4 ms·

You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. Maybe that's something they're being paid quite well to d

You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. Maybe that's something they're being paid quite well to do, and maybe they want to do so. This type of restriction just screams "I want to feel like a good person." You're within your rights to use this restriction, but it's equally as ridiculous as a restriction forcing employees not to eat toast on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. I hope this doesn't catch on. Edit: If the main target here is China, how much do you really believe Chinese companies care about Western copyright laws?

geofft 8y ago
Right, this is perhaps the fundamental objection to social-good software licenses: how many people who don't engage in social good do respect copyright? The GPL works because it's pretty unambiguous about what exactly your obligations are, it's pretty unambiguous when there's a violation of those obligations, and because there are entities that do care deeply about copyright (like, oh, Microsoft and Oracle and IBM) that you'd like to affect. Any license of the form "You must not use this code to wage war." is not going to get respected. The military doesn't care if you sue them. Any license of the form "You must obey laws" (like this one, "The above license is only granted to entities that act in concordance with local labor laws") is not going to get respected. Either the entity was going to obey laws, in which case it's redundant, or they weren't, in which case what do they care about copyright. Any license that's five lines long and tells a US court they have to decide whether a Chinese entity is complaint with Chinese labor law is just ... not going to work the way you want it to. Any license that restricts use and not distribution has the practical problem of being difficult to enforce. If your code runs inside Palantir's systems or on a Patriot missile or as part of the PRISM backend, how will you ever know? The AGPL skirts this line by retaining the "distribution" concept and just defining networked use as distribution (and I think even that is questionable) but anything where you're not actually seeing the infringement is not going to be feasible to enforce.
- progval 8y ago
  > Any license of the form "You must obey laws" (like this one, "The above license is only granted to entities that act in concordance with local labor laws") is not going to get respected. Either the entity was going to obey laws, in which case it's redundant, or they weren't, in which case what do they care about copyright. What about companies that see respecting laws as a tradeoff between having less profits and getting fined? If breaking the law implies an additional fine due to this license, it may tip the balance the other way.
logicchains 8y ago
>You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. I have quite a few mainland Chinese friends in tech (I used to work there), and most work extremely long hours not because they like it, but because management and company culture enforces it and they're powerless to change it. They can't even conduct collective action, as that's essentially illegal. Chinese courts have however recognised the GPL, so it's conceivable that a license like this could have a real effect. I'm also led to believe that many people in the western game industry don't like crunch time (sometimes 100hour+ weeks), but have no choice in the matter. Hence their frequent calls for unionisation, such as https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/86hac3/its_time_for_game_developers_to_unionize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/86hac3/its_time_fo.... If such a license became widely used and could be legally enforced, it could potentially contribute to better working conditions in the game industry. Moreover, note the words "request or schedule". Seems like it wouldn't apply to companies whose employees willingly work extra hours without this being implicitly requested or scheduled by the company. >but it's equally as ridiculous as a restriction forcing employees not to eat toast on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. The difference is that it's not forcing anyone to do anything; nobody has to use software with this license, but if they choose to use the software they must accept the terms. >Edit: If the main target here is China, how much do you really believe Chinese companies care about Western copyright laws? Chinese courts have in fact shown willingness to enforce the GPL in some cases: https://heathermeeker.com/2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china-or-is-it/ https://heathermeeker.com/2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china...
- geofft 8y ago
  I think 'Kaveren isn't saying "You don't know why these people are working 10 hours consecutively" but rather "You don't know why every person who works 10 hours consecutively is doing so." There is certainly a problem with the culture of mainland Chinese tech work (as well as with game dev work), but a license that legally bans use from any company that ever asks anyone to work more than a 10-hour day has too much splash damage, no matter how well-intentioned it is, and is thus a license that perfectly reasonable employers will avoid, and is thus a license that will only protect code that gets reimplemented by perfectly reasonable employers, and thus won't work.
coldtea 8y ago
>You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. Maybe that's something they're being paid quite well to do, and maybe they want to do so. Well, stopping them from being able to, will also help the other 90% that don't want to do so, doesn't get any monetary advantage, but still is pressured to. Small sacrifice to make.

geofft 8y ago

Right, this is perhaps the fundamental objection to social-good software licenses: how many people who don't engage in social good do respect copyright? The GPL works because it's pretty unambiguous about what exactly your obligations are, it's pretty unambiguous when there's a violation of those obligations, and because there are entities that do care deeply about copyright (like, oh, Microsoft and Oracle and IBM) that you'd like to affect. Any license of the form "You must not use this code to wage war." is not going to get respected. The military doesn't care if you sue them. Any license of the form "You must obey laws" (like this one, "The above license is only granted to entities that act in concordance with local labor laws") is not going to get respected. Either the entity was going to obey laws, in which case it's redundant, or they weren't, in which case what do they care about copyright. Any license that's five lines long and tells a US court they have to decide whether a Chinese entity is complaint with Chinese labor law is just ... not going to work the way you want it to. Any license that restricts use and not distribution has the practical problem of being difficult to enforce. If your code runs inside Palantir's systems or on a Patriot missile or as part of the PRISM backend, how will you ever know? The AGPL skirts this line by retaining the "distribution" concept and just defining networked use as distribution (and I think even that is questionable) but anything where you're not actually seeing the infringement is not going to be feasible to enforce.

progval 8y ago
> Any license of the form "You must obey laws" (like this one, "The above license is only granted to entities that act in concordance with local labor laws") is not going to get respected. Either the entity was going to obey laws, in which case it's redundant, or they weren't, in which case what do they care about copyright. What about companies that see respecting laws as a tradeoff between having less profits and getting fined? If breaking the law implies an additional fine due to this license, it may tip the balance the other way.

logicchains 8y ago

>You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. I have quite a few mainland Chinese friends in tech (I used to work there), and most work extremely long hours not because they like it, but because management and company culture enforces it and they're powerless to change it. They can't even conduct collective action, as that's essentially illegal. Chinese courts have however recognised the GPL, so it's conceivable that a license like this could have a real effect. I'm also led to believe that many people in the western game industry don't like crunch time (sometimes 100hour+ weeks), but have no choice in the matter. Hence their frequent calls for unionisation, such as https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/86hac3/its_time_for_game_developers_to_unionize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/86hac3/its_time_fo.... If such a license became widely used and could be legally enforced, it could potentially contribute to better working conditions in the game industry. Moreover, note the words "request or schedule". Seems like it wouldn't apply to companies whose employees willingly work extra hours without this being implicitly requested or scheduled by the company. >but it's equally as ridiculous as a restriction forcing employees not to eat toast on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. The difference is that it's not forcing anyone to do anything; nobody has to use software with this license, but if they choose to use the software they must accept the terms. >Edit: If the main target here is China, how much do you really believe Chinese companies care about Western copyright laws? Chinese courts have in fact shown willingness to enforce the GPL in some cases: https://heathermeeker.com/2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china-or-is-it/ https://heathermeeker.com/2018/04/30/first-gpl-case-in-china...

geofft 8y ago
I think 'Kaveren isn't saying "You don't know why these people are working 10 hours consecutively" but rather "You don't know why every person who works 10 hours consecutively is doing so." There is certainly a problem with the culture of mainland Chinese tech work (as well as with game dev work), but a license that legally bans use from any company that ever asks anyone to work more than a 10-hour day has too much splash damage, no matter how well-intentioned it is, and is thus a license that perfectly reasonable employers will avoid, and is thus a license that will only protect code that gets reimplemented by perfectly reasonable employers, and thus won't work.

coldtea 8y ago

>You have no clue why someone is working more than 10 hours consecutively or more than 45 hours a week. Maybe that's something they're being paid quite well to do, and maybe they want to do so. Well, stopping them from being able to, will also help the other 90% that don't want to do so, doesn't get any monetary advantage, but still is pressured to. Small sacrifice to make.