3 ms·

Pleasantly surprised to read their acceptable, acceptable use policy [1]. Expected allowed usage to be drowned in legalese, instead it's short & sweet 4 points

by mythz 3y ago

Pleasantly surprised to read their acceptable, acceptable use policy [1]. Expected allowed usage to be drowned in legalese, instead it's short & sweet 4 points policy that boils down to: "don't use for illegal activity and don't harm others". [1] https://falconllm.tii.ae/acceptable-use-policy.html https://falconllm.tii.ae/acceptable-use-policy.html

ceejayoz 3y ago
"For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors and/or living beings in any way..." That sounds like it'll be vague enough to lead to the same problems as the original JSON license. (Famously, leading to IBM obtaining permission to use it "for evil". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36809065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36809065) "Harm living beings in any way" is pretty broad; would use by a researcher working on new antibiotics violate this?
_boffin_ 3y ago
What’s illegal over there might not be here, but illegal still somewhere else. Makes it as simple as understanding and implementing timezone functionality from scratch.
- phillipcarter 3y ago
  Yep, exactly. The lack of sophistication in the terms means uneven enforcement by design.
version_five 3y ago
Why is this better than nothing. Laws already exist to cover illegal things, the rest is just cya or moralizing. Or stupid: For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors and/or *living beings* in any way; Does that mean it can't be used for farming, slaughterhouses, pest control, "falcon, I have termites in my house, what do I do? I can't help you, termites are a living being and must not be harmed", bacteria?
- bee_rider 3y ago
  “minors and/or living beings” is really odd phrasing if you think about it. You can’t harm minors (whether or not they are alive) and you can’t harm living beings (regardless of their age). But it is fine to harm dead adults I guess. Putting aside the obvious “why not just say don’t harm anyone” question, it seems to open up some silly philosophical questions around “do dead people age?” Can we use this tool to generate propaganda against an ancient mummified baby, for example?
  - version_five 3y ago
    That's one of the pitfalls of writing custom licenses. The standard ones, say Apache 2.0, have had a lot of eyes on them and generally make sense and have a clear intent. I'm sure whoever wrote this version has an intent that's not yet clearly and unambiguously reflected in the writing, and so they risk both looking silly but also people avoiding the license due to too much ambiguity and confusion. Why would any user want to take on the liability of this license when it's not clearly understandable?

by mythz 3y ago

ceejayoz 3y ago

"For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors and/or living beings in any way..." That sounds like it'll be vague enough to lead to the same problems as the original JSON license. (Famously, leading to IBM obtaining permission to use it "for evil". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36809065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36809065) "Harm living beings in any way" is pretty broad; would use by a researcher working on new antibiotics violate this?

_boffin_ 3y ago

What’s illegal over there might not be here, but illegal still somewhere else. Makes it as simple as understanding and implementing timezone functionality from scratch.

phillipcarter 3y ago
Yep, exactly. The lack of sophistication in the terms means uneven enforcement by design.

version_five 3y ago

Why is this better than nothing. Laws already exist to cover illegal things, the rest is just cya or moralizing. Or stupid: For the purpose of exploiting, harming or attempting to exploit or harm minors and/or *living beings* in any way; Does that mean it can't be used for farming, slaughterhouses, pest control, "falcon, I have termites in my house, what do I do? I can't help you, termites are a living being and must not be harmed", bacteria?

bee_rider 3y ago
“minors and/or living beings” is really odd phrasing if you think about it. You can’t harm minors (whether or not they are alive) and you can’t harm living beings (regardless of their age). But it is fine to harm dead adults I guess. Putting aside the obvious “why not just say don’t harm anyone” question, it seems to open up some silly philosophical questions around “do dead people age?” Can we use this tool to generate propaganda against an ancient mummified baby, for example?
- version_five 3y ago
  That's one of the pitfalls of writing custom licenses. The standard ones, say Apache 2.0, have had a lot of eyes on them and generally make sense and have a clear intent. I'm sure whoever wrote this version has an intent that's not yet clearly and unambiguously reflected in the writing, and so they risk both looking silly but also people avoiding the license due to too much ambiguity and confusion. Why would any user want to take on the liability of this license when it's not clearly understandable?