On Tue, Jul 09, 2019 at 07:50:26PM +0800, Harald Welte wrote: > We develop those test suites because we > care about having well-tested FOSS in cellular communications, whether > Osmocom or other FOSS projects. I certainly don't want to spend my > spare time, or invest sysmocom resources towards improving the test > coverage of any non-FOSS implementations. If such users are out there, > they should at the very least contribute to the development effort in > one way (code) or another (funding).
I understand your concern. But FOSS often ends up being used in places and ways which the original authors of the software don't endorse for moral or ethical reasons. This problem exists for all FOSS projects in some form or another. There could be some useful "prior art"; have you already looked for similar discussions elsewhere? > Finally, it > also means that we'd no longer be writing "free software" nor "open > source", as the respective relevant definitions always require "non > discriminatory use for any purpose", which would no longer be the case > here. Indeed. The best way to limit downstream consumers to a subset of "everyone" would be a proprietary licence. I don't think Osmocom should adopt one. The usual approach would be to accept the risks of inadvertently helping proprietary competitors, stick to a well-known FOSS licence, and hope that the benefits outweigh the risks in the long term.
