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LUG Pres Resigns Over Military Linux Use
Joe Barr writes "NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."
It seems like he was going to leave anyway, and decided to throw on a war protest while he was writing his resignation.
Seems to me the guy's complaining about a primary aspect of the GPL -- that there are no restriction as to who can use the software.
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
This person is mixing up a specific political view with the use of free software. The good thing about free software is that there can be no restrictions on who may use it. I do not neccessarily agree with the war on Iraq, but limiting software licences to those who agree with my standpoint would be a bad way to express my opinion. There are many other ways to do that. Plus, if this would become common practice, we'd have to prepare ourselves for a hard time. Checking for all software you use whether the author included some kind of usage constraint would be very tedious. Imagine the situation where for example the Apache Group would say: "we're pro the war on Iraq, so who's against can not use our webserver to promote that standpoint". Very undesireable of course. Please don't mix up politics and free software.
Politics & the war in Iraq aside, he raises an interesting question. As I understand the GPL, a company can do whatever they want to do with Linux. The only restriction is that IF they redistribute their changes outside the company, they must distribute the source code.
Am I correct in assuming that if the military takes Linux & changes it, they don't need to publish anything if they keep it internal?
I am sorry, he may be the nicest guy in the world, and could even be Linus' long lost twin brother, but what an idiot.
What does GPL software have to do with the war in Iraq? What does the military's use of Linux have to do with anything related to Iraq?
Nothing.
Sorry, but if you really want to protest something, and involve Linux, then protest China. Sorry, but China has one of the worst human rights records of modern history, and is also, on a national level, one of the largest proponenets of Linux development and use in the world.
But no, Heaven forbid someone he doesnt like uses Linux. Those damned military guys! they should all use SCO UnixWare instead! (evil grin)
Get a grip... there are far more important things to protest/worry about, and do you really think that ANYONE outside a very small group (compared to the rest of the populace of the US) will care that the president of LULA resigned because the Military likes Linux?
Sorry, but while I do have great respect for people with convictions, I liave little respect for people who do the wrong things for attention.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
In the old Amiga days you could very often find "Military use prohibited" clauses in the licenses the public domain software came with.
e.g. one of the popular terminal-emulaters had this, it was called just "term" iirc.
Personally I like this - I wouldn't like it if my software was used for non pacifist usages.
That sounds about right. It sounds like we wants to make a big anti-war protest so making a huge deal about stepping down from a leadership position he is hoping the press will pick up on it and a great anti-war message will be sent out. Sorry, but I think Linux is the wrong way to make a anti-war protest like that because the fundamentals of Linux are that it can be used by good and evil. Everybody has equal access.
...almost everyone is going on about how this is a stupid move. Maybe I'm one of the first to be able to say I support his decision. Not because it'll make any changes to the problems he sees, but because he's willing to remove himself from a position which forced him to violate his own sense of what's right. Too many people, when put it a position of power, become all of the sudden willing to go against everything they believe in so they can keep their jobs.
Furthermore, it seems to be that his primary reson for quiting is not the war-related aspect, but rather how the focus of many linux-users has shifted away from trying to improve humanity via things such as more secure and affordable computing, and shifted to a more "Hey, let's find a way to make us geeks look cool to the public." And as a whole, I tend to agree with this, or at least see where he's coming from.
Also, on the war side of the issue, what's wrong with saying 'I don't want a tool that I've spent years of my life helping develop to be used to kill people in a war I don't even support.' He's not trying to sue the government or anything like that, or even calling for other people to protest with him, he's simply removing himself from a position which forces him to go against his own principles.
Ah well, there's my two yen worth.
The guy sounds a little confused. He thinks the creation of the Internet, GPS satellites, and SELinux by the DoD is a good thing. But then he's ashamed of going to LUG meetings because of what's going on in Iraq. He's just using his status of being a president of a LUG to get some attention to voice his opinions. It's too bad he points to Linux and tries to use it as his excuse.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
You give a false dilemma. You seem to think that there were only two options:
A) Invade Iraq and kill 8-10 thousand civilians.
B) Not invade Iraq and let 40-50 thousand civilians die because sanctions couldn't be lifted.
There were several other options, which you might want to think about:
C) Invade Iraq and not kill so many civilians by being much more careful
D) Oust Saddam without invading Iraq (we do it all the time in other countries)
E) Lift Sanctions. Before we decided to impose sanctions after the Kuwait invasion, Iraq was one of the more prosperous nations. People were fed.
F) Find a relatively peacable solution to ousting the current regime. They do exist. For reference, see 1989: Germany, Poland, Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia and 2002 (?): Serbia.
What I don't understand is, why didn't the guy stop using Linux in protest when the Chinese Government, with its Draconian civil rights policies, adopted Linux?
warn "Just Another Perl User" if $anyone_cares;
I will still participate in the LUG, just let new leadership come to the fore.
Actually, it sounds like he guy is just a drama queen. I mean, really, look at this quote. The group is a bunch of dorks who get together to drink soda and talk about computers on Friday nights instead of getting laid, and he's talking about "new leadership coming to the fore". Oh puh-lease. Imagine the lead fry cook at the local McDonald's quitting saying this.
taker yer pick, google page for Project For a New American Century, the neocon battleplan website. Their plans were published, still there, you can find extracts and anlysis at the other links here from google, or you can go to that website and read all the extensive documentation yourself. they don't hide it, it's just TV doesn't cover it, so that makes it "invisible" I guess.
Honestly, to think that sea of oil under Iraq had nothing to do with it......it's silly. They have been planning this strike for years, well before 9-11. Personally I think if we had used the OPEC embargo fiasco wake up call way back in the 70s and had done a manhattan project level crash national program to significantly reduce our dependence on oil, it would have been a good thing. As to this LUG guy stepping down, seems just as silly to me as being naieve about the oil, or over the WMD that the US and other western nations helped saddam develop and deploy. Saddam had big quantities of them, vast majority were destroyed during the fiirst gulf war, they were blown up inside the bunkers they were stored in then by US troops, and the main reason they don't make a big deal out of it in the controlled press was potential national embarassment over violating of various treaties we have signed, and to help limit the governments exposure to the vet's from that war claims of sickness that were denied, the ones who breathed that stuff.
All despotic regimes follow a similar formula. they use both an external threat and an internal threat for the excuse to completely take over and become..well, more despotic over their people. If the threats don't exist, they MANUFACTURE the threats. It's a formula that works. Problem -reaction -solution.
Other pertinent, although slightly dryer points on the topic:
It's hard to see how the point could have been made by the people at the very foundation of free/open source software.
However, I'm sure the president of the LUG understands all that, and was just conducting a publicity stunt for his cause. I think it was unwise, because it'll do bugger-all for the antiwar cause (a cause which I support - that 200-odd billion dollars could have made the world a lot safer spent in a myriad other ways) and it reinforces the image of Linux enthusiasts as long-haired hippies, which still remains an impediment to wider adoption sometimes.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Piling on, I would still like to understand the difference between the Demicans and the Republocrats.
One party strives for power, the other lusts after it, near I can tell.
Both are meatpuppets for rich interests, while feigning populism.
Gimme Jesse the Body in '08.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Now, if someone had quit the military because they use Linux, that would have been a more interesting story.
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
Define 'needless deaths'.
Two years ago, I visited London. Outside of the parliament were huge signs demanding an end to the sanctions against Iraq. Why? Appx. 1,000 Iraqi children were dying each week, and that's only children age 2 or younger. The overall numbers of actual humans dying were a fair bit higher. Since the war started, www.IraqBodyCount.com (Full disclosure: An anti-war site which produced a rather inflated count, at least for a while) claims that, as of April 21, 2004, a min of 8897 and max of 10747 civilians have died. Seeing as the war started over a year ago, I'll round the number of weeks down to 52 weeks. Taking a likely inflated number, dividing by a known deflated number, and I get 207ish people dead a week. Yes, this is a horrid number. Look at it. Realize that each of those 207 people had a family, friends, and a life. Now look back up. Sanctions were killing five times as many people.
What seems to be advocated is a preference for death by inaction, rather than death by action. I'd honestly like to know, why is letting 1000 some odd children die because some asshat tyrant can't be trusted better than having a fifth as many die, while granting freedom and independance?
You make a good point. But like the anti-war freaks you forget that best estimates are that Saddam murdered between 1 million and 2 million Iraqis during his ~20 years in power. That works out to between 50,000 and 100,000 per year, or about 1,000 to 2,000 per week.
It's interesting to note how the press has constantly minimized this. Before the war there were varying estimates, but now the numbers I see quoted in the press as Saddam's murder tool are just the numbers of bodies already found in mass graves (~300,000 I believe), as if that's really it and there are no more anywhere. I remember the shock I felt while reading an editorial by an anti-war columnist, when the writer, in the course of admitting that Saddam was a pretty bad guy after all, referred to "thousands of Iraquis killed and hundreds of thousands repressed". NO, jackass, it's millions killed and 10s of millions repressed.
Most of the opponents of this war, who, I suspect, are otherwise capable of reason, tend to lose their reasoning abilities rapidly and go into a passionate rage, when talking about it.
Just listen to this guy:
I just don't think it had to cost maybe 20K Iraqi lives and how many Americans' so far. Well, how many would you approve of, sir? 20K, would still be very little -- Saddam himself has killed and would've have killed much more. I don't think that Linux should be used for killing Oh, "killing is wrong", is not it? I'm sure, if Saddam's army was marching on Los Angeles, he would've approved of killing as many of them as possible. So, killing (and using Linux for it) is only wrong, when it is done against his beliefs -- well, say so...(My bodyguards carry weapons, but everyone else, who does, should be locked up, says Rosie O'Donnel -- the passionate lighting rod of the pro-gun lobby.)
I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL I wonder, which violation of GPL does he suspect? Not providing source to code modifications? But that is not required, as long as the modifications are not distributed by Pentagon. And they are not -- by the nature of the organization. They are not in the software business at all...Their laboratories, that are in that business and do distribute modifications, distribute the source too -- the already mentioned SELinux, TrustedBSD...
Everybody won on that one, and it's a great use of our tax dollars. In the first Gulf War, even the Iraqis used American GPS to guide their missiles. Talk about your equal-opportunity technologies. Now he is cheering for Iraq? The Iraq of 1991? Talk about loss of reasoning... It is a flaw of the GPS, that it can be used by our enemies (even if they can't get full precision of it). This is not a sport match, where equal oppotunity is desired -- people are dying there, and the higher the advantage of your side, the less of it dies, the better. You know I am in favor of an army and a national defense Oh, see, he is not against killing at all...Nothing wrong with passion per se. It is great in art, in bed (the very special art), etc. But the less of it in politics and computers (what a weird pairing of fields!) the better.
Good riddance, LULA!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
1. The idea is to increase linux usage, doing something to protest its usage is non-productive at best, and if you are going to protest, might want to start with China.
2. Does anyone really think the United States Army gives a rats ass if this guy is the head of the LA LUG? Will they even notice?
3. There is no three.
4. Would we rather them run something more crash prone? "Here come the bad guys!" "Wait, I have to reboot the tank!"
Linux is, and needs to be, A-Political, because I am pretty sure Windows is. There are better, and more effective ways to protest a war, maybe starting with writing your congressman?
Just my opinion.
If this guy keeps quiting everytime he finds out the military uses the same things he does, he will never be employeed again.
Computers they use windows, linux, and IBM stuff. So he can't use computers. They use office supplies, chairs and desks. He can't do any white collar work. They have kitchens so he can't work in food service. They have trash cans and cleaning supplies. He can't be a janitor. Let's see they use shovels. So he can't dig ditches. Lets see what is left? Farmer? Maybe he could become a monk if all else failed.
Just because the "military" uses something doesn't mean that the "something" is good or evil. The "good or evil" is the usage that the something is put to. People can do good or evil. Things just exist.
Look at all the vigourous debate about linux, about licensing, and about the war has been generated here as a result of hit resignation.
I think he achieved his aim very well indeed.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Maine and Nebraska in fact do something other than the 'winner take all' that the other 48 states do. They tally up the votes in each congressional district, and the winner in each district gets one delegate. Then the overall totals for the whole state are added up, and the winner there gets two more delegates.
However, Maine only has 2 districts (4 electoral votes) and Nebraska 3 districts (5 evs), so in practice it doesn't really matter much, but I wish more states followed this system. Unfortunately, states that tend one way or another wouldn't want to switch to this system, since it'd hurt the candidate that's more popular in that state (California wouldn't want to take 20 or so of its 55 and hand them to Bush, e.g.), and states that are battlegrounds would be less of a battleground under this system, and thus would get less political attention. Nice idea, nevertheless.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
There's something to be said when a vote in one state counts more than a vote in another. Namely, there is no equality under the law.
"I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith's of Linux have their way, in the future they will look back and say: "Wasn't it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains." "
That statement right there ought to put a chill down the spine of any IT worker because it applies to far more than just Linux. If you work on building transatlantic/pacific communications for example then you are lowering the costs for outsourcing and long distance communications. This is the enabler for foreigners to take jobs from Americans. Add to this all the work engineers are doing on the automation of all kinds of jobs and careers and the average IT worker really IS "working hard to forge his own chains".
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I hate speaking politics (it always turns badly) but...
I would like to point out that the electorial college system was developed to compensate for the poor transportation and poor communications during the founding of our country.
Now that we have excellent communications and transportation, we should definitely rethink the electorial college system.
Bad things the electorial college does include:
1. Enable a person to be elected president even though he didn't win the majority of the votes.
2. Allow super-electorial states to have more political say despite voter turnout in those states.
3. Super-Electorial states tend to get disproportionally more pork-barrel money than any other state. (This has the effect of attracting more population to the super-electorial state to take advantage of the increased federal jobs, thus ensuring that the state will maintain its super-electorial status).
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud. It is harder to fake the large amounts of votes to make a difference in a national total, but Florida demonstrated that the potential to manipulate a vote of a super-electorial state is much easier and can have the same effect.
5. Super-Electorial states tend to get preferential treatment from federal services. I remember a town that was alongside the Mississippi river that had to move in order to receive the reconstruction money from Federal Flood Insurance when the Mississippi River overflowed (I can see the reason, because they were in a flood plain). However, Californians are allowed to rebuild their homes next to cliffs and the federal disaster relief fund keeps bailing them out after repeated mudslides.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Interesting stuff. While a far cry from desertion, it's an interesting inconsistency. Thanks for the substantive reply. I consider this a serious charge.
Well, AWOL is a very serious charge. If we rather claim the President was knowingly lying about what he did while serving, we have to prove something about the thoughts of GW at the time that he said it. In the end, that particular charge remains a judgement call for the voters. I'm very inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt (perhaps, obviously).
Regarding Hannity, most folks I've heard, when speaking extemperaneously, draw some erroneous conclusions or claim something totally fictitious. I can't recall the specific incidents but I do rememeber thinking "you made that up" while listening to Hannity, Franken, O'Reilly and others or "you really can't draw that conclusion for sure." If you have something valid I'de be interested. All I ever see in the form of "he lies" is hyperbole, out-of-context quotes, pedantic word critique, over criticism of a joke, or harping on a factual error that the host was conviced of.
Incidentally, this is why most hosts (even Laura Ingraham) don't typically attack and knock down arguments without having a positive counter argument. You can't say, "X didn't happen" unless you also say, "Y did happen to preclude X." Well... you can, but the credibility of the argument wanes.
Sam
You are correct that the Electoral College somewhat levels the playing field for states. However, what the gp was saying is that it causes a disparity in voting power for an individual. Using your example, whose vote affects more of the electoral college? It seems to me that a single popular vote in Wyoming is worth more than one in California.
if you think this is bad, you should have seen my last sig
There are people other than americans in Iraq you know. Many of them with far more right to be there and far less opportunity to get out.
As for Iraq being a "tough war", as you said yourself, less tahn 1000 americans dead. A lot less I believe. How can it be a tough war when you can wipe out your enemy (along with every woman and child within a 100 meter radius of him) from literally miles away and/or from inside an armour plated vehicle?
If it weren't for the media presence the war would be over and there'd be no more "terrorists" in Iraq. No more "potential terrorists" either mind you.
Iraq (like Afghanistan) is an easy war, complicated only slightly by the need to keep pretending its for the benefit of the victims.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
I know this is on the second page and likely won't be read by many, but felt the need to interject with something that has been hinted at but not made very clear.
The issue isn't that Linux or any GPL'd software is merely a tool (or at least it shouldn't be). That isn't what makes his argument so asinine, though it is part of it.
No, the real thing that makes this statement and subsequent "stepping down" asinine and, well, stupid, is that no one decided to go to war because they were running GPL'd software.
Think about it for a second. A lot of people have made posts, both serious and humurous, about tools and not using things the military uses, but what it all boils down to is that whether or not the military was using GPL'd software, they still would have gone into Iraq.
Example: Say you have an epiphany and come up with an AI algorithm for image recognition that is centuries before it's time. You create the base objects or code to let other packages use it for whatever they want, GPL it, and release.
Now the military sees this image recognition software and decides they will use it to replace current portions of their target acquisition software to make more exact hits with missiles, etc.
Is it your personal fault each time one of these missiles hits a target? Think about it. Yes you software was directly responsible for that missile hitting a target BUT your softare is also responsible for it being that much more exact and reducing civilian casualties.
In the end, the military exists to fight. The military (as a conceptual group) was fighting wars before gun powder, before computers, before flight, etc. Some inventions have brought greater bloodhsed, larger wars, more frequent wars, etc.
But in creating a better version of a tool used in minimizing casualties why would you get upset at the military using it?
Obviously the previous example could be used to argue that with greater accuracy more people would be targeted by missiles than current technologies allow, etc. But the software itself does not choose to start a war.
Instead of complaining about the software being used during the war, and then also complaining about the casualties that are a result of the war, perhaps your time would be beter spent developing even more stable, reliable, and EXACT systems for the military. reduce friendly fire, reduce civilian casualties, etc.
Frankly I see this as a cheap way to get publicity and if I were the next leader of the group I was ask for him to leave as he obviouly doesn't have the groups interests in mind (GPL and the fact that he would use them to gain self-publicity) and can't string together a logical argument.
Whee signature.
Correct. To be consistent, he should stop using the highway system because the Federal Gov't largely funded their building. He should stop enjoying public art that is sponsored in whole or in part by the NEA. He should return his HS diploma if he went to a public high school. He should give up quite a bit - just to be consistent.
That isn't his point. He has his panties all in a wad over the war that he felt he would abuse his relatively public platform to voice his displeasure. That makes him less than genuine in his complaint, and I say good riddance. the LALUG will be better off without the sniveling weasel.
Be against the war. Fine. That is your prerogative as an American. However, if you plan to make a public statement about it, be sure you have sound reasoning to back it up. Otherwise you look like a fool.
-- Those of you who think you know it all are very annoying to those of us who do.
How can a person have that level of familiarity with Linux and the GPL, and still not get it?
Linux is released to ANYONE, ANYWHERE to use for ANY PURPOSE. That is the GPL
From the Preamble - "the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its user". Note that is does not say "for SOME of its users..." or "unless you are the United States Military in a mid-East foreign country while G.W.Bush is in Commander in Chief and the month has an 'A' in it..."
From the Terms and conditions for Copying, Distribution, and Modification: "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
How does this person reconcile their current actions with their past actions and beliefs? You don't (or, in my opinion, shouldn't) get to the position they were in without some idea of the nature and dedication to the OpenSource community. How can they say now that they didn't know that "Free as in Speech" meant everyone, not just those they agreed with?
Has this person taken the position of CFO for The SCO Group? Their stated position seemd to coincide with TSGs quite well. (ObSCO_Ref)
Reminds me of the Voltaire quote "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", except this person seems to be saying "I don't agree with what you say - so shut up." This person seems to be a firm believer in President Bush's stated belief that "there ought to be limits to freedom!" which is a moron oxymoron in my opinion.
Amazing the people that CAN think but DON'T, and the ones that CAN'T think that get elected...
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
1. Enable a person to be elected president even though he didn't win the majority of the votes.
Nitpicking, but that in itself is not bad. Nor is it enabled by the Electoral College.
Direct voting would still allow a non-majority to win, in a scenario like: Bush 49%, Gore 48%, Nader 1%, others 2%)
4. Electorial college makes it easy to commit voter fraud.
Not really. Even if it was direct voting, there'd still probably be hierarchical counting at the level of each state. In some ways, EC might actually make it easier to detect cheaters.
You have skipped the single largest problem of EC: the disenfranchisement of voters in non-swing states. Voters in FL or NH are most powerful, one vote has around an 0.05% chance of tipping the statewide result. MA and UT are the least powerful states, since they have strong biases towards Dem or Repub. But other states are biased too- overall, 30 states vote in predictable ways, leaving only 20 that are truely in play during a campaign.
The additional power CA gets from Super-Electorial status is largely cancelled because it's non-swing. In a very real way, Bush voters in California don't matter: because no matter if he wins 5% or 45%, he'll still get 0 of the 55 electoral votes.
Democrats in TX and UT and Republicans in CA and MA are both harmed by the swing-state pheomenon of the Electoral College. The only result their votes can possibly achieve is bragging rights about winning "the popular vote", not change who actually gets the White House.
You said: Without the Electoral College a few things would happen....The Dakotas...would never see a candidate campaign in their state. They would be completely irrelevant.
Well;
The two candidates instead put their time, energy and money into major battleground states this year, and South Dakota was not among them. After all, the state has only three electoral votes.
Bush had no paid campaign workers in South Dakota, but Republican politicians such as Gov. Bill Janklow and U.S. Rep. John Thune carried the torch on his behalf.
The Gore campaign had one paid worker in South Dakota, Democratic officials said.
Whatever.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.