Posted on 08/14/2006 7:13:01 PM PDT by nycoem
Legal Open source project adds "no military use" clause to the GPL Monday August 14, 2006 (04:01 PM GMT) By: Tina Gasperson
Printer-friendly Email story 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).
Tiziano Mengotti and Rene Tegel are the lead developers on the GPU project. Mengotti is the driving force behind the license "patch," which says "the program and its derivative work will neither be modified or executed to harm any human being nor through inaction permit any human being to be harmed."
Mengotti says the clause is specifically intended to prevent military use. "We are software developers who dedicate part of our free time to open source development. The fact is that open source is used by the military industry. Open source operating systems can steer warplanes and rockets. [This] patch should make clear to users of the software that this is definitely not allowed by the licenser."
He says some might think an attempt to prevent military use might be "too idealistic" and would not work in practice, but he references the world of ham radio, whose rules specify that the technology is not to be used commercially. "Surprisingly enough, this rule is respected by almost every ham operator."
The developers readily acknowledge that the "patch" contradicts the original intention of the GPL, to provide complete freedom for users of software and source code licensed under it. "This license collides with paragraph six of the Open Source Definition," is how they word it in the license preamble.
Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software movement and author of the GPL, says that while he doesn't support the philosophy of "open source," neither does he believe software developers or distributors have the right to try to control other people's activities through restricting the software they run. "Nonetheless, I don't think the requirement is entirely vacuous, so we cannot disregard it as legally void."
"As a pacifist, I sympathize with their goals," says Russ Nelson, president of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). "People who feel strongly about war will sometimes take actions which they realize are ineffectual, but make it clear that they are not willing to take action which directly supports war."
Tegel says he doesn't fully agree with the inclusion of the clause in GPU's license. "I see the point, and my personal opinion supports it, but I am not sure if it fits in a license," he says. "Like our Dutch military: I can say it is bad because it kills people and costs money. But on the other hand, we were taught by both our leftist and rightist teachers to enjoy our freedom due to the alliance freeing us from Nazis, a thing which I appreciate very much."
Both developers do agree about one aspect of their license clause. It is based on the first of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's Three Law of Robotics, which states, "A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." That, they say, is a good thing, "because the guy was right," Tegel says, "and he showed the paradox that almost any technological development has to solve, whether it is software or an atom bomb. We must discuss now what ethical problems we may raise in the future."
What a bunch of jackholes. And I'm an OS user and advocate. The military should honor their silly license, develop a version from scratch better than theirs, and then release it under an open source license, beating their version to a pulp in the marketplace of ideas.
They should be more honest. What they really want to say is "no American military use", but that would be too blatant even for them.
The Free Software movement has many people who would be very comfortable in the Communist party...
There are severe security problems with using open source software in military systems.
There are some military applications where its use is allowed, but not many.
But I thought AlGore created it for all mankind?
Silly me.
The Open Source movement has a death wish.
Perish the thought!
Sorry, you can't overcome a severability clause
"The Pentagon is a heavy Linux user. "
Yes I know. I guess the way the article is written made it sound like people were downloading code from the internet and loading it into a missle directly.
What a joke.
"They should be more honest. What they really want to say is "no American military use"
You've nailed it of course.
They're like my "friends" and relatives that say they "don't want to discuss politics". What they are saying is that they don't want to discuss MY politics, beliefs or facts.
The left is so hypocritical and intolerant.
P.S.,...I hate "pacifists".
They're always out there every day "protesting" the Chinese, Russian, Cambodian, Rwandian, Vietnamese, N. Korean, Ugandian, Cuban genocides aren't they? Wait, no, I forgot, they're not. Not a peep out of them about that.
Oh well,...nevermind.
Not true. Just certain whackjobs within it.
Probably tons. They're called lawyers.
Here's the text of that article:
What started like a little taunt suddenly got another dimension. The GPU project has modified the GPL license a little by adding Asimov's first law of robotics.
Meanwhile, we have been written be members of the Free Software Foundation, asking us to reconsider the change or at least not violate their copyright by removing the preamble and altering the name. We are aware modifying the GPL is not allowed by the GPL license itself, but did it without bad intentions. We go consider what is appropiate. After all, we're not after a legal conflict with the FSF. Give us some time for internal debate, we'll keep you informed.
There is one reply to the article:
1. The modification of the GPL was a bad thing and the FSF called you on it.
2. Unless you reverse engineered the gnutella protocols your self, you've probably used a GPLed code base and by adding a restriction you have violated the GPL as I understand it and the GPL is the only reason you can use the code so you're probably commiting copyright infringement, a bad thing.
3. Consideering things the Military has given back to the community such as the NSA donating, Perl and SELinux and the US Army donating GRASS the non-military clause is at the least a bit rude.
perhaps a non-binding statement that the developers hope that the software will be not be used in offensive millitary applications or weapons developement would be a workable compromise.
It would appear that the FSF has slapped them down. There goes the "all open source advocates are looney lefties" argument.
That's not how copyright works. Aside from considerations of fair use, by default nobody can copy your copyrighted work (installing a program makes a copy). Any such use is by default an infringement on your copyright.
The only way people get permission is a license, which in legaleze means "permission to do something you are not normally allowed to do." A more real-world example is when you walk into Wal-Mart you get a license from trespassing in order to shop. If you are writing down prices, you are operating outside the license and will be arrested for trespassing.
A developer can make software available under multiple licenses, and this is common. Microsoft has consumer and enterprise licenses, MySQL has a combination open source/commercial license. Should you use the software while not being covered by any license, you are infringing on copyright.
Copyrighted works go into public domain ONLY in one of two ways:
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