Should open source ban itself in China and Russia?
theregister.com
theregister.com
The spirit of FOSS is the same spirit as old school "scientific inquiry"; that all thoughts can and should be shared because the benefits outweigh the costs of doing so. In that sense the freedom to publish, read, and use computer code should be just as inviolate as ever.
In this specific context the notion that competing states would honor license restrictions seems silly; why should the USA not pirate China's new linux fork when it has advantages? What use then in language that prohibits such behavior when there's no structure of law to give it backing force?
Not to mention any restriction on geographic usage would violate freedom 0, so any software imposing such a restriction would by definition no longer be FOSS.
The whole thing is absurd. Clownworld!