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I'd be very happy if someone could present a counter argument to this: this is something expressly against the spirit of the MIT license and Lerna should not co

I'd be very happy if someone could present a counter argument to this: this is something expressly against the spirit of the MIT license and Lerna should not continue claiming that the software is MIT licensed. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd In particular, this seems like a pretty explicit violation of the "no discrimination against field of endeavor" clause. Here is the text of the MIT license: " Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. "

bdhess 8y ago
I don’t think there is a reasonable counter argument. It’s not a free license, for the same reason the JSON license isn’t. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON
- TD-Linux 8y ago
  It's not an Open Source license either, violating criteria 5 and 6 of the definition. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
roblabla 8y ago
It's still the MIT license for other people though. Licenses are a contract between a licensor and and a licensee. OSS requires the Licensor to provides the license in a non-discriminating way, and some licenses, like the GPL, explicitly enforce this. But the MIT license itself has no such provision. You could license a project with MIT to user A, and not to user B. This is all just rule-bending though. I'm very conflicted on this issue. On one part, I agree with the sentiment that this is against the spirit of open source. On the other hand, I do like to see the software community taking a political stance, and using action in an attempt to enact change, on such issues.
- leereeves 8y ago
  It's not the MIT license for other people if it doesn't allow those other people to distribute it as they choose (including giving it to ICE).
  - bdhess 8y ago
    Strangely, ICE itself isn’t on their list.
- jdminhbg 8y ago
  > It's still the MIT license for other people though. But doesn't that imply that other people could redistribute to any of the companies on the list? So it's either not MIT, or it's pointless.
- vsl 8y ago
  "MIT license for other people" is not the MIT license. It's no longer Open Source.
chomp 8y ago
MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit. EDIT: Thought about this on the way into work. The MIT license is only applied to code contributions once the code is "at rest" after merge. Permission is then granted for anyone "obtaining a copy" of the software. The repo maintainers claim that they are obtaining a copy of the software, but it looks like this isn't a copy, it's the original. I wonder if the contributors really do have legal recourse.
- dplgk 8y ago
  Is it politics when human rights are violated? I don't think it's "politics" to oppose children separated from their parents.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Is it politics when human rights are violated? Absolutely. The most important politics. Of course, using “politics” as a dismissal of importance is only a technique to protect the political status quo from a challenge one cannot otherwise defend against.
    - aeorgnoieang 8y ago
      I think there's a legitimate desire in wanting to avoid "politics". It's a more specific instance of avoiding the trap described by 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Here's a good Tumblr post to which I linked earlier today in a similar HN thread: - [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...](https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism... https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism...)
      - dplgk 8y ago
        All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or something), right? So some politics are a pinch or a slap but others are a hammer to the head. What's wrong with taking a stance about, for example, children in cages? This isn't just a protest over whether trickle down works or if taxes are too high/low.
lliamander 8y ago
A explanation for why carving out exceptions for evil people in open source licenses ultimately harms the ecosystem: - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 - https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html

bdhess 8y ago

I don’t think there is a reasonable counter argument. It’s not a free license, for the same reason the JSON license isn’t. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON

TD-Linux 8y ago
It's not an Open Source license either, violating criteria 5 and 6 of the definition. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

roblabla 8y ago

It's still the MIT license for other people though. Licenses are a contract between a licensor and and a licensee. OSS requires the Licensor to provides the license in a non-discriminating way, and some licenses, like the GPL, explicitly enforce this. But the MIT license itself has no such provision. You could license a project with MIT to user A, and not to user B. This is all just rule-bending though. I'm very conflicted on this issue. On one part, I agree with the sentiment that this is against the spirit of open source. On the other hand, I do like to see the software community taking a political stance, and using action in an attempt to enact change, on such issues.

leereeves 8y ago
It's not the MIT license for other people if it doesn't allow those other people to distribute it as they choose (including giving it to ICE).
- bdhess 8y ago
  Strangely, ICE itself isn’t on their list.
jdminhbg 8y ago
> It's still the MIT license for other people though. But doesn't that imply that other people could redistribute to any of the companies on the list? So it's either not MIT, or it's pointless.
vsl 8y ago
"MIT license for other people" is not the MIT license. It's no longer Open Source.

chomp 8y ago

MIT allows for the sublicensing to a more restrictive license. I have no idea how this would play out in court, but it looks like this is allowed. Pretty scummy move though for people who don't agree with this maintainers politics, and very concerning for ANY company who does anything that the maintainers could potentially disagree with. I'd avoid this project now, or use an older MIT-only commit. EDIT: Thought about this on the way into work. The MIT license is only applied to code contributions once the code is "at rest" after merge. Permission is then granted for anyone "obtaining a copy" of the software. The repo maintainers claim that they are obtaining a copy of the software, but it looks like this isn't a copy, it's the original. I wonder if the contributors really do have legal recourse.

dplgk 8y ago
Is it politics when human rights are violated? I don't think it's "politics" to oppose children separated from their parents.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Is it politics when human rights are violated? Absolutely. The most important politics. Of course, using “politics” as a dismissal of importance is only a technique to protect the political status quo from a challenge one cannot otherwise defend against.
  - aeorgnoieang 8y ago
    I think there's a legitimate desire in wanting to avoid "politics". It's a more specific instance of avoiding the trap described by 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Here's a good Tumblr post to which I linked earlier today in a similar HN thread: - [The Grey Tribe — Activism, Accessibility, Setting Good...](https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism... https://the-grey-tribe.tumblr.com/post/175038067648/activism...)
    - dplgk 8y ago
      All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing (or something), right? So some politics are a pinch or a slap but others are a hammer to the head. What's wrong with taking a stance about, for example, children in cages? This isn't just a protest over whether trickle down works or if taxes are too high/low.

lliamander 8y ago

A explanation for why carving out exceptions for evil people in open source licenses ultimately harms the ecosystem: - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8106 - https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html https://www.fsf.org/patrons/licensing/20050211.html