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LUG Pres Resigns Over Military Linux Use

Posted by timothy on from the forget-about-military-oxygen-use dept.

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."

2 of 1,361 comments (clear)

  1. Restrictions on who can use GPL'd software? by EngrBohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!?
  2. This is what the GPL tries to combat! by kink · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.