21–30 of 229 posts
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
We picked the Boost license for the D Language Foundation because it is the closest to public domain we could find.
Besides, why would "bad guys" be deterred by a license, anyway?
Open source is a gift you’re giving. Companies take that gift and use it to provide a service for cheaper than it would otherwise be if they had to build it all themselves. You are already benefiting from open source - but it is a tiny benefit and subtle and very indirect and very diffuse. Licensing is thorny but it’s personal choice too.. would you use a project whose license is “use it for now unless or until I dec…
[flagged]
DuckStation (PS1 emulator) changed license from GPL to CC-BY-NC, because Chinese manufacturers were including it in their hw devices. Somehow I doubt that helped.
Some possibilities (while still being FOSS) might be:
- Use AGPL3 license, and do not make exceptions. (Alternatively, make an exception but make it possible to revoke the exception.)
- Design the program for uses that are not bad so that bad uses might be more difficult.
- Sue them, if this becomes necessary.
These combination might make it difficult for bad guys to use it for bad purposes, although some organizations might ignore the license and use it anyways, but you cannot really prevent that.
If you prevent licensing software to large corporations, small corporations won't use it, either, because small corporations may get acquired by large ones. Such a license would be a "poison pill". I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. We picked the Boost license for the D Language Foundation because it is the closest to public domain we could find. Besides, why would "bad guys" be deterred by a license, an…
I like you @WalterBright you can use any of my stuff even if you get acquired
Ultimately though, if you put a non free license on your libraries, somebody will cry foul, fork it, and evil will still happen.
If you prevent licensing software to large corporations, small corporations won't use it, either, because small corporations may get acquired by large ones. Such a license would be a "poison pill". I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. We picked the Boost license for the D Language Foundation because it is the closest to public domain we could find. Besides, why would "bad guys" be deterred by a license, an…
Why isn't there a "if I like you you can use it" I like you @WalterBright you can use any of my stuff even if you get acquired
Take a look at the original json.org license and all the problems that the "not for evil" clause they added to it had caused. Ultimately though, if you put a non free license on your libraries, somebody will cry foul, fork it, and evil will still happen.
Just because you can fork something doesn't always mean you're able to just change the license.
This is already explored - use source available instead of open source.
Presumably they want to keep the project liberally licensed modulo the "no evil" part. A source-available license would probably be too restrictive for that purpose unless it is somehow made compatible with open/free licenses. But I am not a lawyer, so I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about.
It's literally the MIT license with an added clause of only using the software for good, not evil.
Obviously, corporate attorneys will advise not to use the software since good and evil aren't really well defined legal terms. It's also not open source using the osi definition.