I just learned that Nmap is almost GPL except that they revoked the license specifically for SCO group for their SCO–Linux disputes.
This got me thinking, what do open source programmers think of evil companies or horrible people using their software?
Don’t get me wrong, FOSS software by its nature can’t be controlled or strictly prevented of being used. But in case of companies like SCO, that is a thing that at least can cause them headache and they risk getting into legal trouble. A programmer for example can modify GPL to make so that his software can’t be used by Microsoft or Facebook, but it is GPL for everybody else.
That and it’s impossible say whether or not a given tool or object will never be used to do harm if wielded by the wrong entity.
Like, say you’re someone who makes free bricks. Someone uses the brick to build a house, great, that’s what it’s made for. Someone uses that brick to shatter a cop’s windshield, even better.
But someone can also use that brick to smash in the windows of a school, or even that the house built with the bricks you made is being lived in by a bad person.
No one makes bricks thinking “this could be a weapon, I am responsible for the harm it causes” because its primary purpose as building material is self-evident. It therefore has no inherent morality outside of what people you can’t control choose to do with what they have. All the brick maker wants to do is make the best bricks they can.