21–30 of 187 posts
If it's not, it's a bit of harmless fun.
If it is, then potentially anyone using software licensed under the license discussed in the article is in some serious trouble, and the article itself has merit.
So, any lawyers around who can give us a definitive answer to that one? Sadly, all the lawyers I know specialise in UK rather than US law.
Here is the quote the post refers to from "The JSON Saga": When I put the reference implementation onto the website, I needed to put a software license on it. I looked up all the licenses that are available, and there were a lot of them. I decided the one I liked the best was the MIT license, which was a notice that you would put on your source, and it would say: "you're allowed to use this for any purpose you want,…
Seems like this could be avoided by simply approaching the author and offering to pay for a version of the software with the license you want. If I'm not mistaken, the author in question has in fact given companies in the past permission to use this particular library for "evil purposes". Most importantly though, one should refrain from making demands on people who are offering you things for free. If you like the co…
That's not an option for Free Software distributions like Debian, so everybody loses except evildoers.
It seems to be working. (Though I might add a "too" in front of seriously). Sometimes ridiculous things need mocking.
(And just for the record, I do fully expect future generations to find our preoccupation with "owning" and "licensing" every stray line of text or bar of musical notes to be thoroughly ridiculous.)
Why can't you do that?
Will someone punish you for that if author won't sue anybody?
Will his descendants inherit the right to sue distributor?
The key issue here seems to be whether the "good not evil" clause is in any way legally enforcible. If it's not, it's a bit of harmless fun. If it is, then potentially anyone using software licensed under the license discussed in the article is in some serious trouble, and the article itself has merit. So, any lawyers around who can give us a definitive answer to that one? Sadly, all the lawyers I know specialise in…
How would one enforce this license against a fictitious "Evil Inc." who self-proclaim "We do Evil", well now that's not subjective anymore? Hmm...
... oh hang on, aren't jokes supposed to be funny?
The irony is that Crockford's licence is an unintended success in line with Eich's JavaScript itself.
JavaScript, as a Lisp in disguise which survived early standardisation, browser wars, Microsoft's JScript, European bureaucracy (the E in ECMA?), Adobe and Crockford's own jslint, is a success at being something very, very useful.
Crockford's "Good, not evil" licence, it could be argued, is a free licence only if the definition of good/evil is a personal one. One of the main issues of Luther's reform is that good and evil are a personal choice [1]. Crockford is succeeding at indirectly making people think of who has the right to tag something as good or evil.
[1] At least that's what I remember from school.
That is, unless his intent is to keep every entity with sane lawyers from using his software. I don't think that's his intent. He said he wants to keep people without a sense of humor from using his software, but sane lawyers with a good sense of humor will object to the license just as strongly as sane lawyers with no sense of humor.
Venue matters. A lawsuit based on the evil clause of the license, in San Francisco or Los Angeles, would probably go nowhere. However, consider a jury in Birmingham, AL, and whether they would find that using some of Crockford's software in an abortion clinic was a violation of the license.
I read that you can't distribute code that has no license. Why can't you do that? Will someone punish you for that if author won't sue anybody? Will his descendants inherit the right to sue distributor?
Here is the quote the post refers to from "The JSON Saga": When I put the reference implementation onto the website, I needed to put a software license on it. I looked up all the licenses that are available, and there were a lot of them. I decided the one I liked the best was the MIT license, which was a notice that you would put on your source, and it would say: "you're allowed to use this for any purpose you want,…