I didn't want to feed this so responded personally to a couple off
list. Y'all couldn't resist sharing your politics and goofs though so…
I apologize to the disinterested if this just feeds it.
I find it difficult to believe, being a middling hacker compared to
some of you guys, that I'm the only one on this list who has ever
written code that ended up used by a military group; or the only one
who regretted it.
I expressed interest in such a license getting hammered out by some
experts because I don't like being a party to mass murder. Between
200,000 and 750,000 (depending on whose figures you prefer) Iraqis have
died at the hands of the US government since 1990. They can take my tax
money to do it at the threat of prison but I would like to think it
*might* be possible to stop them from taking my otherwise freely given
work (the lack of Earth-moving nature of which is entirely irrelevant
to any such debate) to do it. If such a license would be immaterial
then so are all other petitions.
The license I'd love to see would be a Non-Governmental (Personal and
Private Industry Only). One can crack wise or politicize the idea but
it is worth bringing up. Whether or not others would honor such a
license does not mitigate one's attempt to live ethically.
-Ashley
--
On Monday, Feb 19, 2007, at 23:39 US/Pacific, Smylers wrote:
David Kaufman writes:
Hi Ashley!
Ashley Pond V wrote:
Dave Rolsky wrote:
And all you lone serial killers out there? Not being members of an
armed group, you too are eligible to benefit fully from every line of
my labors in creating this startlingly popular code. ... As long as
you rapists, mall-walking mass-murderers, high-school terrorists and
workplace hostage-takers act alone (and not in pairs!) you may, if
you act now, and for an unlimited time even use all the best, most
sophisticated armor-piercing automatic weaponry that money can buy,
because you're not a group! And therefore I, and PerlBuildSystem,
arbitrarily withhold our world-saving protective influence from your
victims.
Nice catch -- I hadn't thought of that one!
You hadn't because its asinine [the rest is gold though!!!!!].
All the lone mass killers in the last 100 years don't match a good
weekend of any despot on record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
