Both. Even assuming that the government would be unwilling to violate the terms of the license, it does not stop them from using other software to accomplish the same task.
There are many things that they could do to get around it. The license would be a low barrier for anybody who is even a little bit determined.
> it does not stop them from using other software to accomplish the same task.
I think that's fine from the author POV. They are not trying to impose their views onto others, they just don't want to be personally contributing.
The "Even if I wasn't doing it someone else would" defense is used to justify all sorts of bad behavior by people. If you think something is wrong and you have the choice, the least you can do is not contribute to it. Especially if it's a hobby project for you where you don't have any incentives to compromise your principles.
It's the root of many cognitive dissonances. "if I wasn't working on this addictive and toxic social media platform for a very good salary surely someone else would do it instead and the only difference to the world is that I would get less money".
This sort of jutification pops up everywhere. "I'm not really doing something bad because if I wasn't there it would still be done.".
Maybe there is a game theory research on this but basically the end point is a situation where everyone think some action is ethically wrong or has bad outcome for the group but they are still doing it because they don't know what others think and they assume one or more have less ethos than them.
As one of the most annoying kids in the CD/LPMud scene I am likely still responsible for more MUDs being banned from InterMud than anyone else - I would wiz just about anywhere I could to stalk and occasionally harass friends and enemies alike. (The name Moles has been banned on most remaining CD muds since 1994.)
The one place they could never ban was the TMI/MudOS development MUD - I don't even remember what it was called, but looking at what the folks from there are doing today... boy, I should've spent a lot more time actually trying to get to know them instead of bugging the people I played with elsewhere.
My first mud experience was TFE back in the 90s at uni and I tanked psychology because of it. I decided to learn how to make my own (incidentally how I ended up in software engineering!) which never had a single player but 30~ developers for a period of 2-3 years hacking away on areas.. MUDs were the original community-coded-projects!
I have OFTEN considered the idea of writing a new MUD with the intention of bringing in a whole new realm of users to the genre but have never really worked out how to make it viable (I cannot see anyone funding a team to build a MUD startup)
I have some ideas though.. I think telnet is too intimidating for new players. The barrier to entry is too high. They need to work on mobile, they need to probably be some kind of browser-based experience with font styling and the lightest touch UI beyond the old '>' prompt.
If anyone's keen on dropping some coin I have 30 years of thinking on the subject and would happily leave my day job ;)
I did work experience when I was in highschool at an old-school printing press with 100yo german made printing machines and I got the opportunity to play with typesetting using real brass. It was pretty cool and massively time-consuming, I love the DIY nature of this I think it would be great for teaching school kids about traditional printing.
When I played with a real printing press, I found the labor-intensive step of setting the type to be relaxing. Once you were proficient at locating the letters from the case, you almost didn't need to think. And no they weren't made of brass, but lead, and you weren't suppose to eat finger foods after typesetting.
> A film created by Carl Schlesinger and David Loeb Weiss documenting the last day of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times. This film shows the entire newspaper production process from hot-metal typesetting to creating stereo moulds to high-speed press operation. At the end of the film, the new typesetting and photographic production process is shown in contrast to the old ways.
While typesetting is pretty time consuming (I guess?), it was still a massive improvement over copying things by hand; it set the stage for mass production, so setting was done once, but then they could make an infinite amount of copies of anything. Mostly bibles, but still.
You are probably thinking of hot metal typesetting (Linotype, etc). Before that sorts ("types") were made from all kinds of alloys, so "brass" does not sound wrong.
This is not the first time, see the Flagellum Motor (which is far more complex) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum
(often used in ontological arguments)
That's a rotating joint, but doesn't include gears (though it is really cool!). Conversely these gears are not on fully rotating joints, but on pivoting joints.
