[spectre] politics, software, licenses, slashdot, politics...

[Amy Alexander]

politics and software licenses: do they mix?

if you attach political strings to free software, it's not free anymore, oops, 
but wait, free software is political by its very nature, which means 
commercial software must be, well... 

the slashdot story is here:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/12/01/1755227&mode=thread&tid=99

the actual software license (by hacktivismo) - which restricts use of the 
software to those consistent with promoting "human rights of end users." is here:
http://www.hacktivismo.com/news/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=17

and an example of prior art: the ggpl (greater good public license):
http://ggpl.org/

can a software license cause Governments, Corporations, and other Big 
Powerful Entities to suddenly start observing human rights? pretty 
damn doubtful. as a political statement, is it too didactic to have much 
of an impact? perhaps... but it does, at least on slashdot, start to 
unearth some preconceptions of the political or apolitical nature of 
various types of software (free and proprietary). 

-@