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Thanks for the politely written, well argued criticism! My goal in writing+submitting this was more to ignite interesting conversations like yours rather than

by GuiA 15y ago

Thanks for the politely written, well argued criticism! My goal in writing+submitting this was more to ignite interesting conversations like yours rather than to provide a legal document ready to use. That being said, I have to say that in the light of what you said, I would tend to agree with everything that you said. But it still bothers me that it is possible to use free software for "hate" driven causes. If a homophobic/xenophobic/etc. group used my work to efficiently promote their ideals, it would bother me on a deep level. I don't think there's a straight solution to that, but I still feel like it's a problem at some level- despite the fact that yes, attempting to impose behaviors on end users is a very slippery slope.

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kstrauser 15y ago
Thanks for taking it in the friendly spirit I intended it. Parts may have come across a little more harshly than I planned, but I meant well. :) Again, I totally understand the motivation. I'd hate to think that someone was taking the software that I poured so much hard work into and using it to mistreat others! I think that's just something we have to learn to accept. You can use a rifle to shoot a wild animal or assassinate a political opponent. A knife can open a box or hijack an airplane. Virus manipulation can end a disease or end a country. The best you can do is make sure your own motives are good and hope for the best from others.
HerraBRE 15y ago
A solution may be to provide a template, where developers can list explicitly the activities they do not support. You'd still be imposing your morals and beliefs on others, but at least it could be less ambiguous. This would not be a "free software license" due to the nature of the restrictions, so it would never make it into a distro like Debian for example, but maybe you don't care about that. EDIT: For this to really work you'd probably have to encourage users of the license to be very explicit and give some examples which don't suffer from the slippery-slope problem.

by GuiA 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

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kstrauser 15y ago

Thanks for taking it in the friendly spirit I intended it. Parts may have come across a little more harshly than I planned, but I meant well. :) Again, I totally understand the motivation. I'd hate to think that someone was taking the software that I poured so much hard work into and using it to mistreat others! I think that's just something we have to learn to accept. You can use a rifle to shoot a wild animal or assassinate a political opponent. A knife can open a box or hijack an airplane. Virus manipulation can end a disease or end a country. The best you can do is make sure your own motives are good and hope for the best from others.

HerraBRE 15y ago

A solution may be to provide a template, where developers can list explicitly the activities they do not support. You'd still be imposing your morals and beliefs on others, but at least it could be less ambiguous. This would not be a "free software license" due to the nature of the restrictions, so it would never make it into a distro like Debian for example, but maybe you don't care about that. EDIT: For this to really work you'd probably have to encourage users of the license to be very explicit and give some examples which don't suffer from the slippery-slope problem.