[License-discuss] Invariant manifestos as an approach to expressing values / beliefs / missions for open source projects

[Roland Turner]

All,

I continue to noodle with the problem of people increasingly aware of 
harm happening around them[1] seeking to add use-limits to open source 
licenses:

  * Ignoring this shift seems undesirable.
  * Tacking on use limits seems incompatible with what OSI is about.

An approach came to mind while commenting on a recent proposal to 
license-review and I'd be interested in views on whether this was 
workable: would/should it be an acceptable condition in an OSI-approved 
license that an unmodified project manifesto be included in any copy of 
the software? This potentially improves both:

  * the legal ambiguity problem: a separate manifesto need not create
    legal obligations (wording in the license to make this clear seems
    workable); and
  * the license reuse problem, because different projects will have
    different values, beliefs, and missions.

There is a real problem with updating the manifesto, but I'd like to 
explore whether there's any upside at all, before heading too far down 
that particular rabbit hole.

I am particularly interested in the abuse potential. E.g. an activist 
organisation gets their software into use in a target's systems. Assume 
that the above successfully excludes the use of copyright law to 
invalidate the license on a use-limitation basis, but has OSI-approval 
facilitated the creation of a tool for outrage-industrial complex abuse? 
(Joe's Puppy Restaurant uses software created by an animal rights 
organisation to advance the welfare of animals in optimising its supply 
lines for arguably the opposite outcome.) Does it matter?

- Roland


1: "woke" in contemporary usage, although that term it not particularly 
neutral; it is frequently used in both approving and pejorative contexts.


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