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In December, Schneeman signed an open letter alongside 2,000 other open-source contributors, who called the ICE contract a betrayal of open source’s commitment
by tbrownaw 7y ago
In December, Schneeman signed an open letter alongside 2,000 other open-source contributors, who called the ICE contract a betrayal of open source’s commitment to “inverting power structures and creating access and opportunities for everyone.”
I'm pretty sure I remember an "even if an evil dictator wants to use it to murder babies" as a quick sanity check for whether a proposed license is actually open.
In response to the GitHub fracas, the developer Coraline Ada Ehmke introduced the Hippocratic License—named for the Hippocratic oath—which caveats traditional open-source licensing with restrictions on uses that “actively and knowingly endanger, harm, or otherwise threaten the physical, mental, economic, or general well-being of underprivileged individuals or groups.” But the Open Source Initiative rejected it. “Giving everyone freedom means giving evil people freedom, too,” reads its abridged definition of open source.
Yep.
- Miner49er 7y agoThe obvious problem here is that in this case open source software is being used to take away other people's freedoms. So who's freedom wins out? ICE's freedom to use open source code, or ICE's victims' freedom? The activists think that the victims' freedom should win, and I'd argue that's the case. ICE is using open source software to prevent other people from using open source software by locking them up. The freedom to use open source software should stop at limiting other people's freedom to use it. "Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins"
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago> The freedom to use open source software should stop at limiting other people's freedom to use it. Since the people protesting ICE's use of open source software, are trying to limit ICE's freedom to use open source software, then they should not be able to use open source software.
- Miner49er 7y agoFair enough point, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the real world. It's like saying, "the guys killing Nazis are just as bad as the Nazis - they're both killing people." I mean sure, but if nobody killed the Nazis in WWII where would we be today? Or another example, kidnapping is illegal, but it's good for a police officer to "kidnap" (arrest) a kidnapper to get them stop kidnapping, right? The way your looking at it, the police officer is just as bad as the original kidnapper.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoYour example is bad because it mistakes arrest for kidnapping, when the two are different actions.
- tbrownaw 7y agoThe obvious problem here is that in this case open source software is being used to take away other people's freedoms. Not really, there's no reason to consider that distinct from using it to kill people or whatever other problematic behavior. Trying to pick "bad" things to proscribe makes a license fundamentally not open.
- mfer 7y agoI'm reminded that JS Lint used a derivative of the MIT License that included "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." This turned out to be a problem for the project. Who gets to define good and evil? In the case of the Hippocratic License I can imagine it running into similar problems. > “actively and knowingly endanger, harm, or otherwise threaten the physical, mental, economic, or general well-being of underprivileged individuals or groups.” How is underprivileged measured? What happens when an underprivileged group is no longer in that class? Does the use of the software then change? This matters not just for how people feel about it but in a legal sense since a license is a legal document.
- tzs 7y ago> Coraline Ada Ehmke introduced the Hippocratic License—named for the Hippocratic oath—which caveats traditional open-source licensing with restrictions on uses that “actively and knowingly endanger, harm, or otherwise threaten the physical, mental, economic, or general well-being of underprivileged individuals or groups.” What is the logic in limiting that to "underprivileged individuals or groups"? If someone individual or group is not "underprivileged" its OK to knowingly harm their physical, mental, economic, or general well-being?
- true_religion 7y agoIf you have limited resources, it’s alright to say you will only defend those who cannot already defend themselves.
- tzs 7y agoI'm having trouble seeing how writing into a license a prohibition on harming all individuals or groups would take more resources than writing in a prohibition only on harming underprivileged individuals or groups.
- tbrownaw 7y agoI think it's related to how different humans have different priorities and thought processes, and so they don't all follow strict utilitarianism.