[babarock]

I don't know if you're "wrong", but I do feel differently about this.

I've written a ton of open source code and I never cared what people do with it, both "good" or "bad". I only want my code to be "useful". Not just to the people I agree with, but to anyone who needs to use a computer.

Of course, I'd rather people use my code to feed the poor than build weapons, but it's just a preference. My conviction is that my code is _freed_ from me and my individual preferences and shared for everyone to use.

I don't think my code is "stolen", if someone uses it to make themselves rich.

[auggierose]

And in that case, use MIT license or something like that for your code, and all is good. If I use AGPL, on the other hand, AI companies should not be allowed to train on that and then use the result of that training while ignoring the license.

[martin-t]

> Not just to the people I agree with, but to anyone who needs to use a computer.

Why not say "... but to the people I disagree with"?

Would you be OK knowing your code is used to cause more harm than good? Would you still continue working on a hypothetical OSS which had no users, other than, say, a totalitarian government in the middle east which executes homosexuals? Would you be OK with your software being a critical directly involved piece of code for example tracking, de-anonymizing and profiling them?

Where is the line for you?

[stravant]

As for me that's a risk I'm willing to accept in return for the freedom of the code.

I'm not going to deliberately write code that's LIKELY to do more harm than good, but crippling the potential positive impact just because of some largely hypothetical risk? That feels almost selfish, what would I really be trying to avoid, personally running into a feel-bad outcome?

[layer8]

I agree with the GP. While I wouldn’t be happy about such uses, I see the use as detached from the software as-is, given (assuming) that it isn’t purpose-built for the bad uses. If the software is only being used for nefarious purposes, then clearly you have built the wrong thing, not applied the wrong license. The totalitarian government wouldn’t care about your license anyway.

The one thing I do care about is attribution — though maybe actually not in the nefarious cases.