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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."

33 of 1,361 comments (clear)

  1. Blaming the tool again... by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blaming the tool again...

    This person appears to have the thinking skills of a duck. He stops supporting Linux because the Military in using it,
    but he still uses the internet which the military helped fund and currently uses.

    Is he serious about his outrage or is he just being selective in his outrage and trying to play his leaving the LUG
    into an opportunity to get a better job with one of the LA antiwar groups?

    As a final note, having Iraq be free is important to our National Defence because, regardless of what those in DC say,
    part of the war in Iraq is securing access to vital resources for the American Economy. In other words oil.

    1. Re:Blaming the tool again... by kerry-buckley · · Score: 5, Funny
      Blaming the tool again...
      That's no way to speak about your president.
    2. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Psiren · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. If you release free (and specifcally GPL) software, it's free for all. That's one of the underlying concepts of the GPL after all. The upshot of this is that it will be used by both good and bad people. How many spammers are running Linux on their spamming boxes? What are we supposed to do about it anyway? Put a clause in the license to say only good people can use it? Who defines good? Honestly, this guy is just using his position to have a whine. I'm not saying he hasn't good reason to complain, but I don't see what Linux has to do with it.

    3. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow... it blows my mind how brain-dead some people can be....

      I strongly sugges he also not only resigns as LUG president but stop's driving FORD,GM and Chrysler vehicles as they all make military components.. Oh wait! Toyota,Mazda,BMW,Mercedes,Porche,and Volvo ALSO make military components!

      also he needs to never eat any HERSHEY products as they supply food to the troops over in IRAQ.

      The fact this got news is depressing... a moron does something stupid for a stupid reason and it becomes newsworthy??

    4. Re:Blaming the tool again... by B'Trey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If he (or you) "doubts the Pentagon will abide by GPL," I'd suggest you don't understand the GPL very well. The Pentagon is free to use GPL'd code in any way it wants. The only requirement is that if it releases the product or software using GPL'd code outside of its organization, it must release the source code too.

      Free use is the whole point of free (as in speech) software. If you have Free speech, that means the racists are free to decry blacks and the anti-semites are free to rail against Jews and a whole host of thoroughly unpleasant people are free to say thoroughtly unpleasant things. If you have Free software, anyone can use it. Ths US Government can use it to track target data and plan air strikes. The Chinese government can use it for firewalls that block access to web sites they oppose. Terrorist can use it to build clusters that run physics simulations to assist in building a nuclear bombs. The only way to stop it is to stop Free software, and it's doubtful that that would be even marginally effective.

      And he is blaming the tool. A knife can be used to sever someone's bonds or to kill them. A baseball bat can be used to play a sport or to bash someone's head in. Linux can be used to fight a war or to enable a poverty-striken African village. You don't blame the knife or the bat or Linux if it's used in a manner you dislike. You blame the hand that wields the tool.

      --

      "The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.

    5. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What are we supposed to do about it anyway? Put a clause in the license to say only good people can use it?

      Actually (as you pointed out,) one of the core concepts of the GPL is that you can't enforce such restrictions and have a GPL compatible license. By definition, how can you restrict something which is supposed to be free, as in freedom?

      The major problem with things like this is the fact that the belief held by the majority/ones in power isn't always the right one. Usually there is no black and white right or wrong. In fact, enforcing your beliefs upon others is (in my opinion) often, but not always, worse than a live and let live style attitude towards stuff you don't understand.

      PS. I'm totally not supportive of the war in Iraq, but you can't have your cake and eat it too, now can you?

      --
      .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
    6. Re:Blaming the tool again... by FrYGuY101 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Allright, I'll give the real world responce to each tactic.

      C) Well, there are two sub options to this. How do you define 'careful'? Take it slow, allow the Iraqi Republican Guard to react, and drag the war on probably more months, possibly resulting in even more deaths because the operation couldn't be hastened preventing the Republican Guard from entrenching in Urban population centers (You think it's a mess now? Imagine if the regular army survived in the cities, command structure and all)? Or do you define it as completely avoiding civilian centers altogether, thus eliminating many high-priority targets from the contest all together? I mean, let's face it. The US did a bang-up job of NOT killing civilians, given how densely populated Baghdad is.
      D) Oust Saddam without invading. Hate to break it to you, but it works in other countries because they don't have a massive military. Iraq, pre Gulf War, had the fourth largest military in the world, behind only the US, UK, and Russia. Post Gulf War, it was still nothing to sneeze at.
      E) Before we decided to impose sanctions, Saddam freely gassed the Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, and Iranians to the east. After the sanctions, the Kurds were basically autonomous and their living conditions improved *greatly*. The Shiites, who still were controlled by Saddam, simply started getting killed by lack of food and medicine, rather than bullets and bombs and gasses and poisons.
      F) For one thing, the regimes in those places collapsed due to total economic ruin. Iraq, on the other hand, sits atop the second largest proven oil reserve on the planet. The French, Germans, and Russians would not stop trading oil, as it was too profitable to each (Especially the Russians, who are cash strapped as it was).

      I'd like to take this time to point out that many people will look at my response to F) and think: See! The War was about Oil! On the contrary. Oil is thrice removed from the equation. This war was about stability, Iraq being an unstable and powerful country is a dangerous mix. Iraq was powerful because they were rich. Iraq was rich because they had oil. It would be no different if they were rich from Industry, Oil, or some other natural resource. To see the damage a powerful unstable government can do, look at the mess the countries you listed in F) left. Nuclear Weapons for sale (Hell, a few years back, somebody in Miami Beach, Florida, USA was arrested for trying to sell a Russian Nuclear Warhead), Biological research either unguarded or up for sale to the highest bidder... I think you catch the drift.

      --
      "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."

      - Seneca
    7. Re:Blaming the tool again... by 1010011010 · · Score: 5, Informative


      The U.S. is not a direct democracy. The Federal government is a creation of the "sovereign states," and a number of its officials are elected by the state legislatures. The president and vice president, for example, and originally, senators.

      So technically, your vote for President matters exactly as much as your state legislature chooses to allow it to matter. States can send delegates to the electoal college using any rules they want, more or less. Your state could, for example, choose to not follow the "winner taks all" rules, and send delegates proportional to the popular vote.

      --
      Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
    8. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Tom+Rothamel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A bomb went off while you were doing your arithmetic and killed 20 school children plus fifty other people.

      A bomb that was set off, not by the US military, but by the sort of terrorists and miscreants they are fighting against. It's important to make that distinction.

    9. Re:Blaming the tool again... by thaddjuice · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not mad at the government for taking Saddam out of power. I'm mad at them for lying to me about WMD. I would have supported a war to oust Saddam for the sake of ousting him. He was an evil man who shouldn't have been in power.

      The US could have made a case for the war based on that principal, but they didn't. They had to use scare tactics and lying to try to make us do something out of fear instead of doing it because it was the right thing to do. That's why I'm mad.

      --
      Find me in ~/.sig
    10. Re:Blaming the tool again... by flewp · · Score: 5, Funny

      When you have both a Dick and a Bush in the Whitehouse, you just know you're going to get screwed!!! -- Me

      Ahem, you credited your source wrong. Credit should be given to "1,000,000 idiots who think this line is clever.

      --
      WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
    11. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Total_Wimp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      History is littered with scientists aghast over how there inventions were used to destroy others. Nobel's dynamite is one example. One of the early airplane evangelists hanged himself after seeing the destruction it caused in war.

      What is the answer? There is no answer. Anything can be used as a weapon. That paperweight on your desk: weapon. That water cooler in your office: did you see that commercial where it was a fighting robot?

      People should be concerned with why their inventions are being commissioned, especially if they're being hired to design/implement weapons. But they should be far less concerned if they develop something with a significant peaceful use that also gets used by the military. Their word processors, their long underwear and even their music players will end up being used by soldiers at some point.

      One more example that is near and dear to lots of us is file sharing. Should the inventors of file sharing be held responsible for its unlawful use? The answer to me is clearly they should not. Gnutella in particular was invented for lawful uses. If we don't thing these people should be responsible for the misuse of their product, why would we think free software makers should feel responsible if their software is misused by the military?

      TW

    12. Re:Blaming the tool again... by cozziewozzie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You've just pinpointed why no boycott nowadays can be effective. The megacorps today are way too large and way too interconnected for anyone to keep track of it all. I laugh at people who boycott RIAA and then go and buy a Sony walkman or sign up for AOL.

      At my campus in the UK there was a campus-wide boycott of Nestle products, because Nestle was involved in a milk powder controversy in Africa, which resulted in death of thousands. So you couldn't buy Nestle chocolate anywhere on campus. But you could buy Walls ice-cream (made by the same company). Similarly, there was a protest because the University owned stock in GEC/Marconi, who produce weapons (among many other things). Same people who called for the boycott were happily using their mobile phones, which use several of Marconi's patents.

      Basically, in today's society you cannot effectively boycot ANYTHING without sentencing yourself to the very edge of society -- and the number of people willing to do that is way to small for such a boycott to be effective. So with every penny you spend on bread, water, electronics, or entertainment, you are effectively building weapons, putting people in danger through horrible business practice and lobbying for Draconian laws. Welcome to the brave new world!

    13. Re:Blaming the tool again... by harrkev · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You should be happy about this! This means that the system works...

      There was an article in Discover Magazine a few years ago about the the electoral system that we use. As it turns out, your vote counts more in a system like this.

      Let's assume that one guy is ahead by 10,000 votes. Your vote does not mean much at all.

      However, in Florida, each and every vote was worth a LOT!!! Only a few votes either way in this state could swing the election! Maybe the next time, it will be YOUR state which is close, and YOUR vote will be worth it's weight in gold (I know, paper does not weigh much, it is a metaphor!)

      The current system was set up by very wise people two centuries ago. I think that they knew what they were doing, even if there is grumbling from the masses occasionally.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    14. Re:Blaming the tool again... by JWW · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow, where to start.

      First, I happen to agree with the people who view Bush's election as flawed because of the supreme court desision. Here's the catch though, it would be just as flawed if Gore had won by the decision of the supreme court to support his cherry picked recounts of only a part of a state. That is the essence of the issue. What really pisses me off is when Gore supporters assume that him winning would have been "right", nope the supreme court's decision's only constant is that almost half of the people wouldn't like it.

      As far as handing over the office because of a popular vote loss to the other candidate. A president who did that would be in my mind guilty of treason. The constitution must be followed, if it is allowed to be disregarded you start your way on the path to ignoring more and more of it and losing intent and ability for it to act as the charter by which we are governed. It has already been eroded on too many fronts. Blatant handing over of political offices by candidates to other candidates is a recipie for disaster.

      The only thing the president can do and should be able to do is resign leaving the VP to assume the role of president, who can resign and give the role to the speaker of the house. Any other way is just plain wrong.

      Oh and btw the LA LUG president is an idiot. If you believe in GPL software, you must BELIVE in GPL software. That means anyone can use it, even people you don't like.

    15. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Ian+Wolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, you're way off base here. The electoral college actually levels the playing field between the states.

      Electoral College Votes by State
      Population by State

      Without the Electoral College a few things would happen.

      1. The Dakotas, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Idaho, Rhode Island, Maine, D.C., Alaska and Delaware would never see a candidate campaign in their state. They would be completely irrelevant. Carrying Virginia would completely invalidate losses in all of those states.

      2. Every ticket would have a Texan, Californian, or New Yorker on the ticket. Politicians from the aforementioned states would be completely ignored. And before anyone nitpicks this one, historically candidates very rarely lose their home state.

      Wyoming accounts for roughly 0.1% of the nation's total population, yet it makes up 0.5% of the Electoral College. California accounts for roughly 15% of the nation's total population, but only 10% of the Electoral College. It's not much, but ultimately the EC makes things a little fairer for the smaller states, which is exactly why it was created.

      --
      "The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
    16. Re:Blaming the tool again... by Gonarat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And before anyone nitpicks this one, historically candidates very rarely lose their home state.

      The biggest irony about the 2000 Election is that Al Gore lost in his home state, Tennessee. If he would have won there, Florida would not have been an issue. Gore would have had enough electoral votes even with Florida going to Bush.

      As far as staying on topic, I feel it is bad form to resign because the Military is using Linux. Even if he believes that invading Iraq is wrong, our Soldiers deserve the best equipment possible. After all, it's not G.W.'s ass that is getting fragged over there, it is the the Men and Women that are in uniform that face the bombs and ambushes.

      --
      Beware of Sleestak
  2. The military uses Linux? by Colonel+Cholling · · Score: 5, Funny

    But... but Darl said Linux was a terrorist OS!

    --

    I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
  3. Applaud by N8F8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Applaud his right to express his opinions.

    Even if they are stupid.

    Ain't America great!

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
  4. Sounds strange, little hasty decision by Hekatchu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the military, there will be high tech and software involved anyway. Traditionally army investing in certain product will only do good things to consumers, since there is no way army or anyone else can misuse Linux the way its not intended to - to serve people - under GPL!

  5. Huh by millahtime · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, let me get this straight. He is an advocate for Linux and wants people to adopt it but when the military adopts it he become outraged. Doesn't this seem like a contradiction????

    --
    Evolution or ID?
  6. ummmm..... by netfall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok - so despite anyone's feelings on the war in Iraq, let's face it - the military has to use SOMETHING in it's systems. Shouldn't our brave men and women at least have something reliable like linux? You'd think the linux community would be proud that linux is so reliable that the military uses it.
    Would you rather they use windows?

  7. Re:What? by Squareball · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah I mean seriously, the war has been going on for over a year. Why protest now and not then? Was he too busy hacking away at the 2.4 kernel to notice the war had started? ;)

  8. 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!?
  9. Some people can't handle freedom by RPoet · · Score: 5, Informative

    A premise for freedom, software freedom inlucuded, is that it is for everybody. You can't have "freedom, except for those I don't like". That kind of discrimination is actually incompatible with the GPL.

    --
    "Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
  10. 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.

  11. Being consequential by EachLennyAPenny · · Score: 5, Funny

    he should stop paying taxes as well. Taxes fund the military.

  12. Non-discrimination by JohnGrahamCumming · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Time to go and reread The Open Source Definition me thinks. Especially,
    5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

    The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

    6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

    The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

    Pretty fundamental concepts right there. A better example than the military is pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups. I have strong feelings on one side of that debate, but that doesn't mean I should pervert F/OSS to help perpetuate my views. If I want to do that I can create an EULA :-)

    John.

  13. The politicization of everything. by TheNarrator · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yet another example of micropolitics in action. That is taking every conceivable act one does, breathing, eating, talking about the weather, being a Linux User Group member, walking or not walking on the cracks on the sidewalk and adjusting one's behaviour based on some pedantic notion that one's choices in these minor manners is having some kind of political impact.

    It's kind of an obsessive compulsive form of political activism and the net effect is to annoy the crap out of everyone and make one's political beliefs look silly.

  14. Missing the point as usual by chegosaurus · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're all saying what a dork etc he is for getting so het up about this, or for quitting his job, but everyone seems to be overlooking the dorkiest fact of all: HE WAS PRESIDENT OF A LINUX USER GROUP.

    He probably just got a girlfriend and has to drive her somewhere on Thursday nights.

  15. Re:Don't blame the military. by theLOUDroom · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blame the fuckwit politicos who got control of the country (and the voters^w justices who handed it to them). AFAICT, the top military brass doesn't like what's been going on any more than some of us 'liberals' do.

    I couldn't agree with you more and am amazed that your post is currently marked "troll".

    Members of the US military do not get to pick and choose their assignments.

    The don't get a letter in the mail that says:
    "Gee guys, we're going to war. Anyone who wants to help can, but feel free not to show up if you don't like it."
    (Or at least everyone but Bush doesn't. For some reason no one cares that he deserted. You or I would go to jail.)

    My point is: Don't blame some poor marine for the war they're fighting.

    Unfortunately many people don't get it. Back when I was going to college in Ithaca, NY there were a number of protests in front of local military offices. One of the officers wrote a letter to the editor expressing pretty much this sentiment:
    We (the military) did not choose to fight this war, your elected representatives did. You should be protesting in front of their offices, not mine. Why work at demoralizing people who've signed on to protect your life with theirs and have no choice, when you could protest those who actually made the decision?

    --
    Life is too short to proofread.
  16. DOD abides by the GPL by LinuxSneaker · · Score: 5, Informative

    I worked for the "U.S. Military" for 10 years, and 6 of those years has been in either computers or communications in general.

    Where does he come off with the statement "...I don't really trust the Pentagon to abide by the GPL." Let me tell you something-we bend over backwards to abide by license restrictions. I can't even download a shareware program (when we deal with Windows, not too many in Linux) copy without demonstrating we've paid for it. I understand the idea of "free as in beer", but I also understand "free as in speech". Speaking of free [rant]haven't people heard of the "Freedom of Information Act"? Just in case you haven't, click here. If you want to know what software we're using ask us! Don't just sit in your field of daisies whining and complaining about things of which you know nothing. And, (just so you know I know what the GPL is) you can't have the modifications I've made to the machine in my office. Why? Because I'm not distributing it...if I was, yes, you can have my source code.[/rant]

    Before throwing stones at that "big glass house", realize that much of it is glass. You can see in it (well, maybe not the utility room...well, not that closet either..never mind) more then some company that takes GPL code, puts it in their router, then sells it. That would never happen.

  17. Re:pretty much is about oil.... but there's more by The+Conductor · · Score: 5, Informative

    and some of the current regime's heavyweights outlined their plans before they even got into office. Then they did it, they followed through with their plans.

    That actually doesn't prove anything. The Pentagon has legions of people who draw up all manner of contingency plans. So some day some guys in the Pentagon sit down at a table and say, "What if Iran makes an amphibious assault on Saudi Arabia?" or, "What if Syria attacks Jordan?" or you name it. Then it goes out to battle planners who look at current military capabilities and make a plan. Part of the report goes to the DLA (logistics) who check materiel requirements against what is stocked and if necessary order stuff to stick in the colossal wharehouse complex in, e.g., Columbus.

    So when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 somebody walked aver to a file cabinet and pulled out a plan. Right next to 8,347 others that never got used (thank goodness).