Then it would not be free... but I wonder if shooting a linux-powered missile counts as "redistribution" under the GPL, so that you would then be forced to give the target a copy of your software?
Parts of the CERN Colt library expressly forbid military applications: http://acs.lbl.gov/software/colt/license.html. It's probably impossible to enforce, but it's a noble statement, IMO.
The problem is that the world's not so black and white. For example, the Army Corps of Engineering does substantial work restoring ecologically sensitive areas, maintaining harbors, etc. Would they be precluded from using this software to generate histograms related to a wetlands restoration project?
I think that's part of the reason for Smalltalk/X's less-than-full ban. Ambiguity is removed because potential licensees can tell them what their intended use is.
On the other hand, perhaps we should be breaking organizations out of the DoD umbrella. Do we need domestic public servant driven civil engineering projects to be under the Army? Maybe a Civil Corps of Engineers should be established to take over their non-defense projects (or more realistically, spun off).
To be fair, there have been legitimate freedom fighters whose battles would be considered just by many of us even if blood was spilled.
I'm not sure how de-arming would help the US right now, but I understand that there are a lot who would argue that the US has too many weapons (as opposed to having any at all).
There is also a rifle that runs Linux. It allows you to easily hit a target at 1000 yards in high wind with no skill. I have used it.
If you made an OS that disallowed military use / 'killing people' you would exclude GPS satellites (used to guide smart bombs etc.). It would disallow military delivered aid (same US Navy ships that deliver aid can also be used to deliver munitions / support a fleet). It would disallow legitimate defense of any country.
Reminds me of Crockford's JSON license: "The software shall be used for Good, not Evil" [1] and his story of how IBM objected to that, and he wrote them a special exception "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil." [2]
As well as the Apollo program, in the form of the Saturn V instrument unit.
I suppose it never ceases being necessary to reiterate that no technology is either good or evil, and it's not applied science which carries moral weight, but the uses to which people put it.
Indeed, and IBM are a collection of people who made, and still make, decisions about the uses to which their technology will be put. Technology does not amorally have the German census department -- or the Apollo program -- on speed dial.
" to reiterate that no technology is either good or evil,"
Well, thats like your, opinion, man.
Some people believe technology is the root of all evil. Technology is by itself evil. Technology is destroyer of natural world and human societies. It is the driving force of alienation, specialization of labor and slavery.
Since the invention of the wheel, oh so often epitomized as the great beginning of invention and technology, tech has promised more play and less work, instead several thousands year later, we can put wheels in our bodies and yet we work more and play less than ever before.
The more technology in a society the more slavery, work and less play and dance. The more destructive capability.
So, yes, you can have your opinion, man, but technology is evil.
I don't think so. Without technology any basic daily task become incredibly difficult. Try surviving a month in the wild: most of your thoughts and activity in a day would be focused toward getting food, drink, shelter...
"I don't think so. Without technology any basic daily task become incredibly difficult"
Well, thats like, your opinion, man.
You ask a non-civilized person to survive in New York for a month, then lets talk again.
You are most hours of your life spending on acquiring food, drink and shelter. Its called work for a reason.
Hunters-gatherer societies spent much less time, hunting to aquire food. An activity that you cant even do today if you dont toil for a few months to save for that activity.
EDIT: btw, downvoting me for having a different opinion? thats nice.
"By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread."
It's tempting, I agree, to romanticize our species' distant past, to imagine that our hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed what Christian mythology calls the Garden of Eden, and that, had they but not invented agriculture, with its ties to the land and its back-breaking labor, we would even today still recline in paradisaical idyll. Perhaps that's even true, although I doubt it. But the arrow of time has only one head.
Have you read Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!? If you hven't, you really must; I didn't think very highly of it, but from the sound of what you're spouting here, that book is right up your alley.
Apple's EULA prohibits the use of Apple products to run nuclear equipment. This is often cited by proponents of free software as an example of the Big Brother-ish restrictions they are trying to eliminate from the world.
Do they also object to the clearly stated restrictions, which TI places on its general-purpose microcontroller lines, against their use in life-critical equipment?
TI's reasoning is that they don't want to be sued because someone designed, say, a fly-by-wire control system which uses COTS MSP430 parts, and then accidentally built one with a bogus MSP that went toes-up on final and brought a jetliner down short of the runway. It's not that they are averse to their parts being used in life-critical applications; it's that they have specific lines for that purpose, consisting of parts which have undergone much heavier and more stringent testing as compared to the general-purpose lines, and if a designer of life-critical hardware can't be bothered to get in touch with TI and arrange to source parts from one of those lines, then TI's not going to be held responsible for a bad result -- nor should they.
I dare say Apple's reasoning is similar. It's not that they actually expect (e.g.) iTunes to comprise a critical component of a nuclear weapon's operating software, inasmuch as such a device has any; rather, it's that if someone does for some lunatic reason actually build an iTunes module which happens to set off a 1Kt IND when you play the same Lady Gaga track ten times in a row, Apple's not going to be held responsible. Granted, it's a particularly stupid and pointless example of gratuitous lawyerese, but the underlying reasoning is probably very similar to TI's. (Although I do rather doubt that Apple makes a special version of iTunes which is certified for nuclear-weapons use.)
Actually they release a version of iTunes with that clause removed for use in the U.S. national labs. Its unclear in the license whether its direct use to run the nukes or all nuclear related things. So the US government requested a release with an amended license and got it. Source: worked at Los Alamos National Lab for 5 years.
The killing part is fine. The GPL doesn't impose any restrictions on that. However, the next the next version of the GPL will mandate that UAVs broadcast this continuously:
The no-kill-GPL would just collapse under the additional complexity and people would just end up not using software licensed under it.
For example, what kind of killing do you mean? Could you sue a doctor for using a medical device containing no-kill-GPL software for losing a patient? What about abortions? We've already put the question of when life starts into the GPL and haven't even started covering military use.
Better to follow the good old adage of engineering and use the right tool for the job. Use copyleft licenses to further software freedom, and use activism to achieve your political goals.
> Raytheon is converting the VTUAV TCS “block II” system from Sun’s aging, UNIX-based Solaris 8 OS to a “B2VL” version of Linux.
I wonder what this B2VL version of Linux is.
Also, it seems that USA is going full steam ahead with Linux adoption, what with NASA switching to Debian and similar stories. I wonder if it gives credibility to the (conspiracy) theories by some that Linux is systematically being made weaker by government agencies.[1][2]
Why would the government migrate to an OS they are making weaker?
If Linux was banned from use in critical systems that might lend credibility to that conspiracy theory, Linux being used in sensitive systems destroys any credibility that theory has.
If you want to go full on conspiracy, then you'd point out that perhaps all those critical systems are running a secret NSA branch of Linux, was all the backdoors removed and unannounced security holes patched.
You're talking about the US government as if it is a single entity with a consistent driving motive. There's no reason that one section could (accidentally or intentionally) do damage to another section.
Well, you wouldn't want to weaken your own systems too much. If you know about a vuln, others can know about a vuln, and those others could easily be 'the enemy'.
The main credibility I could see in the general claim is encouraging over-complexity and insecure defaults. These can be worked around yourself and lend a high degree of plausible deniability. But even then, your own kind (fellow government departments) are generally all kinds of incompetent and would fall victim to your traps so I just couldn't see how this would not backfire worse than it ever helped. Counter intel folks would be enraged.
> The main credibility I could see in the general claim is encouraging over-complexity and insecure defaults.
This is the thing which concerns me the most. The simplicity is being deprecated in favor of over-engineering.
> These can be worked around yourself and lend a high degree of plausible deniability.
Exactly. I am still not able to digest that the heartbleed vulnerability was an innocent mistake.
> But even then, your own kind (fellow government departments) are generally all kinds of incompetent and would fall victim to your traps so I just couldn't see how this would not backfire worse than it ever helped. Counter intel folks would be enraged.
This can be easily bypassed using a hardened version of Linux.
53 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 70.2 ms ] threadOr maybe not, since the missile is clearly intended to be destroyed upon reaching the target.
EDIT: my recollection was off. They don't strictly bar it from those fields but may require a non-free license.
http://www.exept.de/en/products/smalltalkx/download
On the other hand, perhaps we should be breaking organizations out of the DoD umbrella. Do we need domestic public servant driven civil engineering projects to be under the Army? Maybe a Civil Corps of Engineers should be established to take over their non-defense projects (or more realistically, spun off).
I'm not sure how de-arming would help the US right now, but I understand that there are a lot who would argue that the US has too many weapons (as opposed to having any at all).
If you made an OS that disallowed military use / 'killing people' you would exclude GPS satellites (used to guide smart bombs etc.). It would disallow military delivered aid (same US Navy ships that deliver aid can also be used to deliver munitions / support a fleet). It would disallow legitimate defense of any country.
How was it? I've heard a lot of really impressive claims; I'd be interested to know whether the hardware lives up to the hype.
1: http://www.json.org/license.html
2: http://dev.hasenj.org/post/3272592502/ibm-and-its-minions
I suppose it never ceases being necessary to reiterate that no technology is either good or evil, and it's not applied science which carries moral weight, but the uses to which people put it.
Well, thats like your, opinion, man.
Some people believe technology is the root of all evil. Technology is by itself evil. Technology is destroyer of natural world and human societies. It is the driving force of alienation, specialization of labor and slavery.
Since the invention of the wheel, oh so often epitomized as the great beginning of invention and technology, tech has promised more play and less work, instead several thousands year later, we can put wheels in our bodies and yet we work more and play less than ever before.
The more technology in a society the more slavery, work and less play and dance. The more destructive capability.
So, yes, you can have your opinion, man, but technology is evil.
Technology freed us from these burdens.
Well, thats like, your opinion, man.
You ask a non-civilized person to survive in New York for a month, then lets talk again.
You are most hours of your life spending on acquiring food, drink and shelter. Its called work for a reason.
Hunters-gatherer societies spent much less time, hunting to aquire food. An activity that you cant even do today if you dont toil for a few months to save for that activity.
EDIT: btw, downvoting me for having a different opinion? thats nice.
It's tempting, I agree, to romanticize our species' distant past, to imagine that our hunter-gatherer ancestors enjoyed what Christian mythology calls the Garden of Eden, and that, had they but not invented agriculture, with its ties to the land and its back-breaking labor, we would even today still recline in paradisaical idyll. Perhaps that's even true, although I doubt it. But the arrow of time has only one head.
Very good catch, you hacker you.
TI's reasoning is that they don't want to be sued because someone designed, say, a fly-by-wire control system which uses COTS MSP430 parts, and then accidentally built one with a bogus MSP that went toes-up on final and brought a jetliner down short of the runway. It's not that they are averse to their parts being used in life-critical applications; it's that they have specific lines for that purpose, consisting of parts which have undergone much heavier and more stringent testing as compared to the general-purpose lines, and if a designer of life-critical hardware can't be bothered to get in touch with TI and arrange to source parts from one of those lines, then TI's not going to be held responsible for a bad result -- nor should they.
I dare say Apple's reasoning is similar. It's not that they actually expect (e.g.) iTunes to comprise a critical component of a nuclear weapon's operating software, inasmuch as such a device has any; rather, it's that if someone does for some lunatic reason actually build an iTunes module which happens to set off a 1Kt IND when you play the same Lady Gaga track ten times in a row, Apple's not going to be held responsible. Granted, it's a particularly stupid and pointless example of gratuitous lawyerese, but the underlying reasoning is probably very similar to TI's. (Although I do rather doubt that Apple makes a special version of iTunes which is certified for nuclear-weapons use.)
So I'm guessing MRI scanners prefer linux or BSD.
http://www.jwz.org/hacks/why-cooperation-with-rms-is-impossi...
For example, what kind of killing do you mean? Could you sue a doctor for using a medical device containing no-kill-GPL software for losing a patient? What about abortions? We've already put the question of when life starts into the GPL and haven't even started covering military use.
Better to follow the good old adage of engineering and use the right tool for the job. Use copyleft licenses to further software freedom, and use activism to achieve your political goals.
I wonder what this B2VL version of Linux is.
Also, it seems that USA is going full steam ahead with Linux adoption, what with NASA switching to Debian and similar stories. I wonder if it gives credibility to the (conspiracy) theories by some that Linux is systematically being made weaker by government agencies.[1][2]
[1]: https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/julian-assange-de...
[2]: https://igurublog.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/biography-of-a-cy...
If Linux was banned from use in critical systems that might lend credibility to that conspiracy theory, Linux being used in sensitive systems destroys any credibility that theory has.
The main credibility I could see in the general claim is encouraging over-complexity and insecure defaults. These can be worked around yourself and lend a high degree of plausible deniability. But even then, your own kind (fellow government departments) are generally all kinds of incompetent and would fall victim to your traps so I just couldn't see how this would not backfire worse than it ever helped. Counter intel folks would be enraged.
This is the thing which concerns me the most. The simplicity is being deprecated in favor of over-engineering.
> These can be worked around yourself and lend a high degree of plausible deniability.
Exactly. I am still not able to digest that the heartbleed vulnerability was an innocent mistake.
> But even then, your own kind (fellow government departments) are generally all kinds of incompetent and would fall victim to your traps so I just couldn't see how this would not backfire worse than it ever helped. Counter intel folks would be enraged.
This can be easily bypassed using a hardened version of Linux.