I haven't checked out CPSR, so I don't know what they are, but you can't enforce your beliefs on others. This comes down to personal choice and where you want to work, or maybe working for the government is the only available choice at the time. Some people have no problem I agree. What I was suggesting is the possibility for one or more

Hi Matt. Matt Shields wrote: people to make a statement as to where they choose to allow the fruit of their work to go, and/or how it is to be used. That's not about enforcing beliefs, but about sharing (and refining) them. The problem I have with open source licensing as it applies to this discussion I raised is that it does not discriminate as to use. I had once posed the possibility of creating a modified license that would prohibit (any) government from using a certain work, but this is both way too complicated and of course begs the question as to exactly what in a project can be legally restricted in this manner. After all, any project (including the one I am working on now) is comprised of a host of others, all bringing in license terms that do not have such a restriction. Attorneys will be needed to figure out if the idea of a more restrictive version of a GPL is even possible.

working for the government. If you want to change how the government works because you don't like what they're doing, you elect officials to change policy and petition those officials to change things. You Well, I think that the effectiveness of the system itself is a whole other debate that would go way off topic here. :) I do find the idea of a national referendum on important issues like blowing up other nations a pretty good idea. Has immediacy. But again, swaying way off here.

don't come up with a society that boycotts working for the government because there's plenty of other people willing to take the job. There are plenty of people. But, as in organizations like Union of Concerned Scientists (the "concerned", I think, puts the intensity of the overall problem mildly), people have come together and made quite a difference. If they hadn't tried then the issues they raise may well have remained in obscurity while scientists of conscience masked their understanding and "concern" with lots of rolaids.

/m