Linux Kernel Networking Driver Development Impacted By Russian Sanctions

[LightBit]

Possibly a little off topic but in some ways, I wonder what the fallout would be if future open-source licenses (i.e GPL5, BSD(oversimplified), sMIT) had a clause in them that "none of this code is allowed to be used for weapons or wars".

Would this even be enforceable?

Would governments / defence contractors just use it anyway and perhaps open-source lawyers could take potshots out of them; potentially injecting that "compensation" money back into open-source communities.

Debian/OSI would consider such license non-free.
I think they would use it anyway. Nobody would know as weapon design is secret.
If I remember correctly, OCB3 cipher mode patents were free to use, but not for military.

[ClosedSource]

This is fucked up. Why sacrifice software for politics?

[mphuZ]

Fabulous idiots

Remove the maintainer and the matter will be resolved.

[schmidtbag]

This is the matter of principles.
We obey the rules of lawful state, so even when there is some justification, don't make unlawful exceptions.

Start ignoring your own rules and you end up waterboarding captives.

Principles matter quite a lot; it's what drives people to stand up against those who abuse their power. But, there's a point where following your principles just for the sake of it just comes across as arrogant, petty, and/or juvenile.
If this code was used for telemetry, it would not only be a good time to exercise one's principles but would also be a service to anyone using the kernel, since such a modification should not be mainstreamed (or at least not enabled by default).
If this was code to support a missile firmware, it would be noble to reject it based on one's principles, because even though the Russian's don't need it mainlined, it's still for nothing but malicious intent.
But we're talking about network drivers here. Rejecting the code is nothing more than an inconvenience.

[mphuZ]

Somewhere the propaganda of free software has ended and the politics have begun

[LightBit]

Fabulous idiots

Remove the maintainer and the matter will be resolved.

I think maintainer is just carefull not to break any laws.

[mphuZ]

I think maintainer is just carefull not to break any laws.

Maybe stop taking paths from Huawei? Suddenly, someone is not comfortable with this...

[PAUL007]

Its good that middle eastern are not keyboard warriors like pro Ukraine here so any USA war crimes didn't happen.
I am going to hell with millions others cause my country buys Russian oil , I should have rather dig oil from under my house.

[kpedersen]

Debian/OSI would consider such license non-free.

Indeed I suppose they would. Though something seems a little strange in terms of priorities. I have tried to distil it in these (admittedly purposefully obnoxious) statements.

I want to pass on that same freedom of open-source to my users and their inheriting users, even if that means explicitly allowing them using it to make weapons that damage people

However I will *not* allow them to make the code closed-source. They can kill people, but not withhold source code

However, weirdly I kind of understand. At the end of the day, it only takes some broken state government to start labelling an i.e open-source C compiler as a "weapon" because it provides people freedoms that the leaders don't want them to have.

[LightBit]

Maybe stop taking paths from Huawei? Suddenly, someone is not comfortable with this...

Comfortable or not laws are above software licenses.