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Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guideli

Whether software is used for ethical or unethical purposes has nothing to do with the license. There is no possible way to bake subjective ethical usage guidelines into a license and still end up with free software. Trying to license "good" and "evil" boils down to the same slippery slope that the TOR Project dealt with when they had to reject requests to add censorship mechanisms. "Can't we just censor hate speech?" Software is a tool. How that tool is used is at the discretion of the user. If a developer is concerned that a project could be used for evil, then he or she should consider whether releasing the software publicly is a morally good choice in the first place.

atoav 7y ago
I am not sure about that. Of course enforcing your usage ideas will be next to impossible, but mentioning sth. can serve other purposes too (e.g. making a set of shared values visible to other developers). So if you for example say that everybody except military, secret services and weapons manufacturers are allowed to use your software, that might not stop them from using it, but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons).
- rubbingalcohol 7y ago
  Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. A license requiring a user to adhere to the software developers' moral code is the opposite of a free software license. In your example regarding "weapons manufacturers;" in the United States the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution and interpreted by the courts as an inalienable human right. Your proposed software license would thus restrict the freedom of the user and is therefore non-free.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - geofft 7y ago
    > Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. Yes, of course. The question is whether we want to change that. Of course our current understanding of Free Software makes such a license outside its bounds. Of course the Four Freedoms and the OSD both prevent restrictions on use. But do the Four Freedoms and the OSD accurately capture what we really want out of free software? To be clear, I personally lean towards "yes, they still do," but I think it's absolutely healthy and important to talk about why they do. The OSD wasn't handed down by the gods on a mountaintop; it's a set of rules that we believe facilitate a broader social purpose, and we should be always willing to ask whether we still agree with that social purpose and whether we still think the rules get us there. (Also, it's true that "free software" might end up being the wrong term for a changed definition, but it still seems important that the free software community, including the FSF, participate in these discussions.)
    - rubbingalcohol 7y ago
      If "free software" is the wrong term for the license then the discussions might not be relevant at all to the Free Software Foundation or the free software community. I highlighted right above how one of the desired use cases of this proposed "ethical" licensing model is to restrict a fundamental human right of the users of the software. In the best case, what we are talking about is not free software. In the worst case, there may be actors involved in these discussions hoping to use outrage mobs to destabilize the free software movement, in particular application code still licensed under GPLv2.
      - geofft 7y ago
        > If "free software" is the wrong term for the license then the discussions might not be relevant at all to the Free Software Foundation or the free software community. Arguing that free software as conventionally defined is better than what is being proposed is 100% within the mission of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF tells you how bad Windows is, even though Windows isn't free software. The FSF has a list of popular non-free licenses and tells you why they aren't free. Arguing that members of the free software community who are interested in other licenses should continue to write free software - and why - is also firmly within the mission of the FSF. If they have concerns over free software, responding to those concerns in good faith is the job of the FSF. I'm no less of a member of the free software community simply because I write proprietary code from 9 to 5 on weekdays. (If I were, there would be very little free software community, and it would be mostly driven by well-funded corporations and not by individuals.) Also, I'm of the opinion that you can accomplish the same goals by means other than licenses (e.g., better rules on who can participate in development), and I'm sympathetic to the goals. Shouldn't the Free Software Foundation be saying, if you want to achieve these goals, here is concretely how you can accomplish them using free software? If people are saying "free software cannot do X, we must abandon free software to do X," shouldn't it be an FSF priority to demonstrate that you can do X with free software? > In the worst case, there may be actors involved in these discussions hoping to use outrage mobs to destabilize the free software movement, in particular application code still licensed under GPLv2. I think if we're going to spin conspiracy theories, let's talk more about whether the NSA supported Richard Stallman as the spokesperson of the free software movement to ensure that it never gained mainstream acceptance by making sure the popular image of free software was some weirdo with bad personal hygiene, and how the community failure to get rid of him played right into government interests for decades. Sounds equally plausible.
  - michaelbrave 7y ago
    The thing about freedoms is that they are collective cultural decisions and priorities. An extreme example slavery. The right to not be owned by someone is in direct contrast of someone else's right to property. We have collectively as a western society determined that was wrong and misguided, wars were fought over it to the point we consider it a ridiculous juxtaposition today. I believe the right to bear arms is at a similar crossroads with those who want the right to feel safe from the government and those who want to feel safe from others. Who's freedom is more important? Although I think these arguments are against what free software is, maybe it's a discussion worth having, maybe there is something that was missed.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  > but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons). You can already attempt to convince people to not do that though, on a massive scale, even. You do not need licenses for that. Licenses are a legal matter. Working for the military or secret services is completely legal, but many would say that it is unethical in some or all cases. Why would you need licenses to achieve the goals you mentioned, or how are licenses of any use to achieve these goals, or what is it about licenses that inherently make them more effective in doing that?
falcolas 7y ago
It’s not easy to come up with every possible scenario your code will be used in. For example, I’m sure the now-infamous chef author didn’t think that their code would be included by a company as a part of their for-profit offering to ICE.
faissaloo 7y ago
I don't quite agree, the GPL is after all a licence founded on a set of ethics.
- rubbingalcohol 7y ago
  The GPL is based around a well-defined set of ethics that centers around giving the user complete freedom to use and modify the software. This is necessary for software to be considered free. It's certainly possible to restrict usage based around a moral code. Look at the JSON License: https://www.json.org/license.html https://www.json.org/license.html > The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil. So, yes, it would be possible to restrict software licensing based on a loosely-defined moral code that would constantly need updates to keep pace with new social injustices, but this would not be free software.
  - rmilejczz 7y ago
    >The GPL is based around a well-defined set of ethics that centers around giving the user complete freedom to use and modify the software I take issue with this. First of all, this “well-defined” qualifier is ironically poorly defined. What does that mean? It either is or is not derived from some principle or set of principles; it is ultimately an example of ethics being imposed as a restriction. Secondly, you don’t actually have “complete freedom”. A recent example I encountered was the utility github.com/gojp/goreportcard which still relies on github.com/alecthomas/gometalinter despite gometalinter being deprecated in favor of the much faster github.com/golangci/golangci-lint. Because golangci-lint is licensed under GPL and goreportcard is licensed under Apache 2.0 it would violate GPL to integrate golangci-lint into goreportcard. So either goreportcard has to adopt a new license and ensure they’re compliant with that license or suffer relying on subpar software that has been abandoned by its creator and community. Now perhaps I’m ignorant (something I often find myself guilty of when speaking on such lofty topics, please forgive and correct me if this is the case) to what you mean by “complete freedom” but that doesn’t seem like “complete freedom” to me, it sounds like two incompatible sets of ethics.
    - lonelappde 7y ago
xisukar 7y ago
I couldn't have written it better myself. On a related note, the person behind the Hippocratic License (HL) which they define as "a modified MIT license that specifically prohibits the use of open source software to harm others" was recently asked by OSI [1] to modify the language in the original document since it might've led people to wrongly believe that the aforementioned license was Open Source Software and that software distributed under it was Open Source Software. [1] https://archive.is/hKA41 https://archive.is/hKA41
- sebst 7y ago
  IANAL, but the HL reads to me as if you'd have to convict some entity of effectively breaking the human rights in order to prevent their use of your software. This sounds next to impossible, unless the entity is a war criminal,in which case a civil suit would be entirely pointless. Or do you even think there would - as an example - be a US court prohibit the use of some software for ICE? Such a court ruling would imply the US government acts against UN human rights. Which court would open this box for a software licence?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- johnisgood 7y ago
  "harm others"... that is extremely subjective. Everyone can claim they have been harmed, say, psychologically or whatever. This is not going to end well. Oh well, I am not surprised.
  - vincent-toups 7y ago
    There are many things which are subjective but that hardly means they are completely ungrounded from human consideration, even when it comes to the exercise of power. The (partial) subjectivity of a measurement isn't a good excuse to completely give up on the domain.
- bitwize 7y ago
  To which she replied effectively, "I know. That's the point. I'm trying to get the definition changed." https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1176940605525712898 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/11769406055257...
bbanyc 7y ago
Agreed. The relatively clear terms of the GPL have been very hard to enforce. Do you really think someone intent on doing evil will be stopped by a couple of lines of text in the header of the source code? Who has ever been okay with ethnic cleansing and torture but draws the line at copyright infringement? Not to mention how reasonable people can disagree on where to draw the line. If you think the Israeli government violates human rights, does that justify banning all Israelis from using the software? What about Intel with its major facility in Kiryat Gat? Should you then ban the software from being run on any Intel processors, whether or not they were made in Israel? I sympathize with the movement to hold coders and users accountable, but I just don't think this is workable.

atoav 7y ago

I am not sure about that. Of course enforcing your usage ideas will be next to impossible, but mentioning sth. can serve other purposes too (e.g. making a set of shared values visible to other developers). So if you for example say that everybody except military, secret services and weapons manufacturers are allowed to use your software, that might not stop them from using it, but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons).

rubbingalcohol 7y ago
Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. A license requiring a user to adhere to the software developers' moral code is the opposite of a free software license. In your example regarding "weapons manufacturers;" in the United States the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution and interpreted by the courts as an inalienable human right. Your proposed software license would thus restrict the freedom of the user and is therefore non-free.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 7y ago
  > Anyone can add ethical stipulations to the license of their choice but the result is no longer a free software license. Yes, of course. The question is whether we want to change that. Of course our current understanding of Free Software makes such a license outside its bounds. Of course the Four Freedoms and the OSD both prevent restrictions on use. But do the Four Freedoms and the OSD accurately capture what we really want out of free software? To be clear, I personally lean towards "yes, they still do," but I think it's absolutely healthy and important to talk about why they do. The OSD wasn't handed down by the gods on a mountaintop; it's a set of rules that we believe facilitate a broader social purpose, and we should be always willing to ask whether we still agree with that social purpose and whether we still think the rules get us there. (Also, it's true that "free software" might end up being the wrong term for a changed definition, but it still seems important that the free software community, including the FSF, participate in these discussions.)
  - rubbingalcohol 7y ago
    If "free software" is the wrong term for the license then the discussions might not be relevant at all to the Free Software Foundation or the free software community. I highlighted right above how one of the desired use cases of this proposed "ethical" licensing model is to restrict a fundamental human right of the users of the software. In the best case, what we are talking about is not free software. In the worst case, there may be actors involved in these discussions hoping to use outrage mobs to destabilize the free software movement, in particular application code still licensed under GPLv2.
    - geofft 7y ago
      > If "free software" is the wrong term for the license then the discussions might not be relevant at all to the Free Software Foundation or the free software community. Arguing that free software as conventionally defined is better than what is being proposed is 100% within the mission of the Free Software Foundation. The FSF tells you how bad Windows is, even though Windows isn't free software. The FSF has a list of popular non-free licenses and tells you why they aren't free. Arguing that members of the free software community who are interested in other licenses should continue to write free software - and why - is also firmly within the mission of the FSF. If they have concerns over free software, responding to those concerns in good faith is the job of the FSF. I'm no less of a member of the free software community simply because I write proprietary code from 9 to 5 on weekdays. (If I were, there would be very little free software community, and it would be mostly driven by well-funded corporations and not by individuals.) Also, I'm of the opinion that you can accomplish the same goals by means other than licenses (e.g., better rules on who can participate in development), and I'm sympathetic to the goals. Shouldn't the Free Software Foundation be saying, if you want to achieve these goals, here is concretely how you can accomplish them using free software? If people are saying "free software cannot do X, we must abandon free software to do X," shouldn't it be an FSF priority to demonstrate that you can do X with free software? > In the worst case, there may be actors involved in these discussions hoping to use outrage mobs to destabilize the free software movement, in particular application code still licensed under GPLv2. I think if we're going to spin conspiracy theories, let's talk more about whether the NSA supported Richard Stallman as the spokesperson of the free software movement to ensure that it never gained mainstream acceptance by making sure the popular image of free software was some weirdo with bad personal hygiene, and how the community failure to get rid of him played right into government interests for decades. Sounds equally plausible.
- michaelbrave 7y ago
  The thing about freedoms is that they are collective cultural decisions and priorities. An extreme example slavery. The right to not be owned by someone is in direct contrast of someone else's right to property. We have collectively as a western society determined that was wrong and misguided, wars were fought over it to the point we consider it a ridiculous juxtaposition today. I believe the right to bear arms is at a similar crossroads with those who want the right to feel safe from the government and those who want to feel safe from others. Who's freedom is more important? Although I think these arguments are against what free software is, maybe it's a discussion worth having, maybe there is something that was missed.
johnisgood 7y ago
> but it makes other devs consider similar clauses and at one point it might be widespread enough to show some sort of effect (e.g. less people willing to work for the goons). You can already attempt to convince people to not do that though, on a massive scale, even. You do not need licenses for that. Licenses are a legal matter. Working for the military or secret services is completely legal, but many would say that it is unethical in some or all cases. Why would you need licenses to achieve the goals you mentioned, or how are licenses of any use to achieve these goals, or what is it about licenses that inherently make them more effective in doing that?

falcolas 7y ago

It’s not easy to come up with every possible scenario your code will be used in. For example, I’m sure the now-infamous chef author didn’t think that their code would be included by a company as a part of their for-profit offering to ICE.

faissaloo 7y ago

I don't quite agree, the GPL is after all a licence founded on a set of ethics.

rubbingalcohol 7y ago
The GPL is based around a well-defined set of ethics that centers around giving the user complete freedom to use and modify the software. This is necessary for software to be considered free. It's certainly possible to restrict usage based around a moral code. Look at the JSON License: https://www.json.org/license.html https://www.json.org/license.html > The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil. So, yes, it would be possible to restrict software licensing based on a loosely-defined moral code that would constantly need updates to keep pace with new social injustices, but this would not be free software.
- rmilejczz 7y ago
  >The GPL is based around a well-defined set of ethics that centers around giving the user complete freedom to use and modify the software I take issue with this. First of all, this “well-defined” qualifier is ironically poorly defined. What does that mean? It either is or is not derived from some principle or set of principles; it is ultimately an example of ethics being imposed as a restriction. Secondly, you don’t actually have “complete freedom”. A recent example I encountered was the utility github.com/gojp/goreportcard which still relies on github.com/alecthomas/gometalinter despite gometalinter being deprecated in favor of the much faster github.com/golangci/golangci-lint. Because golangci-lint is licensed under GPL and goreportcard is licensed under Apache 2.0 it would violate GPL to integrate golangci-lint into goreportcard. So either goreportcard has to adopt a new license and ensure they’re compliant with that license or suffer relying on subpar software that has been abandoned by its creator and community. Now perhaps I’m ignorant (something I often find myself guilty of when speaking on such lofty topics, please forgive and correct me if this is the case) to what you mean by “complete freedom” but that doesn’t seem like “complete freedom” to me, it sounds like two incompatible sets of ethics.
  - lonelappde 7y ago

xisukar 7y ago

I couldn't have written it better myself. On a related note, the person behind the Hippocratic License (HL) which they define as "a modified MIT license that specifically prohibits the use of open source software to harm others" was recently asked by OSI [1] to modify the language in the original document since it might've led people to wrongly believe that the aforementioned license was Open Source Software and that software distributed under it was Open Source Software. [1] https://archive.is/hKA41 https://archive.is/hKA41

sebst 7y ago
IANAL, but the HL reads to me as if you'd have to convict some entity of effectively breaking the human rights in order to prevent their use of your software. This sounds next to impossible, unless the entity is a war criminal,in which case a civil suit would be entirely pointless. Or do you even think there would - as an example - be a US court prohibit the use of some software for ICE? Such a court ruling would imply the US government acts against UN human rights. Which court would open this box for a software licence?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
johnisgood 7y ago
"harm others"... that is extremely subjective. Everyone can claim they have been harmed, say, psychologically or whatever. This is not going to end well. Oh well, I am not surprised.
- vincent-toups 7y ago
  There are many things which are subjective but that hardly means they are completely ungrounded from human consideration, even when it comes to the exercise of power. The (partial) subjectivity of a measurement isn't a good excuse to completely give up on the domain.
bitwize 7y ago
To which she replied effectively, "I know. That's the point. I'm trying to get the definition changed." https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1176940605525712898 https://mobile.twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/11769406055257...

bbanyc 7y ago

Agreed. The relatively clear terms of the GPL have been very hard to enforce. Do you really think someone intent on doing evil will be stopped by a couple of lines of text in the header of the source code? Who has ever been okay with ethnic cleansing and torture but draws the line at copyright infringement? Not to mention how reasonable people can disagree on where to draw the line. If you think the Israeli government violates human rights, does that justify banning all Israelis from using the software? What about Intel with its major facility in Kiryat Gat? Should you then ban the software from being run on any Intel processors, whether or not they were made in Israel? I sympathize with the movement to hold coders and users accountable, but I just don't think this is workable.