I think we have to consider that the principles of the free software movement, revolutionary though they genuinely were, were also set in the same mindset that latterly saw its founder Richard Stallman spectacularly fall from grace. They are principles that deal in software development and licensing in strict isolation, outside of the social context of their use. They are code-centered, not human-centered.
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It’s worth considering whose freedom we value. Do we value the freedom of the people who use software, or do we also value the freedom of the people the software is used on? While the latter group doesn’t always exist, when they do, how we consider them says a lot about us and our priorities.
Isn’t this treating the symptoms, not the cause? The real problem here seems to be that militaries and bad actors are killing people they obviously shouldn’t, but it feels like the article just accepts that as something that “downstream users” do.
I’m all for responsible software use, but I think the issue lies deeper than software licensing.