Comment by javert
13 years ago
You could add a clause that states that your software can't be used for certain purposes. That might not stop its use in some cases, but large corporations that supply the military would likely think twice.
That said, in (almost) whatever country you're in, there are people out there putting their lives at risk to defend your freedom. Sometimes they probably end up bullying people for no good reason (perhaps even over the course of years) and engaging in self-sacrificial operations, but that's not their _only_ function.
> You could add a clause that states that your software can't be used for certain purposes.
At which point it ceases to be considered "open source" software under the usual definitions. So you might as well just leave it closed source and refuse to sell licences to people you don't like.
That's giving up an awful lot just for the sake of meeting a definition.
Not just "a definition", it's labeled Freedom Zero. The ability to run the program, for any purpose.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://opensource.org/docs/osd#fields-of-endeavor (The OSI's open source definition is derived from Debian's Free Software Guidelines, which includes the same prohibition against licenses banning fields of endeavor).
Well apart from the definitions, you give up a lot of practical stuff that goes along with it.
For example, if your software doesn't meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines, then it won't be packaged in the main repos. And that has downstream impact on other distributions such as Ubuntu.