31–40 of 187 posts
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,…
It's sad that Crockford thinks that causing this kind of hassle to diligent users of his software is funny. Ha ha, stupid user, you took the legally binding joke which I inserted into a legally binding license seriously, hahah you sooo funny. Yeah, a real barrel of laughs. Never mind that licensing law is a lot less flexible than contract law, in which unreasonable terms are readily removed.
Obviously that's not easy for them to do, but nobody says they have to use his implementation if they don't like the terms it's licensed under.
The author makes a valid point - people should be able to use free software for any purpose and inclusion of this restriction in the license makes it non-free. In this specific case, I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil and therefore should be prevented from using Crockford's software at all. If Microsoft embeds a Crockford-based JSON parser in their own releases, they are in clear violation of its terms. ;-)
Could you explain why this is? I use Mono and I'm genuinely interested.
It takes me back to the frenzy over VLC on iOS. People write code, we need to respect their choices with respect to how they license it, even if their choice is whimsey with a dangerous side of legal morass.
This argument sounds dangerously like a tirade because Mr. Crockford did something that did not benefit the free software movement. His software is un-free, just as the GPL is un-free. I'm ok with that, even if my lawyer isn't ok with me using his code.
I don't understand. The guy complain that json license is not "Free" in the FSF sense of "Free". So what? Not all licenses has to be FSF or FSF compatible. How is it harmful to FSF is the license of some piece of code is not compatible with GPL? Guess what, I can't use GPL in my projects, because it's not compatible with the kind of license I release my programs. You can't use this software because it's not comapatib…
It's a license that's misleadingly almost-free. It's like the old 4-term BSD license with the "obnoxious advertising clause".
Like the GPL is misleadingly almost free? As in it's free but if you release software which uses GPL software, it is under GPL? I am not arguing about the meaning of free, I am arguing against your "it's a license that's misleadingly almost free". Just like GPL's terms doesn't make it non-free, "don't use it for evil" doesn't make it non-free.
EDIT: I see people arguing about "don't use it for evil" violates "can use it for any purpose" clause. Fine. GPL's clause violates "use it to distribute software without making my whole software GPL."
I don't understand. The guy complain that json license is not "Free" in the FSF sense of "Free". So what? Not all licenses has to be FSF or FSF compatible. How is it harmful to FSF is the license of some piece of code is not compatible with GPL? Guess what, I can't use GPL in my projects, because it's not compatible with the kind of license I release my programs. You can't use this software because it's not comapatib…
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?
You can. It's just that unless otherwise stated, the owner has the copyright in most legislation. Without the license, if you derive from someone's code, he can sue you stating he never granted you the right to use his work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no such thing as "too literally" in a legally binding contract, which is intended to be used anywhere on the world. All it takes is one open-minded judge. Sure it's 99.9% subjective, but why take a chance? What happens if it's used by a company that openly labels itself as evil? Not so subjective anymore... Crockford's act of granting special licenses to companies who may have evil-doing clients is a strong i…
> The real problem with this stupid joke is that it requires a trip to court to invalidate it. I find myself strangely okay with the idea of requiring people to walk into a courtroom and admit that they intend to enact or permit evil.
The author makes a valid point - people should be able to use free software for any purpose and inclusion of this restriction in the license makes it non-free. In this specific case, I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil and therefore should be prevented from using Crockford's software at all. If Microsoft embeds a Crockford-based JSON parser in their own releases, they are in clear violation of its terms. ;-)
" I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil" Could you explain why this is? I use Mono and I'm genuinely interested.
> Could you explain why this is? I use Mono and I'm genuinely interested.
From the op's profile: "I really don't like Microsoft much."
Apparently not liking MS much is reason enough to dislike an open source project implementing an interesting runtime and languages, which provides options to use aforementioned runtime and languages without being married to MS.
Firstly, it's non-standard. As others have said, it's the author's right to make it non-standard, but I don't recommend people try that unless there's a really good reason to do so. If it's non-standard, a lot of companies simply won't use it. There's no box to check, so you can't have it. Good tracking software will of course allow for exceptions and deltas to the standard contracts, but it still creates delays and management overheads as if it's allowed at all, it will require someone's manual sign-off.
This gets worse when you consider the whole chain of software use. One library inside another library that's used by a subcontractor who added it to a build script that's used by the main contractor to distribute to developers. The whole thing needs to be linked through, which is hard enough with standard licenses.
Now startups don't need to worry about sign-off from some department, but they still need to stop and inspect the nature of the licenses they're using, and a non-standard license causes extra time and energy lost.
The second problem is ambiguity. A non-standard contract can still be precisely written, so developers know what they're getting into. In this case, though, it's not. It hinges around the definition of "evil", which is naturally ambiguous.
Comedy goes a long way, but is not always appropriate. This is a good article on the subject: http://www.natpryce.com/articles/000225.html "It may be less amusing to the programmer writing the code but, more importantly, it is less infuriating for the programmer maintaining the code." Think the same applies to licenses.