Arguably, any such clauses - similar to attempt for "non commercial" licenses would do more harm than good.

If you actually wanted to respect such a license,you would have to endlessly argue what is dual use technology for example, the same as people argue if advertisements on project website or tangentially related donations make the thing "commercial"?

While at the same time, any "bad guys" will just ignore both.

The idea that a defense manufacturer would be stopped by this is too funny. The code won't be auditable by you so how will you know? Secondly even if you did find out the most you'd get is a payout. Thirdly if you believe that missile aren't running GNU/Linux I have a bridge to sell you.

I've contemplated writing an email to RMS asking him how he feels about the use of GNU software in military and surveillance systems and if he could do it over if he would do things differently to alllow users to put a clause in their OSS licenses that forbid such things.

"protect your freedom" does a lot of work here..

because my country isn't protecting my freedom, it's killing schoolgirls in a country we had a perfectly fine agreement with four years ago

How do you know for sure that only your team is using the code? Are you ok with "the enemy" using your code to kill your soldiers, or you?

Where has my “freedom” been protected in the last ~40 years?

>borderline religious stances on things

+

>risking their lives to protect your freedom

=

nonsense.

The only thing that protects my freedom is active peace-making at levels greater than active war-making.

We are all under a great deal of threat precisely because borderline religious warrior narcissism has taken precedence over emphatic, unstoppable peace-making.

The USA has been bombing people into oblivion "protecting peace", for decades now. Is the world safer now?

No, it very definitely is not.

>Why do you want the people risking their lives ..

I want people risking their lives to make great peace. That is not happening at the scale that it should be.

Instead, the lazy, less noble warrior narcissist, has the world by the nose. The only difference between an utter criminal and a war fighter is a very, very thin line of paper which makes murder in one case illegal and in another case, legal. This paper is tattered and torn and covered in the muck of the victims, held high by the victors to justify their crime.

However, we see today the fallacy of this condition.

If your country is going to shoot something, I want to be damn sure it has done everything ethically, technologically, and administratively possible to have first made peace, at all costs.

That is simply not evident in any of the current world conflicts.

Instead of engaging in foreign cultures, we in the West march in lock-step behind those who have deemed foreign cultures inferior and worthy of nothing but destruction and despair.

I want to see the warrior narcissist who profit from this condition, disarmed and made irrelevant. The only way that happens is if human life takes precedence over human identity.

No humans identity is worth more than another humans life.

Risk your life for true peace this way: Before you murder, abandon yourself!

> Why do you want the people risking their lives to protect your freedom to have worse artillery?

Hi. Veteran here. I protected his freedoms to do just that. You asking this question in that way insults veterans, whether you intended it or not. People using this line of thinking usually only care about veterans when it can win them arguments, and do not care any other time.

> I don't understand this thinking at all

Then, instead of asking questions with inflammatory language, you should humble yourself and ask respectfully so you can understand.

If they can't do their job non-violently then I don't want them to do that job.

> Why do you want the people risking their lives to protect your freedom to have worse artillery

If better artillery is being built on open source tech then everyone has better artillery. Not just the people "protecting you" but also the people trying to kill those people

I'm going to assume that you're an American, speaking from an Americentric point of view and I'd like to take this as an opportunity to discuss the fact that Hacker News is a website that is available to people around the world. Many of those people are not American citizens and do not have the same relationship with the US military and government that you do.

Yes, citizens should sue the government when the government takes actions which are grounds for suit. The government sure will come after your money if you do things they say you shouldn't, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

On the other hand, it may be worth publicly and unambiguously stating a position even if unenforceable. This seems to be what most modern protest movements are based on. For instance, how many software repos "stand with Ukraine", even though they won't make an impact on frontline military reality?

You could sue cloud providers who are using your software and selling to the military