already have, only them breaching the license would lose them the right to use it. You could change the licensing so that they are not allowed to use future versions, but then that's no longer open source software. The open source definition[0] says: "5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons." The last issue you get with this idea is whether the NSA is the most unethical user of these pieces of software, I seriously doubt that is the case. Then you need to introduce clauses to ban everyone else who you feel doesn't behave in the manner you'd like. That'll be fun. [0] http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
- gpcz 13y agoClause 6 of the Open Source Definition ( http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated ) states that open source software licenses cannot discriminate against fields of endeavor. That is, you can't state in your license that an abortion clinic / anti-abortion activists can't use the software and still call it open source.
- declan 13y agoRight. Because "open source" no longer fits, you'd need a new name for software released under the anti-surveillance license. "Freedom Software" instead of "Free Software" has a nice ring to it. :)
- raverbashing 13y agoReally, this is not the way to go And besides, how would you audit it?!
- jonknee 13y agoThey threw out the 4th amendment without notifying the public, do you really think any software license is going to make a difference?