3 ms·

If you see it as a market, this is a typical market failure (externality and / or information assymmetry). Since the author has chosen a non-standard license,

by skreech 14y ago

If you see it as a market, this is a typical market failure (externality and / or information assymmetry). Since the author has chosen a non-standard license, I doubt government regulation would help (unless that regulation outlawed non-standard FLOSS licenses). Probably would be better to reduce the information assymmetry. Maybe Github could have warning notifications for custom licenses, for example?

jballanc 14y ago
I've always considered the one thing that Google Code has over Github is the mandatory selection of a standard license when creating a publicly visible project. Also, to the point of regulation, the government is by no means the only vector by which it can be delivered. I think if you look through history, some of the most successful regulatory regimes have been separated from the traditional civil government.
- josephlord 14y ago
  Is there even actually a default license for public projects? I couldn't find anything except that if you have a public project you permit people to fork it. Mandating a license (any license) but perhaps offering a selection to be automatically included would be a really good idea. I wonder if you could actually put a license that gave permission to fork/clone but not actually to run/distribute outside github or otherwise use the code or derivatives thereof. I've not tried and wouldn't try to go against the spirit of Github in that way but it seems as if it might be permissible.
markokocic 14y ago
Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived problem? What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough projects? And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be allowed to do evil? Doing evil, if we define evil as illegal, is already outlawed, so this one phrase is clearly redundant. I said you, but it's not addressed to you, but to people that got so offended and turned up by this small "do no evil" purpose. The market already decided, and that clause is there for a purpose. The author clearly didn't want people unsure if this piece of software will be used for good or evil to use it. It's funny that people are ready to sign all kind of nonsense in commercial licenses, and this small clause makes so much pain to some "open source" developers.
- skreech 14y ago
  No, I'm saying that will not solve the perceived problem. I suggest more information, such as "Be aware that this software is licensed under a custom license. Click here to view the license." I don't think the author of the article suggests that evil should be allowed, but that it is very hard to define evil, and that this clause makes the license non-free software.
  - jballanc 14y ago
    It honestly would not be that difficult to implement something like this. Both the OSI and FSF maintain lists of "approved" licenses along with standard license text. In fact, Pivotal Labs has created a tool along these lines for Ruby: https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder , and the Leiningen project tool from Clojure allows for licenses to be specified in a machine parseable format: https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.project.clj#L30 https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.... .
  - markokocic 14y ago
    I agree with you here. But the software is $free, just now for available to everyone, and "non-free" in the FSF definition of "free".
- jballanc 14y ago
  Do you have a start up? Do you hope that you will some day be able to make an exit with that start up? Are you willing to entertain a buy-out by a larger corporation as a possible exit? If yes, then as much as you (the hacker/startup founder) might not care or have a second thought about licenses like this, you should keep in mind that your potential purchaser almost definitely will. Also, just for the record, I'm actually a big fan of Crockford's "Do no evil" license. What bothers me is the number of people who don't pay any more attention to the licenses of the software on which they build entire companies than they do to the EULAs of the software they install. Casually agreeing to a EULA is not the same as disregarding an Open Source license.
  - 14y ago

by skreech 14y ago

jballanc 14y ago

I've always considered the one thing that Google Code has over Github is the mandatory selection of a standard license when creating a publicly visible project. Also, to the point of regulation, the government is by no means the only vector by which it can be delivered. I think if you look through history, some of the most successful regulatory regimes have been separated from the traditional civil government.

josephlord 14y ago
Is there even actually a default license for public projects? I couldn't find anything except that if you have a public project you permit people to fork it. Mandating a license (any license) but perhaps offering a selection to be automatically included would be a really good idea. I wonder if you could actually put a license that gave permission to fork/clone but not actually to run/distribute outside github or otherwise use the code or derivatives thereof. I've not tried and wouldn't try to go against the spirit of Github in that way but it seems as if it might be permissible.

markokocic 14y ago

Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived problem? What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough projects? And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be allowed to do evil? Doing evil, if we define evil as illegal, is already outlawed, so this one phrase is clearly redundant. I said you, but it's not addressed to you, but to people that got so offended and turned up by this small "do no evil" purpose. The market already decided, and that clause is there for a purpose. The author clearly didn't want people unsure if this piece of software will be used for good or evil to use it. It's funny that people are ready to sign all kind of nonsense in commercial licenses, and this small clause makes so much pain to some "open source" developers.

skreech 14y ago
No, I'm saying that will not solve the perceived problem. I suggest more information, such as "Be aware that this software is licensed under a custom license. Click here to view the license." I don't think the author of the article suggests that evil should be allowed, but that it is very hard to define evil, and that this clause makes the license non-free software.
- jballanc 14y ago
  It honestly would not be that difficult to implement something like this. Both the OSI and FSF maintain lists of "approved" licenses along with standard license text. In fact, Pivotal Labs has created a tool along these lines for Ruby: https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder , and the Leiningen project tool from Clojure allows for licenses to be specified in a machine parseable format: https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.project.clj#L30 https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.... .
- markokocic 14y ago
  I agree with you here. But the software is $free, just now for available to everyone, and "non-free" in the FSF definition of "free".
jballanc 14y ago
Do you have a start up? Do you hope that you will some day be able to make an exit with that start up? Are you willing to entertain a buy-out by a larger corporation as a possible exit? If yes, then as much as you (the hacker/startup founder) might not care or have a second thought about licenses like this, you should keep in mind that your potential purchaser almost definitely will. Also, just for the record, I'm actually a big fan of Crockford's "Do no evil" license. What bothers me is the number of people who don't pay any more attention to the licenses of the software on which they build entire companies than they do to the EULAs of the software they install. Casually agreeing to a EULA is not the same as disregarding an Open Source license.
- 14y ago