I just learned that Nmap is almost GPL except that they revoked the license specifically for SCO group for their SCO–Linux disputes.
This got me thinking, what do open source programmers think of evil companies or horrible people using their software?
Don’t get me wrong, FOSS software by its nature can’t be controlled or strictly prevented of being used. But in case of companies like SCO, that is a thing that at least can cause them headache and they risk getting into legal trouble. A programmer for example can modify GPL to make so that his software can’t be used by Microsoft or Facebook, but it is GPL for everybody else.
The moment you exclude any group or persons from your licence, it is, by definition, no longer open source.
Of course that doesn’t sit well with some people and there are some initiatives to try to account for that, for example the Hippocratic License that allows you to customise your licence to specifically exclude groups that might use your software to cause harm or the Do No Harm license with similar goals.
Honestly, I find it hard to object to the idea. Some might argue it is a slippery slope away from the ideals of software freedom (as has been the case with some of the contraversial licenses recently like BSL and Hashicorp. I’m not a hardline idealist in the same way and if these more restrictive licenses that restrict some freedoms still produce software that might otherwise not exist then I’m happy they are around.
Would I use one? Probably not, for me, whilst I like the idea, I think the controversy generated by using a non-standard licence would become its defining feature and would put off a lot of people from contributing to the project.
The biggest issue is that there isn’t a universal agreement on what causes harm. There is agreement on the basics - murder, violence, etc - but they’re already illegal anyways, no need to ban them by license.
Ouch/Dead = Harm
Not exploitation? Addiction? Hatred?
Mental Ouches
I like this one. Now we just gotta get everyone else on board with your definition!
What about self defense?
Ouches for self defence
That and it’s impossible say whether or not a given tool or object will never be used to do harm if wielded by the wrong entity.
Like, say you’re someone who makes free bricks. Someone uses the brick to build a house, great, that’s what it’s made for. Someone uses that brick to shatter a cop’s windshield, even better.
But someone can also use that brick to smash in the windows of a school, or even that the house built with the bricks you made is being lived in by a bad person.
No one makes bricks thinking “this could be a weapon, I am responsible for the harm it causes” because its primary purpose as building material is self-evident. It therefore has no inherent morality outside of what people you can’t control choose to do with what they have. All the brick maker wants to do is make the best bricks they can.
A lot of coopyleft or p2pp projects adopt the license and it’s not discussed that much in the identity of the project.
I personally believe that software freedom shouldn’t come at the expense of people’s freedom, and I consider the FOSS movement a political failure because it’s completely incapable of mediating between the two things. New generations are growing more and more alienated from a movement they consider a relic of the past.
For my projects, I avoid FOSS licenses, but they are also not relevant enough to get insights from them.
I still haven’t released anything which is not under the AGPLv3 license, which is even more aggressive than the GPL, primarily because I know that it’s prohibited to use AGPL-licensed software/libraries at Google.
I’m also hoping that because my stuff is on Codeberg, not GitHub, that its license hasn’t been laundered yet by some criminal AI company, but I don’t actually believe so. Certainly makes me more reluctant to publish my code.
I don’t care, i made it to be open to everyone and my opinions shouldn’t interfere with it.
I work on software for finding things and summarizing stuff. We were one of those Apache 2 -> other relicenses a while back.
I can’t really talk about specifics. But we all have a working imagination though. I think about it a lot. But I still do the job. There are good folks doing good things with it.
I actually never thought about it until now. I hope it evens out since people who I like can use it too, and I like far more people than I dislike.
I don’t see it as a matter of being a bad person or not. When I use GPL, whomever uses my software may be “evil”. The difference is whether or not they grant the freedoms I granted them to view, modify, distribute, and distribute modifications to whomever uses their version of the software. It is a requirement to pay it forward. Evil or not.
Is there anything specific to open source about this question? If you’re a software developer, you might have to decide whether you want to work for a shady company, or whether you want your smaller company to contract with a larger shady company. Those are I think harder decisions to make, because it could be your job on the line.
In the open source world, at least you don’t know for sure what people are going to do with your work.
But we do know that if a company is looking to be evil, it’s probably going to find a way, whether or not it uses your library.
Disgust. I don’t even want the product of my hands in the hands of capitalists or fascists; because they’d be sure to abuse it to their own ends and I wouldn’t be able to do shit about it til the Day of the Wall comes.
I built and maintained Open-source software.
I worked for SCO during the time when the rabid halfwits were weaponized by IBM to vilify everything SCO did or didn’t do via Pamela-the-ex-IBM-employee’s ‘totally impartial’ website. SCO was, and remains, the best job and work environment ever.
My software was surely used by nefarious types. But by that time, I was done with it: I code it, I build it, I distribute it, and then it belongs to the world. You can’t have it any other way, really.
And, one day, find out what really happened with SCO/IBM.
Remember when Darl showed some “encrypted code” that he claimed was stolen and added to Linux and it was really just some POSIX definitions from a header file taken from BSD “encrypted” with a wing dings font? Those were some wild times.
I’m not sure why this has anything to do with FOSS per se. Proprietary software can theoretically be used by people the intellectual property owners hate as well.
I’m guessing you’re thinking about it from a FOSS point of view because FOSS authors tend to be ideologically inclined toward making FOSS and perhaps think they’re selflessly making the world a better place whereas proprietary software is made exclusively for money. (Not that FOSS can’t be made for money.)
But, speaking for myself, a lot of bad actors just straight up blatantly violate FOSS licenses. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is. (Maybe the court case SFC v. Visio will make a difference. We’ll have to see.) But it’s not going to do the world any good to deprive the world of your contributions because some assholes will disregard your license.
I suppose it could theoretically make a difference if you used a license that called certain companies out by name, but a) then again maybe it actually wouldn’t make a difference (they might just blatantly violate the license still) and b) you can’t really anticipate all the companies that are assholes at the time you write the license. If your FOSS software actually has a nontrivial user base, somebody somewhere who you don’t like is going to use your license some day and there really isn’t anything you can do about it.
But I still see releasing your code under FOSS licenses as a big fuck-you to asshole companies. It subverts the whole capitalist foundation on which they stand. It denies them the full ability to own it.
And copyleft licenses do that better than so-called “permissive” licenses.
Be gay, do crime, write FOSS, donate to the SFC.
