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

[Gil Yehuda]

I wanted to share a thought based on the initiation of this discussion
thread (which I agree with). Forgive the length.

TL;DR: Technologists are called by moral inclination to address larger
social concerns related to technology. OSI’s licenses can’t help us in
these discussions. I use more words below to explain why.

quoting >

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.

< end quote

The problems of harm and justice are serious, but not well addressed by
licenses. No abused person being tormented unjustly by malevolent policies,
laws, or actors prays at night “if only the OSI would approve a new license
that would set in motion changes that will finally set me free.” No
thoughtful developer believes that adding a “do no evil” phrase to their
license preamble is sufficient to battle evil.

The Open Source and Free Software movements have been very effective at
addressing challenge related to proprietary software that creates vendor
lock-in, and creating distributed trusted environments for code
co-development. We should continue this mission as technology changes how
code is written (as training data becomes code), how it is deployed, and
how it does or does not meet the ideals the movement can achieve. But these
do not replace legislation or regulation. Important technology concerns,
such as user data privacy, identity theft prevention, or right to repair,
are not regulated by an open source license text. They can’t be.

In her recent book Hacking Diversity, Christina Dunbar-Hester notes that
open source technology enthusiasts approach social “emancipation” issues
steeped within their cultural legacies of software engineering. She
describes these as self-governing, autonomous, voluntaristic, hands-on,
hack-apart, suggest a patch and inquire how others in the community feel
about it. She is sympathetic to the motivation and impressed with the
successes in the open technologies movement. But the book examines why
these are fundamentally insufficient to address the larger social issues
(in her case the topic is diversity in tech, not the harm caused by tech,
but I think the thesis extends here too).

Licenses are excellent vehicles to express how one grants rights, under
what terms, and with what level of warranty. With humility and humanity,
let’s explore the serious issues of technology policy, law, and regulation
in forums that are better equipped with vehicles better suited for the
task.

Gil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20201229/e3aa48ac/attachment.html>