The Slippery Slope of Foolish Good Intentions
Posted on August 15, 2006
Filed Under Open Source |
This seriously violates the intent and purpose of open source software, namely freedom from onerous restrictions imposed by the publisher. The slippery slope of telling organizations they can use open source software for some purposes but not others has no limits. What’s next, Wal-Mart can’t use GPU or pharmaceutical companies that animal test, or the NRA… maybe people who smoke cigarettes are prohibited or companies that don’t broadcast prayers over the PA five times a day? As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s one big step closer to telling anyone you don’t agree with they can’t use the software you are supposedly providing to the entire community.
Tiziano Mengotti is very much mistaken to codify his personal ideological views into the license and he should remove this clause immediately to restore integrity to the purpose of open source.
UPDATE: JD makes a really good point, if “military use” is prohibited does that mean Mengotti is also prohibiting terrorists from using it? It’s not a point clarified in the license… need another patch.
NewsForge | Open source project adds “no military use” clause to the GPL: GPU is a Gnutella client that creates ad-hoc supercomputers by allowing individual PCs on the network to share CPU resources with each other. That’s intriguing enough, but the really interesting thing about GPU is the license its developers have given it. They call it a “no military use” modified version of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Technorati Tags: GPU, open source, Tiziano Mengotti
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My name is Jeff Nolan and I write Venture Chronicles. These are my thoughts on technology, innovation, management, public policy and pretty much anything else that I find interesting.
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