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Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

evanhahn.com

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Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#111

Post by abetusk »

Restricting licenses in this way stops it from being libre/free/open source. A fundamental aspect of libre/free/open source is that it's possible to use in a commercial setting. The FSF FAQ addresses this point specifically [0].

If the author wants to abandon libre/free/open source licenses, they should state so explicitly. As it stands, the blog post is ambiguous about whether the author wants to abandon libre/free/open source for a proprietary license or whether they want to strip libre/free/open source licenses of their freedom. I don't follow alternative licenses of this sort but I've seen licenses that allow gratis use up until some threshold of users or income is reached. For example, the Unreal engine license has something along these lines [1].

If the author wants to remain libre/free/open source while mitigating bad behavior by large corporate actors, the AGPL is a fine choice as it legally coerces the copyleft even behind network based software. I'm not sure I have any hard evidence but I've heard that large corporate actors avoid the AGPL for this reason.

I'm a little incredulous that authors choose one of the most "business friendly" but least libre/free/open source (while still being FOSS) licenses and then are shocked when businesses use it without any thought to remuneration. I've seen a few instances of people providing software under and MIT license, such as the helmet.js package discussed in this blog post, and then regretting their decision.

The MIT license is used as a "business friendly" license that is still libre/free/open but doesn't have the copyleft clause to mitigate bad behavior. Why did you choose the MIT license in the first place? Why abandon other libre/free/open source license alternatives and go straight to a proprietary solution?

I don't even know how to begin to address the issue of who gets to decide who the "bad guys" are and who the "good guys" are.

In my opinion, the reason for the success of FOSS is because it's an answer to overly restrictive copyright by enriching the commons. The commons, by definition, is free for public use. If you don't agree with creating a rich commons so that everyone can benefit, that's absolutely your right, just please don't call it open source.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#NoMilitary

[1] https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/license

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#112

Post by nine_k »

crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

It is impossible to write a real "use for good, not evil" [1] license, because there's no formal, universally accepted notions of good and evil. While there are things that are universally considered good, or considered evil, the areas around them are large, nebulous, and are anything but clearly outlined. Hence legally avoiding the "anti-evil" license terms will always be a relatively easy option for a willing party. Moreover, there is a large range of issues and causes that are considered "good" by some and "evil" by others, so there will always be a controversy and disagreement even without any legal suits, where everyone would consider themselves sincerely right, not just technically correct while violating the spirit.

A weapon that only a lawful good character can wield is the stuff of fairy tales and board games, which do not reflect reality fully enough.

Unlike this, freedom is pretty well-defined, so e.g. GPL is upheld by courts.

[1]: https://www.json.org/license.html

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#113

Post by Towaway69 »

leoh wrote: post #94

Change the license. There will be CVEs. Require modest payment for updates from large firms.

Blackmail? Surely that can’t be the solution.

That would create a market for creating your own set of fact CVEs (using AI of course) everytime the rent came due.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#114

Post by generalizations »

Sounds good, but what happens when everyone else uses ideological purity filters too?

Because if what this guy is saying is reasonable, then it immediately follows that it's also reasonable for every ideology and religion to exclude the ones they don't like. For example: how does an antisimetic software license strike you? Because that would be a perfectly reasonable license for some people to enact, and fully justified by this article's logic.

Do unto others, and all that.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#115

Post by navane »

generalizations wrote: post #114

Sounds good, but what happens when everyone else uses ideological purity filters too? Because if what this guy is saying is reasonable, then it immediately follows that it's also reasonable for every ideology and religion to exclude the ones they don't like. For example: how does an antisimetic software license strike you? Because that would be a perfectly reasonable license for some people to enact, and fully justif…

No, what is deemed evil by this blog, is what exploites open source. For open source software, that's very relevant.

Just like anti democratic values are relevant for democracies.

Don't straw man this.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#116

Post by salawat »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #89
crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

>at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. One problem with trying to restrict the availability of open-source software: In the limit, as LLMs become better and better at writing code, the value of open-source software will go to zero. So trying to restrict the availability of your code is skating away from where the puck is going. Perhaps your efforts to improve the world a…

I mean, if you ignore the fact there would be no LLM's without wholesale scraping of the corpus of all software ever written.

LLM's are the least ethically sourced pieces of technology I've ever seen. That they have businesses built that haven't been sued out of existence for not asking for permission to train first is positively mind boggling.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#117

Post by awesome_dude »

nine_k wrote: post #112
crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

It is impossible to write a real "use for good, not evil" [1] license, because there's no formal, universally accepted notions of good and evil. While there are things that are universally considered good, or considered evil, the areas around them are large, nebulous, and are anything but clearly outlined. Hence legally avoiding the "anti-evil" license terms will always be a relatively easy option for a willing party…

I have this thinking that, in reality, there's no such thing as objectively 'good' or objectively 'bad'

It's all context and timing.

Almost everyone that will attack this idea will present actions that are loaded with context - murder, is killing when it's bad, self defence is killing when it's good.

If you look at everything, and look at it's non-contextual action, then you can easily find contextually 'good' and contextually 'bad' instances of that thing.

Even further, the story of the man who lost his horse [0] shows us that even if we say that something that happens is contextually good, or bad, the resulting timeline could actually be the complete opposite, meaning that, ultimately, we can never really know if something is good, or bad.

[0] https://oneearthsangha.org/articles/the-old-man-who-lost-his...

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#118

Post by wesleywt »

sirodoht wrote: post #14

Free software is about freedom. Restricting it from anyone means it's not free. There is no requirement that we must create free software but if it's called free I think it should always have the basic qualities of freedom; not only when it fits our purposes and our values.

And yet there are licenses restricting open source use. You should absolutely stop people from using your work if it doesn't align with your values.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#119

Post by billti »

This reminds me of the whole Lerna debacle a few years back.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/open-source-devs-reverse-dec...

That aside, even if something like this was “legally enforceable”, it adds enough friction, risk, and uncertainty to downstream consumers compared to a “vanilla” open source license that I expect most folks would choose an alternative to the “bespoke” license project where they could. Fine if you don’t care about getting usage, but that defeats much of the value that open source brings.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#120

Post by raffraffraff »

No.

Take at any conflict in the world. Ok, nothing that China or Russia are involved in. IDK, let's keep it complicated and say, "waring factions in some African country that doesn't regularly make the news", or "skirmishing Muslim groups in the middle east" (So a hard no to Israel/Palestine which everybody has strongly polarised opinions about whether they're right or not).

Now, wait for every other npm package in the world to get polarised on whether or not to block your shitty package because you picked the wrong side in some faraway war that, to be honest, you don't give a shit about anyway. Or maybe you didn't even voice an opinion about said war? WHY DIDN'T YOU? WHAT ARE YOUR HIDING? WEAR THE RIBBON! CHANT THE CHANT!

Because that's all some people seem to have time for these days, and it's practically impossible to avoid the purity spiral if you show up on their radar. I've seen well known people (celebrities, academics, billionaires) get cancelled for not supporting some specific thing. Once you make this part of your software license people will rightly run like fuck from it.

What's your stance on:

- veganism

- India / Pakistan

- Climate change (no fly stickers, do you fly??)

- GM

- You country's immigration policy

- Some other country's immigration policy

- Trump (even if you're not American)

- Taiwan

- Taxation

- Houtis

- Sulki racing (Irish travellers)

- Islam Vs Christianity / Judaism / Hinduism

- Communism / Socialism

Or, just maybe, this is a few lines of code that is concerned with X and not (all these things, Jesus give me a break)

The end result of this would be a completely broken ecosystem. Package version hell, but worse.

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