Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by nine_k » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #41

I disagree. While it //is// unprofessional to joke around with licensing, I think the author of the article (and some of the commenters her) seriously exaggerate the thread of a legal suit. Who will sue? EFF? Crockford? I am no expert in "license law", but I am sure a you-are-using-this-for-evil accusations would not stand a chance.

google "frivolous lawsuit".

Corporations troll each other in court quite often, in order to bleed the defendant and/or force them to resolve the case off-court, for a sum of money. Using code licensed under such a troll-bait like the "good, not evil" clause while having nice corporate revenue is a big mistake.

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

#172

Post by jballanc » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 6:05 PM UTC

markokocic wrote: post #164

jballanc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

I completely agree with you here. People should take care about licenses of the software they use, especially in a commercial setup, for all the reasons you stated. But, you read the license, you decide if you are going to use it or not. That's it. If you are not sure, just don't use it. Use something else if available. Or build your own. What I don't understand is the basis on which some people complain about the au…

Indeed. Regarding the article itself, my view would be that the blame lies squarely at the feet of the Mono team for using Crockford's code, license and all, knowing that their target audience (finicky Linux distros) might later object. But then, properly assigning blame is a talent few, if any, possess.

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

#173

Post by darrenkopp » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 6:53 PM UTC

The real sad part is that is likely used by JsonSerializer class which was just kind of a quick hack to quickly add json support to a few things and it has been deprecated in favor of DataContractJsonSerializer.

So the only people who are using that are people who started using it really quickly after it was released and haven't updated their code to stop using it.

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

#174

Post by gizmo686 » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 10:29 PM UTC

kamjam wrote: post #126

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should start an open source project called EvilJSON which reimplements it but flips the good and evil in the licence so you can't use it for good.

I might do this, think of all those communist countries out there that are unable to use this software due to this stupid clause! :-)

I believe you mean all of those capitalist countries out there that are unable to use this software due to this stupid clause.

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

#175

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 10:40 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #74

scotty79 wrote: post #15

Good and evil are arbitrary concepts that are not formally recognized by courts (am I wrong?) so the phrase in the licence is meaningless. How can anyone be so lawyerised to care about that? Lawyers, licences, copyrights, patents are modern though police. So many people consider every creative action (and unfortunately often abandon it) afraid of what laws they might be potentially braking by executing this action.

Good and evil are arbitrary concepts that are not formally recognized by courts (am I wrong?) I'm pretty sure court judgements have use moralistic statements and refered to things like "respect" or "evil", "inhuman". Judges are humans, not compilers. In fact a search of the British court judgements shows many instances of "evil" being referred to in judgements ( http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/sino_search_1.cgi?sort=ra…

> Judges are humans, not compilers.

This is exactly why I would not worry about it. No judge is going to look at that clause and think it is in any way intended to be enforced. Contrary to popular belief, there is plenty of room for common sense in a courtroom.

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

#176

Post by dobro » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

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 does not.

To say it does is an extraordinary claim with deserves extraordinary proof --and, no, ideological ramblings from economists is not proof.

Furthermore, this opinion regarding the market, ie. the "free market" concept, is a very isolated in acceptance Anglo-Saxon idea.

Far from being a scientific conclusion, like gravity or evolution, even though it's touted as such from it's proponents.

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

#177

Post by dobro » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 11:58 PM UTC

runningdogx wrote: post #28

There is no place for humor or overly subjective terms like "evil" in a software license or other legal document, and the problem with Douglas Crockford's license is that he fails to understand that. 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 la…

>There is no place for humor or overly subjective terms like "evil" in a software license or other legal document, and the problem with Douglas Crockford's license is that he fails to understand that.

No, the problem is that the other guys WANT to use Douglas Crockford's code.

It's they who are needy and demanding, not Douglas, who doesn't have to "understand" anything.

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

#178

Post by pooriaazimi » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 12:03 AM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #97

pooriaazimi wrote: post #69

Don't say "Free Software", please. Because you actually mean "FSF-compliant" license. Some people don't give the slightest damn what FSF or any other crazy institution has determined to be a "free" (as in thought/speech) software license. In my humble opinion, a true "free" software license is the kind of license that lets you do "whatever the fuck you want to do" with it - in other words, "public domain". GPL (whate…

I think the FSF has done enough to deserve a defacto trademark on the term Free Software. Certainly I see no reason why your particular definition deserves to supercede the established convention.

I don't like Stallman the man, but really appreciate everything he and others at FSF have done and I think they certainly deserve a lot. But I personally don't like their definition of "free" (and when they draw the line) and it irritates me when I hear their "free" is becoming the de facto definition. Just like it irritates them when they hear Linux (and not GNU/Linux).

(I haven't done even 1/100000th of what Stallman has done, and don't think I ever will be, but still I'm sure I can criticize him. You didn't suggest I can't - I just wanted to say that I'm aware of this fact!).

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

#179

Post by apgwoz » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 12:35 AM UTC

jlgreco wrote: post #160

apgwoz wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course large corporations have lots of lawyers to protect against this (and of course they hire enough engineers to rewrite the thing to begin with), which means I didn't illustrate my point very well. The point is that there is potential negative impact on free software as a result of a "cute" addendum like this.

Frankly I think the GPL, or even worse, the AGPLv3, have just as much, or even moreso, potential to "harm" free software as you describe. Nobody loses sleep over other people using those licenses as they please though. I think maybe I'll switch to an AGPLv3 license with a no-evil modification for my future personal projects...

How does AGPLv3 or even the GPLv3 harm free software? It's certainly more permissive than MIT with the "do no evil" clause.

No one is stopping some dude from taking a large chunk of MIT or BSD licensed code modifying it and then closing it off forever. That fork could become the one to use while the pre-forked one dies in a fire because the software is no longer compatible with the new shiny one with feature X. "Oh crap! I'd like to fix this bug that's been plaguing me since I switched over to the closed source one, but now I can't." -- Some sorry dude who used BSD licensed software[0]

Those who say they don't care about this sort of thing are lying to themselves and everyone listening.

There's this stigma around the FSF licenses, which has never made sense to me. The whole point of them is simply "I share with you, please have some common decency and share with me." This seems like common courtesy to me, and only fair. If some corporation really wants to close everything up, well the same logic for avoiding Crockford's license applies, just rewrite it and don't use it. But, he who shares should always win.

[0]: yes, this was a loaded argument.

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

#180

Post by jlgreco » Sat, Nov 10, 2012, 12:56 AM UTC

apgwoz wrote: post #179

jlgreco wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I think the GPL, or even worse, the AGPLv3, have just as much, or even moreso, potential to "harm" free software as you describe. Nobody loses sleep over other people using those licenses as they please though. I think maybe I'll switch to an AGPLv3 license with a no-evil modification for my future personal projects...

How does AGPLv3 or even the GPLv3 harm free software? It's certainly more permissive than MIT with the "do no evil" clause. No one is stopping some dude from taking a large chunk of MIT or BSD licensed code modifying it and then closing it off forever. That fork could become the one to use while the pre-forked one dies in a fire because the software is no longer compatible with the new shiny one with feature X. "Oh c…

Permissiveness, or lack of it, isn't relevant at all. How I interpret the complaints with the 'no evil', the issue is the 'gotcha' factor, which arguably is out in full force with the AGPLv3. How many companies have botched handling even the GPLv2? We hear about it all the time.

I sincerely like the GPL and AGPL. I don't think potential confusion is a compelling argument against either, nor do I think it against the "do no evil" clause.