3 ms·

ESR is right. Open Source is granting everyone permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute software for any purpose (with or without copy-left). There a

by mikl 7y ago

ESR is right. Open Source is granting everyone permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute software for any purpose (with or without copy-left). There are those who want to co-opt open source for political aims and grant licenses only to those who agree with them politically, but such limitations are anathema to Open Source and discussing such ought not even to be entertained on OSI lists. Those wanting to deal in “My-worldview-only source” can go find themselves a different name.

Certhas 7y ago
> co-opt open source for political aims Are they though? I just clicked on the first links on the ESD website linked elsewhere and landed here: https://firstdonoharm.dev https://firstdonoharm.dev This is based entirely on the UN Charter of Human Rights. These are not political aims in the sense of "you can reasonably be on either side of this". Society as a whole understands that freedom is one of a handful of fundamental values that need to be balanced against each other. That's why freedom of speech is not absolute [1]. The concrete question here isn't even about restricting freedom, but about the authors of software using their authorship as a platform for denouncing organizations [2], without actually stopping them from using the open source project. So it's strictly about how people, according to ESR, should or should not be allowed to speak their mind. By refusing to even consider the legitimacy of this, and by harsh ad-hominem attacks on the other side ESR simply demonstrates in my mind that he hasn't thought very much about these wider issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... [2] http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021237.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists....
- buckminster 7y ago
  This is rather misleading. You looked at one ethical license and it seemed to be unobjectionable. What about all the other ethical licenses? Are they equally apolitical?
- mikl 7y ago
  > This is based entirely on the UN Charter of Human Rights. These are not political aims in the sense of "you can reasonably be on either side of this". The UDHR is a very broad and vague definition of human rights. The actual interpretation of it is an extremely legally complex and politically charged topic. Human rights cases usually takes years of court battles to resolve. If you see the discussion around “Ethical Source”, people want to ban Amazon from using their source because they’re doing business with ICE. And BP for crimes against humanity. Others might want to ban any Israeli businesses, and again others wanting to ban anyone associated with the Palestinian Authority, because either or both are in their opinion violating human rights. Anyone using ESD software would open themselves to insanely expensive lawsuits. It would be all too easy for anyone to come up with a claim that your business is somehow aiding in the violation of human rights in some fashion, and since the legalities are so complex, you can’t easily have the suit dismissed. You’ll have to spend months or even years fighting the claim in court, burning hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
  - Certhas 7y ago
    That's a fair point, and I fully agree that there are many political issues around the UCHR. I am certain a lot of the business world would want to stay away from code that is licensed in this way, and I suspect that the authors of code licensed accordingly would be just fine with that. My overall point though, that there are legitimate issues on balancing freedom and other values, stands. I think there is a good argument to be made that licenses are not the place to do this balancing act, but the naive "freedom maximalists" deny that there even is an issue to discuss here, quoting Paine, and what have you to take the grandest of stands. Creative Commons for example allows for at least some of this type of fine tuning in the license. After all CC NC is a thing, and I haven't heard doom-sayers predicting the end of liberty because CC blessed the possibility that authors would want to restrict the use of their work in that direction, even while sharing it freely otherwise. Seriously, look at the quoted message by ESR here: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021328.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... I wouldn't choose ESD style licenses for many of the reasons noted. But I also support contributors ability to choose how to give away their contributions, and to actively shape the communities they participate in. I think it's legitimate that the OSI says that this does not meet their definition of an Open License. But ESR is not arguing for that, he is seeing the very existence of people who don't share his "freedom maximalist" position (or like code of conducts, or...) as a grave threat that "his" culture needs to be protected from.
zzo38computer 7y ago
I agree. I think ESR is correct and should not be banned from this message (although if he got banned for something else (as someone else has suggested), that is a different issue and one I cannot comment on because I do not know). A different name is needed for what you are referring to as "My-worldview-only source".

by mikl 7y ago

Certhas 7y ago

> co-opt open source for political aims Are they though? I just clicked on the first links on the ESD website linked elsewhere and landed here: https://firstdonoharm.dev https://firstdonoharm.dev This is based entirely on the UN Charter of Human Rights. These are not political aims in the sense of "you can reasonably be on either side of this". Society as a whole understands that freedom is one of a handful of fundamental values that need to be balanced against each other. That's why freedom of speech is not absolute [1]. The concrete question here isn't even about restricting freedom, but about the authors of software using their authorship as a platform for denouncing organizations [2], without actually stopping them from using the open source project. So it's strictly about how people, according to ESR, should or should not be allowed to speak their mind. By refusing to even consider the legitimacy of this, and by harsh ad-hominem attacks on the other side ESR simply demonstrates in my mind that he hasn't thought very much about these wider issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... [2] http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021237.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists....

buckminster 7y ago
This is rather misleading. You looked at one ethical license and it seemed to be unobjectionable. What about all the other ethical licenses? Are they equally apolitical?
mikl 7y ago
> This is based entirely on the UN Charter of Human Rights. These are not political aims in the sense of "you can reasonably be on either side of this". The UDHR is a very broad and vague definition of human rights. The actual interpretation of it is an extremely legally complex and politically charged topic. Human rights cases usually takes years of court battles to resolve. If you see the discussion around “Ethical Source”, people want to ban Amazon from using their source because they’re doing business with ICE. And BP for crimes against humanity. Others might want to ban any Israeli businesses, and again others wanting to ban anyone associated with the Palestinian Authority, because either or both are in their opinion violating human rights. Anyone using ESD software would open themselves to insanely expensive lawsuits. It would be all too easy for anyone to come up with a claim that your business is somehow aiding in the violation of human rights in some fashion, and since the legalities are so complex, you can’t easily have the suit dismissed. You’ll have to spend months or even years fighting the claim in court, burning hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
- Certhas 7y ago
  That's a fair point, and I fully agree that there are many political issues around the UCHR. I am certain a lot of the business world would want to stay away from code that is licensed in this way, and I suspect that the authors of code licensed accordingly would be just fine with that. My overall point though, that there are legitimate issues on balancing freedom and other values, stands. I think there is a good argument to be made that licenses are not the place to do this balancing act, but the naive "freedom maximalists" deny that there even is an issue to discuss here, quoting Paine, and what have you to take the grandest of stands. Creative Commons for example allows for at least some of this type of fine tuning in the license. After all CC NC is a thing, and I haven't heard doom-sayers predicting the end of liberty because CC blessed the possibility that authors would want to restrict the use of their work in that direction, even while sharing it freely otherwise. Seriously, look at the quoted message by ESR here: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/2020-February/021328.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.... I wouldn't choose ESD style licenses for many of the reasons noted. But I also support contributors ability to choose how to give away their contributions, and to actively shape the communities they participate in. I think it's legitimate that the OSI says that this does not meet their definition of an Open License. But ESR is not arguing for that, he is seeing the very existence of people who don't share his "freedom maximalist" position (or like code of conducts, or...) as a grave threat that "his" culture needs to be protected from.

zzo38computer 7y ago

I agree. I think ESR is correct and should not be banned from this message (although if he got banned for something else (as someone else has suggested), that is a different issue and one I cannot comment on because I do not know). A different name is needed for what you are referring to as "My-worldview-only source".