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If you create a piece of open source software and discover that it has been put to use in a way you find personally distasteful or immoral, what would you do about it?

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Jimbob's picture
Created by Jimbob 16 years 19 weeks ago – Made popular 16 years 19 weeks ago
Category: Philosophy   Tags:
aboutblank's picture

aboutblank

16 years 19 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago

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You can't do much

Once you make some piece of knowledge public, you cannot help to stop it from spreading. Public computer software is public knowledge. What others do with your software shouldn't be your concern. This applies to any other product such as kitchen knives or gaffer tape; you can use a kitchen knife to inflict damage upon a person or you can use gaffer tape to unlawfully restrain someone against their will. This also applies if someone takes some code from your program to do something pretty nasty such as using it as part of a nuclear missle program - because when the actions of the other parties reaches this stage of moral ambiguity, it is assumed that these issues also become the interest of national and international bodies which will take actions that will deal with the situation.

kiba's picture

kiba

16 years 19 weeks 2 days 15 hours ago

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It's a hypothetical scenerio

You can't worry about everything that you think can happen.

It may not happen at all, or is a rare event, no matter how seemly plausible the event is.

Releasing softwares under the GPL and other licenses does vastly more benefit than the potential abuses than it will if ever garner.

If so, I rather release it under the GPL than worry about some boogeyman out to take over the world.

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