Re: Opensource - anything goes?

From: Floyd Davidson (floyd_at_barrow.com)
Date: 01/05/04 

Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 23:55:45 -0900

mike_noren2002@yahoo.co.uk (Mean_Chlorine) wrote:
>unruh@string.physics.ubc.ca (Bill Unruh) wrote in message news:<bt9ucq$fmt$1@string.physics.ubc.ca>...
>
>> ]> there I found several which were, IMO, perhaps not outright illegal
>> ]> but certainly morally dubious, run by the 'leet' crowd, producing e.g.
>> ]> hacks to circumvent the protection of commercial software.
>>
>> While perusing the internet on US sites, I found sites which advocated
>> illegal things like murder and racial stereotyping, and drug use. What is this with
>> democracy? Anything goes?
>
>I see from the replies to my query that yes, anything *does* go under
>the opensource umbrella, although projects explicitly illegal in the
>country where the server or programmers are located may be subject to
>prosecution.

Which is to say, in that respect there is no difference at all
between open source and proprietary source.

And that is also true of what your response should be (i.e., in
answer to your original question). Whatever you would do about
what you think is an inappropriate proprietary project, do the
same if you think that an open project is inappropriate.

>>From the way opensource was being talked about, I thought there was
>some sort of guidelines for being accepted as an opensource project,
>perhaps there even were some governing instance enforcing standards,
>but I see that that is not the case: opensource is that, and only
>that, the source is available.

Of course! Did you expect a separate set of laws in each
jurisdiction to cover open source developers in some way
different than proprietary developers are regulated? Did you
expect national and international standards bodies to write two
sets of standards?

>Hence, there is nowhere for me to turn with my concerns, and I would

How can you say that? That is ridiculous!

>merely be setting myself up as a target by naming the morally dubious
>projects at sourceforge. So I wont. Anyone interested should have
>little problem finding them anyway - they're run by the 'leet' crowd,
>you know what to search for.
>
>I'm not sure how I feel about this. As an advocate of free speech I'm
>happy to see that even distasteful projects are given free range. As
>an individual I still consider these hacks immoral and harmful to the
>community.

The *community* obviously does not, or there would be laws rather
than just your claims of immoral and/or distasteful activity.

>Well, my questions have been answered, and with that I'll take my
>leave.

Troll... 

-- 
Floyd L. Davidson           <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)                         floyd@barrow.com

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