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Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

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Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#81

Post by jjmarr »

fooqux wrote: post #33
jjmarr wrote: post #10

There are plenty of licences to achieve this that'll make your code unusable. CC-BY-NC allows you to ban commercial use. There is also the Hippocratic licence[2] which allows you to choose from a variety of "evil corporation" types, from fossil fuels, mineral exploration, the Taliban, companies that have more than 200% pay inequity, etc. Pretty much all of these licences will make your project unusable and no longer…

I think part of what they're trying to do is change the discussion or the "norm". For example, if every developer suddenly changed to that style of license, would you still deem it unusable?

Yes, if only because of the broad patent grant. 3.1.6 is also concerning since it can be read as indemnification?

> Prevent any person from exercising his/her/their right to seek an effective remedy by a competent court or national tribunal (including domestic judicial systems, international courts, arbitration bodies, and other adjudicating bodies) for actions violating the fundamental rights granted to him/her/them by applicable constitutions, applicable laws, or by this License

There's also a clause allowing for specific performance which means, by using the licence for anything at a company, you're opening the risk of a court-appointed special master coming in and taking over your HR systems to enforce compliance.

You also can't terminate the licence to avoid this equitable relief:

> Additional Remedies: Termination of the License by failing to remedy harms in no way prevents Licensor or Supply Chain Impacted Party from seeking appropriate remedies at law or in equity.

It's a fascinating conceptual legal document but completely unusable. I'm not a lawyer but using anything under this licence seems incredibly risky to me.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#82

Post by burnt-resistor »

pabs3 wrote: post #67

The best option to stop bad companies from doing bad things is to lobby your government to put in place laws against those bad things. Ban specific evils with regulation, thats much more effective than preventing people who do those evils from using a specific piece of software that is fairly easily replaced.

Exactly. FOSS isn't the right vehicle to legislate morality or control-freak end-uses of gifts. It's uncool.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#83

Post by burnt-resistor »

WalterBright wrote: post #21

If you prevent licensing software to large corporations, small corporations won't use it, either, because small corporations may get acquired by large ones. Such a license would be a "poison pill". I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. We picked the Boost license for the D Language Foundation because it is the closest to public domain we could find. Besides, why would "bad guys" be deterred by a license, an…

Exactly. Unreasonable conditions imposed on everyone to "solve" an ideological or societal matter impose externalities on bystanders. It's religious fervor not backed by honest appreciation of human nature or reality. While I don't like end-uses that exploit or harm others, there is no meaningful magic spell that can police usage of code gifts apart from not giving away anything and micromanaging every single invocation for moral purity.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#84

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

Thinking aloud here. Start by requiring that orgs get your permission via email to license your code. Over time, formalize the patterns in your approve/deny responses into an LLM-powered API which does an instant approve/deny, with a prompt you handcrafted and backtested based on real-world data. This could even work for e.g. Linux package installation: As a pre-install hook, a prompt asks the user what organization they work for (if any) and how they intend to use your code. Make it so users can still appeal a "deny" by sending you an email, but attempting to respond to the questions a second time with different answers violates the license [within a certain timeframe at least]. If other open source devs are also interested in this scheme, you could let them piggyback off of your infrastructure... answering your qs toggles a "virtue bit" which unlocks a bunch of "ethical packages", hosted in a dedicated repository to better track downloads. Support yourself by suing companies which violate your license terms.

Since organizations evolve over time, you could have a re-authorization flow every time your users want a major version update of your software.

A flaw in this proposal is that the very worst actors (scammers, black hats, etc.) are likely to be beyond the reach of the legal system in practice. Perhaps you could mitigate this a little bit by replacing Github Issues with a private support forum for trusted licensees.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#85

Post by muragekibicho »

GaryBluto wrote: post #71

I don't understand why so many open source developers don't want truly free software. Your software isn't free if people can't do whatever they want with it. "Evil" is also a bad descriptor to use. If I started giving out apples for free on the street (of which I had an infinite supply), I wouldn't be upset if nobody came back with an improved apple for me to use instead. > I don’t just want to do this for my little…

I share your sentiment. He needs to decide if his software is open-source or not.

It goes both ways. Open-source devs don't owe you free bug patches. People profitting from open-source don't owe you a share of their income.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#86

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

From the perspective of decreasing income inequality on a global scale, when multinationals fire workers in developed countries and replace them with lower-paid workers in developing countries, that is a very good thing, since people in developing countries need the jobs more. I would be skeptical of any license which privileges co-ops over multinationals for that reason. Co-ops are likely to reinforce existing global income inequality, due to labor protections for developed-world workers. A globally rich, privileged slacker gets to keep a job they're barely doing, because they had the good fortune of being born on the right dirt. It's modern feudalism.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#87

Post by muragekibicho »

fijiaarone wrote: post #31

Sounds like the guy that invented bicycle helmets. He didn’t want Nazis to feel safe letting their kids ride bikes to school either.

What are the odds.

OP's rant is about Helmet.js, his sorta-popular NPM package. You drew a fascinating parallel.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#88

Post by normie3000 »

kazinator wrote: post #73
PunchyHamster wrote: post #35

Just make it GPL, there is no chance evil company would tolerate the enforcement of giving back, let alone lawyers to make sure they comply.

GPL does not prohibit evil uses. You can put GPLed crap in weapons systems that are used for striking civilian targets.

If a weapon includes AGPLed code, do targets of the weapon have a right to view the source code?

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#89

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

>at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues.

One problem with trying to restrict the availability of open-source software: In the limit, as LLMs become better and better at writing code, the value of open-source software will go to zero. So trying to restrict the availability of your code is skating away from where the puck is going. Perhaps your efforts to improve the world are better allocated elsewhere.

Re: Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

#90

Post by crabmusket »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #86
crabmusket wrote: post #56

Two thoughts. Ben Thompson and James Allworth discussed an idea on an episode of The Exponent ( https://exponent.fm/ ) the idea of a "principle stack", and at which "layer" of the stack it's appropriate to address different societal issues. I wish I could find the episode again, it was quite a few years ago. The upshot being... maybe software licensing isn't the right place to address e.g. income inequality? On the o…

From the perspective of decreasing income inequality on a global scale, when multinationals fire workers in developed countries and replace them with lower-paid workers in developing countries, that is a very good thing, since people in developing countries need the jobs more. I would be skeptical of any license which privileges co-ops over multinationals for that reason. Co-ops are likely to reinforce existing globa…

I haven't yet fully digested this comment, but I will say right off the bat that there are many co-ops in the developing world. Nathan Schneider in Everything for Everyone describes the culture shock of arriving in Nigeria (IIRC) and co-ops being everywhere, just such a normal part of life.
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