31–40 of 153 posts
The JSON license includes a requirement that "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil" Thanks, I never knew this and needed a chuckle this morning.
Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…
So if you for example say that everybody except military, secret services and weapons manufacturers are allowed to use your software, that might not stop them from using it, but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons).
Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…
I am not sure about that. Of course enforcing your usage ideas will be next to impossible, but mentioning sth. can serve other purposes too (e.g. making a set of shared values visible to other developers). So if you for example say that everybody except military, secret services and weapons manufacturers are allowed to use your software, that might not stop them from using it, but it makes other devs consider similar…
A license requiring a user to adhere to the software developers' moral code is the opposite of a free software license.
In your example regarding "weapons manufacturers;" in the United States the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution and interpreted by the courts as an inalienable human right. Your proposed software license would thus restrict the freedom of the user and is therefore non-free.
There are a lot of reasons to like UBI as a funding channel for open source. Open source contributes immensely to people learning how to use computers and even the bad ideas can influence the future. There is all this value and ecosystem being excluded when we look at funding on a per-project basis.
This article confuses me. It seems to be calling for FSF to think about addressing the needs of non-free software.
Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?"…
Feel free to create the "moral/ethical software" movement, but please don't touch the current definition of free software. People already have a hard time understanding what free software exactly is/requires/provides. Changing the definition at this point would only create confusion, especially if the new one is even more ethically grounded.
I think "social" or "ethical" software could be a reasonable term for the views proposed.
That being said, and IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that such ideas would not held in court, unless the "unethical behaviour" is illegal. But in this case, why should criminals stick to software licences?
I.e. it will even further concentrate power, and accomplish the exact opposite of what free software set out to do.
Not to mention the ethical nature of the software could be interpreted by potentially hostile courts. "Spreading disharmony against the state" will fall under "evil", and 'ethical' software will be reduced to another tool of control and propaganda.