Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

apebox.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 187 posts

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#131

Post by jballanc »

benihana wrote: post #120
jballanc wrote: post #53

Sometimes I find the cognitive dissonance in the software community to be as entertaining to watch as that in various religious sects... Software types are famously inclined toward libertarian views. An oft repeated mantra on HN is "let the market decide". Yet, here we have myriad complaints about a decision the market has made. What I particularly love about the Open Source/Free Software world is that it is a market…

> It's almost as if the market, left to its own devices, doesn't always make the best long-term decisions when short-term benefit weighs in opposition. It's almost as if people look for any example, no matter how flimsy an analogy it is, to confirm their worldview. So, the vast majority of people are very happy to use this software with this vague license because it doesn't fucking matter to 95% of all software devel…

It's not a market failure because it pisses off one person. It's a market failure in that the long-term sustainability of a fundamental component of the ecosystem is in question. Potentially, Douglas Crockford could hire a team of lawyers and go after every single software engineer or company that he disagrees with by claiming they are "evil" (never mind the ontological questions and somewhat inherent contradiction such behavior would represent).

Yes, the license terms don't matter to 95% of all software developers. So what? Care to guess at the percentage of brokers that made out like bandits trading CDOs? My point is exactly that an ecosystem where the bulk of players can benefit by optimizing for the short-term at the potential expense of the long-term will fail to find the long-term optimal solution (at least, not without significant upheaval).

But then, I suppose I am completely free to till my own back yard, grow some vegetables, and raise chickens so...yeah, complete market triumph!

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#132

Post by curiousdannii »

theorique wrote: post #106
0x0 wrote: post #56

Funnily enough, Apple seems to be OK with this license, as it's shown on all iOS devices inside that long list of acknowledgments/legal inside settings somewhere.

Apple doesn't do evil.

That they use the licence makes this undeniable, right? This is the ultimate proof we're after?

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#133

Post by scotty79 »

icebraining wrote: post #52
scotty79 wrote: post #25

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?

IANAL I read that you can't distribute code that has no license. Why can't you do that? Because copyright law says so - it reserves the right to copy to the author. Will someone punish you for that if author won't sue anybody? I believe depends on whether you fall under a criminal or civil violation. http://www.chillingeffects.org/copyright/faq.cgi#QID885 Will his descendants inherit the right to sue distributor? Yes…

Mind-bending. Especially condition for violation to be criminal:

1) for commercial advantage or private financial gain

or

3) by distributing copyrighted work where the infringer knew or should have known the work was intended for public distribution.

Does that also cover non-American authors? And distribution of works of American authors abroad?

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#134

Post by jballanc »

skreech wrote: post #130
markokocic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived problem? What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough projects? And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be allowed to do evil? Do…

No, I'm saying that will not solve the perceived problem. I suggest more information, such as "Be aware that this software is licensed under a custom license. Click here to view the license." I don't think the author of the article suggests that evil should be allowed, but that it is very hard to define evil, and that this clause makes the license non-free software.

It honestly would not be that difficult to implement something like this. Both the OSI and FSF maintain lists of "approved" licenses along with standard license text. In fact, Pivotal Labs has created a tool along these lines for Ruby: https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder , and the Leiningen project tool from Clojure allows for licenses to be specified in a machine parseable format: https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.... .

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#135

Post by markokocic »

skreech wrote: post #130
markokocic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived problem? What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough projects? And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be allowed to do evil? Do…

No, I'm saying that will not solve the perceived problem. I suggest more information, such as "Be aware that this software is licensed under a custom license. Click here to view the license." I don't think the author of the article suggests that evil should be allowed, but that it is very hard to define evil, and that this clause makes the license non-free software.

I agree with you here. But the software is $free, just now for available to everyone, and "non-free" in the FSF definition of "free".

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#136

Post by jballanc »

markokocic wrote: post #100
skreech wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see it as a market, this is a typical market failure (externality and / or information assymmetry). Since the author has chosen a non-standard license, I doubt government regulation would help (unless that regulation outlawed non-standard FLOSS licenses). Probably would be better to reduce the information assymmetry. Maybe Github could have warning notifications for custom licenses, for example?

Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived problem? What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough projects? And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be allowed to do evil? Do…

Do you have a start up? Do you hope that you will some day be able to make an exit with that start up? Are you willing to entertain a buy-out by a larger corporation as a possible exit?

If yes, then as much as you (the hacker/startup founder) might not care or have a second thought about licenses like this, you should keep in mind that your potential purchaser almost definitely will.

Also, just for the record, I'm actually a big fan of Crockford's "Do no evil" license. What bothers me is the number of people who don't pay any more attention to the licenses of the software on which they build entire companies than they do to the EULAs of the software they install. Casually agreeing to a EULA is not the same as disregarding an Open Source license.

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#137

Post by pbreit »

tptacek wrote: post #108
jahewson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's sad that Crockford wrote a piece of code and gave it away for free in such a way that some people feel they can't use it? How much sadder than all the code every YC company writes and doesn't publish at all?

Kind of a lame and unnecessary rip on YC?

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#139

Post by Evbn »

markokocic wrote: post #101
scott_w wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

""" The author also seem to forget that there are advocates of the MIT license who would never use GPL software because of its viral nature. Does that mean Richard Stallman is 'harmful to software'? Criticize the license, but don't name-call the author who has made major positive contributions to the field. """ There is a large difference here: * The GPL is pushing an agenda in their licence, and attempts to clearly…

You can also say that GPL is pushing an agenda, while Crockford is standing up to his high moral principles. If you don't agree with it, just don't use it.

vaguely stated moral principles.

Re: Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

#140

Post by pbreit »

jasim wrote: post #14

The article is in bad taste. The title even more. If you don't like Crockford's license you are at liberty to write that code yourself. Please don't call people who contribute a great deal to advancing computing (Free Software or not) names like 'harmful to Free Software'. Even if there is genuine concern in the license and its usage in Free Software, it should be raised by pointing to the code and the license, not b…

I was prepared to think the same way when I read the headline. But it's pretty hard to separate the personality from the issue in this case. There's nothing stopping Crockford from doing the right thing here except for his personality.
Post reply on HN