Mitchell Kapor Leaves Groove Over TIA

Deao writes "Mitchell Kapor, one of the founders of the EFF, has quit Groove. Supposedly he has left to pursue open source software interests, but insiders say he is unhappy with Groove's products forming a crucial part of the Total Information Awareness project. Read all about it at the NYTimes (Free Registration required)."

Comments

Reg Free Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Click here.

Ethics

[Joe the Lesser]

"Computer scientists are going to have the same kinds of battles that physicists did amidst the fallout of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,"

I hadn't actually thought of it this way, but it's a good point. If in the future I find myself coding something dubious for a government or corporation, what is the correct ethical choice?

Re:Ethics

[Elwood P Dowd]

The correct ethical choice would be to include a back door that would allow you to later hack their computers and bring them to their proverbial knees.

Yes, I'm kidding.

Re:Ethics

[PhxBlue]

If in the future I find myself coding something dubious for a government or corporation, what is the correct ethical choice?

If you're relying on someone else to answer that for you, then you've made the wrong choice already. Just follow whatever course of action is most ethical for you; because, at the end of the day, it's not your naysayers you'll see when you look in the mirror.

Re:Ethics

[RocketScientist]

OK, here's your ethical dilemma. Linux is Free Software (GNU/Linux is Free Software....heh). That means you can't put restrictions on use into the software license. That means that if the TIA wants to use Linux...they can. And we can either all stop working on it or we can assume that we're working for a greater good than TIA is evil.

An interesting aside to the free software movement, no? Think about it, if you license something under GPL, you can't say who can or can't use it, just what baggage they have to handle in order to resell or distribute it (provide source if they modify it and resell it). Free means free, so that means terrorists, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, no matter which side of any particular war you choose, if you develop free software one implication is that people that you don't like can pick it up and use it to do things you don't like.

That means that the government can use it also. To watch you. And that they've got the source to make sure there aren't any backdoors.

A little bit of new perspective. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, just an unexplored thing.

Re:Ethics

[gpinzone]

It's always a race. For example, if we don't come up with a method to crack 2,048 public key encryption, someone else will. You can't assume it could only happen by perfecting a quantum computer; someone could find a way to calculate products of primes quicker. The point is, it's not a matter of if, it's when.

The world needs more good examples

[SolemnDragon]

1. He left his job because he was uncomfortable with what was happening with what they'd built.
Anybody remember the line that was used on production lines/ development for the atom bomb? "Our job is to build them, not to decide where they fall."

Take heart, folks. Add this one to the tiny corner of the bulletin board labelled "The world is not all bad." People really do sometimes help total strangers, people really do sometimes care about what their work is being used for, and frankly, i'm ALL IN FAVOUR of a guy who can turn around and quit based on what he thinks is an appropriate use of his work. (of course, i might not feel that way if he felt that what he was building SHOULD be spyware and they hadn't been headed there)I'm more willing to respect a belief the less it looks like it's going to mess with other people's- relatively innocent people's- lives. Granted, we can't all pay the rent if we walk off the job for moral reasons, so choose your battles carefully, and we don't all have a widespread fanbase to keep the world aware of what we've just done. (So when you choose them, do it as publicly as possible.) But sometimes, it's worth it, and i'll lead the cheer. Thanks!!!! Good example of what's not all wrong with the world.

*blinks* Does anybody else see it?

[Taldo]

but insiders say he is unhappy with Groove's products forming a crucial part of the Total Information Awareness project. Read all about it at the NYTimes (Free Registration required)."

Is it just me? Or is the irony here almost toxic?

Re:do you think....

[Surak]

Yup. There's an (admittedly somewhat out of date) bio on his web site here. Mitch was pretty much the guy that ripped off Dan Bricklin's VisiCalc...errr..I mean designed Lotus 1-2-3 and co-developed it along with Jonathan Sachs.

Kapor wasn't always considered one of the good guys, either. Many in the software industry considered him to be somewhat obnoxious and it was widely grokked that at least some of Lotus' downfall in office suites can be attributed to Kapor's bad decisions. In retrospect, I'd say Microsoft just ate their lunch by being the first to market with a Windows-based office suite, personally.

But yeah, Kapor made his fortune by cocreating the PCs first killer app.