LWN: Comments on "US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)"

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

ekram — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:16:21 +0000

Stepping back a bit, does this situation also apply to something like an ATM cash machine?

If not, what's the difference?

Ah irony. Internet? TCP/IP? ENIAC?

david.a.wheeler — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 21:07:29 +0000

Am I the only one who notices the irony in a discussion about preventing military use of software, using technologies developed by the military in the first place? The internet, including TCP/IP, was developed by military funding (DARPA). So, for that matter, was the ENIAC (the first general-purpose electronic computer).

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

hummassa — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:17:04 +0000

Thank you! (not a native to English language)

And yes, they exercised a lot of due diligence -- I am old enough to remember the discussions that lead to the OSI OSD and to the DFSG and associated Desert Island, Dissident, and Tentacles of Evil tests.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

Baylink — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 02:57:01 +0000

"As far as I know, the people who decided what the OSI description of a valid "Open Source" license should look like exercised due diligence over whether field-of-use restrictions should disqualify a license from the definition, but if you want to know more about the depth of those discussions, Eric Raymond isn't hard to find to ask about it."

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

szoth — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:28:15 +0000

I'm pretty sure the idea is to embed the missile in meat-space.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

Mity — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 16:07:36 +0000

I believe every commando member makes his best to be as durable as possible.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

nhippi — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 06:07:48 +0000

> The alternative, which I'd advocate, would be "there are problems, and unless or until someone smart fixes them we won't write or distribute code that can be used in ways that we don't like".

> I am literally the only person who thinks this way?

I think most people think that would be a noble position but a incredibly bad trade-off. Any restrictions you put on use of your code are based on law. But, the writer of law, government, can choose to change that at any time. Meanwhile, unlawful groups will ignore it. That's a fundamentally unfixable problem that no amount of smartness will help.

Recursive argumentation

nybble41 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:37:22 +0000

> A curious kind of "right", not recognized by most legislations or even international treaties.

That's not at all surprising. Legislatures and government representatives involved in treaties tend to ignore natural rights, since their very existence conflicts with them. They also like to deny people their inherent right to self-defense in order to make them more dependent.

> Not to mention philosophical systems or even religions....

Not that it matters, but you're glossing over quite a few philosophical systems here, modern and otherwise. The standard libertarian philosophy based on the Non-Aggression Principle, for example, or really _any_ system of natural rights which does not amount to pacifism, and thus must endorse self-defense to at least some degree. Even the ones which prohibit _personal_ self-defense still tend to allow for both restitution and, for cases of deliberate harm, retribution. They just require one to act through an intermediary (the state, in the form of civil and criminal law). In this case the state is committed to enforcing your rights in some ways (albeit poorly), while infringing on them in others.

Religions deal in right and wrong, not rights, so that's an entirely different issue. Whether it is right or wrong to respond in kind to an aggressive attack is orthogonal to whether the response is _justifiable_--whether the other party can object to the response without hypocrisy. The great thing about the estoppel approach to crime and punishment is that it doesn't matter whether the original action was right or wrong. You don't have to consider the _morality_ if it at all, which is what allows it to work objectively even when the individuals involved don't share a particular moral code. All that matters is that you can't logically object to someone else acting toward you just as you have chosen to act toward them.

Recursive argumentation

man_ls — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:35:33 +0000

If someone does choose to respond, however, then that is _their_ right.

A curious kind of "right", not recognized by most legislations or even international treaties. Not to mention philosophical systems or even religions (anything more sophisticated than the code of Hammurabi or the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye"). I thought that the civilized world had agreed long ago that outlawing such vigilante practices was "progress", but apparently regressions happen outside software too.

Now I will take the liberty of recommending you a movie: The Beast of War (1988), about an earlier Afghanistan war.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

mpr22 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:35:15 +0000

That, or someone would come up with a wheeze like passing a law exempting the government from honoring field-of-use restrictions.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

ballombe — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:27:38 +0000

My view is that if the military did not use my code, they would just spend more taxpayer money for an alternative.

Recursive argumentation

nybble41 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:05:05 +0000

> Morally, if not logically, the mere possibility of an innocent victim should preclude engaging in any further attacks.

You have the right not to respond, if that is your wish. You can even try to persuade others to adopt your views. If someone does choose to respond, however, then that is _their_ right. They will be responsible for any consequences, intended or otherwise. If you tried to stand in their way, _you_ would be the aggressor, attacking without provocation.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

cjwatson — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:50:24 +0000

I don't like the idea that my software might be used to kill people, but I'm not under the illusion that anything I put in my licence will have the slightest effect on that one way or the other. People will probably carry on blowing each other up, or not, regardless of what software I write and how I license it. Given that, it's a wash, and I might as well license things in a way that improves the chance that some minor good will come of it.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

hummassa — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 20:15:30 +0000

> It is my understanding that due diligence was put into whether field-of-use restrictions should be allowed into licenses under the OSI definition, but you could always check with ESR; he was there.

I could not parse this sentence. Help?

anyway, for reference, OSD clause #6:

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

Rationale: The major intention of this clause is to prohibit license traps that prevent open source from being used commercially. We want commercial users to join our community, not feel excluded from it.

Recursive argumentation

man_ls — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 19:54:13 +0000

I think that many centuries of absurd rivalries between families (see Romeo and Juliet for a lyricized version, and there are many modern examples) have taught us that such an arithmetic of death does not always work out. Repaying in kind cannot always be done surgically (even in these modern times and with remote drones), there are errors and collateral victims, and those innocent bystanders have families who are not usually happy about it.

Morally, if not logically, the mere possibility of an innocent victim should preclude engaging in any further attacks. I very much prefer the way of dealing with IRA in UK (and now ETA in Spain) than with Al Qaeda. Of course it is very easy to talk when the victims do not come from your family; it has the most value when you know the victims. I read an article recently that seems appropriate: No, It Has Not 'Always Been This Way'.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

nybble41 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:38:09 +0000

> The alternative, which I'd advocate, would be "there are problems, and unless or until someone smart fixes them we won't write or distribute code that can be used in ways that we don't like".

This amount to, "we won't write or distribute code, ever." There is no general solution to the problems you're talking about, and certainly not in the form of a copyright license.

> I am literally the only person who thinks this way?

No, but fortunately this sort of block is exceedingly rare, or the free software movement would never have occurred in the first place.

Recursive argumentation

nybble41 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:35:15 +0000

> At this point, would it be OK to blow up the US army and the Nobel Peace Prize that orders the bombings where many innocent people have died? Have they lost their right not to be blown up?

I don't know about the Nobel Peace Prize, but certainly individual members of the U.S. Army have initiated a number of unprovoked attacks against non-aggressors. Their victims have a right to respond in kind. Note, however, that there is no "guilt by association"; not all members of the Army are aggressors, just those who participated in, or otherwise chose to contribute to, the attacks. An indiscriminate response would be as much aggression as the original attack.

> Logic would command that people keep their right not to be blown up, even after blowing other people up.

You're trying to argue that your conclusion is logical just because you don't like the alternative, which is a fallacy. Logic (in the form of the legal principle of estoppel) dictates that when some individual attacks you, they can make no logical argument that it would be wrong for you to attack them without condemning their own action--and if they can perform an action which they acknowledge to be wrong without inviting punishment, then there is no logical reason why you can't do the same to them.

> How are the bombings going to stop otherwise?

First, just because you have the right to respond in kind doesn't mean you are forced to do so. Second, responding in self-defense against an attacker is not equivalent to acting as the aggressor, and does not invite reprisal the way an initial, aggressive attack does. If you can initiate an attack then you can also respond to one, but the reverse is not necessarily true. Finally, there is the principle of proportional response to consider; the one who _escalates_ the attack is in the wrong, even if they were originally the victim.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

nix — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:14:35 +0000

There is a third option: a single sheet of paper containing a written offer. If the source code is requested, it gets airdropped and/or delivered via commando-team distribution as suggested elsewhere in this thread. :)

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

endecotp — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:00:54 +0000

> There are a few problems

Yes, of course there are problems. What interests me is that the general view seems to be "there are problems, so we'll continue to write code that can be used in ways that we don't like".

The alternative, which I'd advocate, would be "there are problems, and unless or until someone smart fixes them we won't write or distribute code that can be used in ways that we don't like".

I am literally the only person who thinks this way?

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

JanC_ — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:24:23 +0000

And all this because the US has vetoed Iran's requests to become a member of the WTO for decades...

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

JanC_ — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:12:39 +0000

Instead of buying and assembling white box parts, I'd expect them to buy standard or custom rugged computers & displays from a company like Barco, then add custom software & peripherals... (Barco has sold these devices to US navy contractors before, and they had to be delivered with linux back then too).

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

drago01 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:04:04 +0000

> Assume that someone fires a cruise missile on you and that there is a GPL component in the cruise missile.

Well there are using a GPLv2 kernel ... this does not imply that everything else is GPL.

They could as well just have a userspace application that has the "secret bits" which is using some proprietary license.

Also firing a missile is no way "distribution".

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

nhippi — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 08:10:48 +0000

There are a few problems

1) The big people are going to walk over your use restrictions anyways. The US government forced Wright brothers to share their airplane patent with others to ensure supply of planes for WW1. Rogue people meanwhile are just going to ignore your restrictions.

2) Defining "bad use" is tricky. some examples:

"may not be used for killing"

Would that ban use at euthanasia clinic or abortion clinic? How about a company that provides services to the clinics? etc.

"no army may use it"

So DARPA could not have used while developing internet. Meanwhile, Blackwater would had no problems using it.

3) "bad use" restrictions might become outdated. For example a OSS software had a restriction disallowing use in South Africa (Due to Apartheid). Apartheid went, but the restriction remained.

It gets really messy as soon as you have several programs with different use restrictions.

Hence, Debian (and later OSI) adopted that to be a free software license, the license may have no discrimination against people or fields of endeavor.

Recursive argumentation

man_ls — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:46:56 +0000

People have the right not to be blown up--provided, naturally, that they're not trying to blow other people up

Just wanted to point out how dangerous that argument is, when applied recursively. At this point, would it be OK to blow up the US army and the Nobel Peace Prize that orders the bombings where many innocent people have died? Have they lost their right not to be blown up? Logic would command that people keep their right not to be blown up, even after blowing other people up. How are the bombings going to stop otherwise?

The differences in opinion about moral issues are another reason that software licenses should better not include them.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

dakt — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:12:08 +0000

Will they add <void fire_missile(int num)> to kernel module or will it be embedded in user space?

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

scientes — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:31:51 +0000

Linux also runs on MMU-less ultra-embedded platforms, of which it is used by NASA and the the like.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

scientes — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:29:06 +0000

Merely interacting with the user's ability to continue living ;)

Entities

scientes — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:27:24 +0000

I don't see how the Human Race is any less a single entity than a diverse species like dogs are, no matter how much individual sovereigns might compete for resources.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

scientes — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 05:06:27 +0000

Also, Iran, unlike most countries, has zero formal agreement with the United States regarding copyrights.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran-United_States_copyrigh...

Linux distribution

Pc5Y9sbv — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:44:37 +0000

No, "end user" gets a whole new meaning...

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

Baylink — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:34:25 +0000

In short, if you believe that the un-noticed use by a third party of your code for a use you don't approve of messes up your karma, then you're taking precisely the approach you should take: make sure your code it released under licences that permit you to impose field-of-use restrictions.

If that means that you must release it under a license which causes people not to want to use it as much, that's the price you pay.

It is my understanding that due diligence was put into whether field-of-use restrictions should be allowed into licenses under the OSI definition, but you could always check with ESR; he was there.

Sophistic licenses

man_ls — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 23:31:59 +0000

In principle I share your concerns. However the alternative (limit uses via licensing) seems not only ridiculously ineffective but also legally dangerous.

To take this argument to the extreme, consider the JSON license: "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil". Who is going to judge if the license is being correctly used? The fact is that nobody recognizes that they are doing evil; at most they will say that they are "protecting their interests". Shall we leave this decision for a judge or for a jury? From this point of view it seems like a sophistic question.

Any such license is also scary from a legal point of view: if Crockford thinks that our particular use of JSON software is evil (e.g. because we use tabs to indent), is he going to come after us? Any organization with good legal counsel will avoid such "ethical" licenses like the plague, leaving poorly managed organizations and individuals. Perhaps good enough for MPlayer, but hardly for the Linux kernel or for Debian.

So in practice not limiting uses of software by ethics seems the best course of action. Even Stallman (an eminently political guy) does not want to limit uses of GPL code.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

nybble41 — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:22:16 +0000

> Is it because they consider the freedoms of free software to be more important than the right to not be blown up? Some other reasons?

People have the right not to be blown up--provided, naturally, that they're not trying to blow other people up--regardless of whatever you might choose to put in a software license. Writing "you may not use this software to violate others' rights" is superfluous, and just complicates matters for no reason. If you can't contribute to a project knowing that it might be twisted by someone else to cause harm, then you might as well give up on ever doing anything good for anyone.

Keep in mind that no matter what you put in the license, it's eventually going to become public domain. No matter how hard you try, you can't control it forever, and even if you could, it wouldn't prevent others from reimplementing the same thing under a different license. You're not going to stop any missiles from being launched by withholding militarily-neutral contributions to Linux. Just avoid areas whose use is predominantly aggressive.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

dlang — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:37:49 +0000

the problem is that when you start imposing "field of use" restrictions on your software, things get very ugly very quickly.

This is why licenses are not considered Open Source or Free Software if they do impose field of use restrictions.

And yes, this includes that they can be used by laser wielding sharks.

I know that it's fashionable nowdays to consider any military use evil, but there is a lot of technology that was developed for military uses that has resulted is great benefit for mankind (the Internet being one minor example)

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

pboddie — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:12:15 +0000

What address? In any case, the equipment remains the property of the US military at all times, at least in their eyes, so they can always claim ownership even if someone else actually has it in their possession.

You could think of it as something like a Tivo box, but without even the acknowledgement that someone else is allowed to operate the software.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

szoth — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:00:02 +0000

How is there not already a discussion of baby mulching in the comments for this article? Did we lose track of the Open BSD community somehow?

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

endecotp — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:58:10 +0000

I forwarded this story to LWN to see what the reaction from readers would be....

Personally, I feel sick at the thought that someone might have taken software that I wrote and used it to kill people. I've always thought this way about my contributions to free software projects and it has limited my contributions to "dual use" software like the kernel.

It has always surprised me that so few people seem to think this way, and that so little software is licensed in a way that attempts to control what it can be used for. Is this because developers actually support the use of their code in weapons? Is it because they haven't considered the possibility that this could happen? Is it because they consider the freedoms of free software to be more important than the right to not be blown up? Some other reasons?

Please share your thoughts.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

raf — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:55:33 +0000

> ... drones' embedded motherboards ...

I think they're talking about the ground systems, not the flight systems. Linux is common for ground-control computers and less common for flight software.

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet (The Register)

jaldhar — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:11:37 +0000

Join us now or we'll share the software...

the /rocket/ isn't running Linux

drag — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:40:47 +0000

The CIA and Military have often retrofired their older "reconnaissance drones" drones to carry out strikes on targets.

Of course nowadays they have have given up the pretense and lies about the planned uses of unmanned drones, so these may really be just for reconnaissance. They have much larger and more powerful drones for carrying a wide variety of ordinance now then they had in the past.

Right now I expect they are aiming to eliminate the need for civilian contractors to handle the drones in a Xbox fashion. Maybe the goal with these is to explore and establish the procedures of more more autonomous craft. So they can reduce the number of operational people needed in large scale sorties. So before with older systems you'd need 20 operators for 10 drones you might get away with 20 operators for 200 or 300 drones.

As far as drones vs cruise missiles; I am sure that drones have a number of advantages over cruise missiles. One of them is, I expect, they can loiter over a area for long periods of time and be used to identify targets before striking. That way when they bomb a residence of 20 or 30 people the lawyers in the State Department and/or the Military can be reasonably sure that at least one of them is a likely target. Since hte drone is weaponized and already in the area you don't have to wait long before the approval process to finished before you carry out the actually attack. Another likely advantage is that larger drones can be used to carry multiple warheads and weapon platforms that will give them more flexibility and multiple strike capabilities that older more primitive cruise missiles lacked. Especially for 'soft targets'. And in addition they are re-usable so the total operational of cost over a period of months or years is much less then with using a long string of big cruise missiles.