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Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software

apebox.org

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

#121

Post by rwmj »

iSnow wrote: post #84
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.

Writing OpenSource software used to be a real of real amateurs, people who do it because they love to do that stuff and derive fun out of it. Now, it seems, the license has become the most important aspect in this. IMHO, this is a most unfortunate development, sadly driven by license fundamentalists like Debian. It is high time that someone like Crockford throws a fistful of sand in those gears and causes butthurt. M…

"license fundamentalists" ...? You mean, "people trying to obey the law and not get sued"?

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

#122

Post by Kilimanjaro »

To use Javascript you don't need a license. Javascript object literals are part of Javascript, ergo, you don't need a license. Json, which is the string representation of a javascript object literal for transmission and storage, doesn't need a license either.

I can do whatever the fuck I want with JSON and nobody can touch me.

Look, I can even use it for EVIL if I want!

So sue me.

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

#123

Post by scott_s »

fourstar wrote: post #30
andrewguenther wrote: post #8

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,…

Glad to see Crockford making jokes there. Unfortunately after leaving a comment on a recent picture update on his Google+ profile (in good humor), he banned me from his circles, unshared everything with me, and removed the comment. I still look up to him though.

Humor from strangers does not transfer well. What seemed to be in good humor to you, may have been obnoxious to him.

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

#124

Post by monochromatic »

tptacek wrote: post #118
monochromatic wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If others are encouraged to make similar "jokes," yes.

So, just to be clear, your take is that the authors of software are not in fact entitled to use whatever license they please?

Obviously they are, and I don't think anyone here is arguing otherwise. Are you focusing on that point because it's the only one that makes this seem acceptable?

The question is whether it is harmful to free software to put unfunny non-jokes like this into licenses. The answer is "yes, it is."

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

#126

Post by kamjam »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #82
masklinn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. or taking the JSON grammar and implementing it from scratch. It's not exactly complex, the most complex part is strings and even those are rather simple.

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! :-)

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

#127

Post by curiousdannii »

andreasvc wrote: post #42
archangel_one wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, those diligent users can reimplement the software if they don't like it. It's only the implementation that's got that clause, not the spec. 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.

You're painting a picture of a way out that doesn't exist for most people (reverse straw man?). When it's about a library on which a lot of software depends then the common non-programmer has had absolutely no choice about this and cannot re-implement either.

Luckily JSON 3 exists! http://bestiejs.github.com/json3/

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

#128

Post by apgwoz »

ygra wrote: post #93
apgwoz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're missing the larger picture here. If someone like IBM or Apple, or Google were to accidentally use a license like this (which is otherwise free ) they could waste millions defending it in court due to some lawsuit. How would that look for Free Software? Probably even worse! "Google sued for using Free Software" -- Headline on the NY Times.

That's why large corporations have hordes of lawyers to help with such things. There is no such thing as accidentally using code under a certain license and there are procedures in place to handle that. It's no different with using commercial code that was licensed to you, anyway. You still have to adhere to the licensing terms and if you don't they can sue you.

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.

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

#129

Post by hnal943 »

andreasvc wrote: post #48
jasonkester wrote: post #5

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…

It doesn't work like that. For the code to be part of a Linux distribution like Debian, they have to be able to distribute it to everyone, so such a request would amount to asking can you please remove the clause from the license. And your point about not making demands to things you get for free is not true in general. When someone offers money to the local animal shelter under the condition that it's only used for…

Refusing the money and sarcastically thanking the donor for "ruining animal shelters" are two drastically different reactions.

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

#130

Post by skreech »

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…

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.

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