Ethics (OT) (was Re: Antiwar License)

[Sergey Goldgaber]

--- David Johnson <david at usermode.org> wrote:
>
> On Monday 03 March 2003 12:10 am, Nathan Kelley wrote:
> 
> > A license such as this would go against the latter turnaround in
> > perception, and help to reinforce the former stereotypes:
> "Excellent
> > developers, but do we need to listen another student protest?"
> 
> Let me add my "amen" to that. Software distribution (with one
> exception) is not a place to forward a social agenda. The one
> exception is for social agendas that directly relate to software
> distribution. I may not always agree with the screed attached to
> the GPL, but I can't argue with its applicability to the subject at
> hand.
> 
> Military related activities are completely unrelated to the domain
> of software distribution. Keep them separate.

I will agree that this list in particular is not the
place for political discussions.  However, I do believe
that computer science in general, and open source
development in particular (as is evidenced by the
latest Army Linux fiasco) should take a long, hard look
at the ethical implications of what they are doing.

Of course it is more comfortable to pretend you are
still in the womb surrounded by safe abstractions but
in the real world, like it or not, your actions have
consequences.  The military application of open source
technology (your work) to kill living, breathing, real
people is but one warning sign.

Computer scientists and engineers should not make the
mistake of the pre-atomic bomb physicists in believing
that their work could stay divorced from messy,
uncofortable realities.  Their mistake was made clear
to them and to the world in a very graphic and tragic
manner.  I hope it does not take a similar or worse
event to wake our community up.


  --Sergey


PS:  I invite anyone interested in continuing this
discussion join me off-list at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ossethics/

BTW: I thank everyone for informing me as to the incompatibility of an
Antiwar License with the OSD.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/
--
license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3