[License-discuss] Thoughts on the subject of ethical licenses

Drew DeVault sir at cmpwn.com
Sun Mar 8 17:44:04 UTC 2020


On Fri Mar 6, 2020 at 6:22 PM, Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:
> There is a strong contingent of people within the ethical source working
> group who agree 100% with this sentiment about licensing not being the
> best strategy. Although it is the most visible of our many initiatives,
> please rest assured that we are exploring a number of options to move
> the agenda forward.

I can understand this, and I think it's valuable for the ethical source
community to take this experimental approach. However, I don't want to
experiment with open source. It's too important.

> I completely understand your position, even though I hold out hope that
> it might prove to have a positive impact. But taking a step back, would
> we even be having this conversation if the (admittedly deeply flawed
> first version of the) Hippocratic License had not been released last
> September? Had it not gotten so much press attention? Had it not
> launched dozens of blog posts?

For what it's worth, my personal exposure to this debate has been:

1. I heard minor murmurs throughout the internet about "ethical source"
   and researched no further.
2. Someone mentioned that you were running for the OSI board, and that
   it might be bad for open source. I took the opportunity to read your
   (and the other candidates) campaign pages on the wiki.
3. I decided to vote based on this information.
4. I heard about Eric's thread and the inflammatory discussion that
   ensued, and decided to join the discussion and petition for a more
   reasonable debate.

So, I've had very little exposure to any of the conflict you're
referring to.

> As an aside I also would like to caution you on the use of the term
> “virtue signaling”. I am NOT implying that this applies to you, but
> that term is something of an alt-right “god whistle” in very common
> usage in dark and hateful corners of the internet like 4chan, 8chan,
> some terrible communities on Reddit, and places like Kiwi Farms. It is
> commonly used to dismiss, imply insincerity or hypocrisy, and generally
> ridicule people working in the social justice space.
>
> That being said, taken without the culture baggage, what’s so wrong
> about "virtue signaling" if you think of it as “this person is
> publicly proclaiming a strongly held moral or ethical stance”? Don’t
> people have the right to make such proclamations without having their
> integrity challenged? In fact, shouldn’t we be encouraging that?
> Doesn’t it have inherent value?

I disavow any relationship with the (ab)users of the term "virtue
signaling" you mention here. Thanks for giving me the benefit of the
doubt, I didn't realize that such a usage of this term exists.

To clarify my usage, I agree that virtue signaling is not inherently
wrong. What I'm pointing out is that the license text _only_ succeeds
at virtue signalling, and not at any of the ostensibly stated goals. I
don't think it's legally enforcible, and I think it brings a lot of
risks. These ideas are out of scope for software licenses. If you wish
to signal your virtues, and I encourage you to do so, other approaches
would be better. A code of conduct, or even a document which describes
the virtues of the leadership directly, would be more effective.

I'd rather not dilute the term "open source" with these doubts. Though
these ideas are worth pursuing, I'd prefer to see it in a separate
context from licensing entirely. In the ideal, software can be both open
source *and* ethical source. Right now, the terms are mutually
exclusive. I would prefer to see ethical source tackle these challenges
outside of the framework of software licensing, so that the initiatives
can co-exist in a single software project.

To your earlier point, licensing is just one way you're looking at
solving the problems ethical source tackles. However, I find open-source
software licensing so important, and this approach so dissonant, that I
cannot overlook it and vote for you on the basis of your other
prospects.

> Adopting an ethical license, at worst, is a way of stating very clearly
> that you feel an ethical responsibility for the way your software is
> being used. The strong feelings evoked by, for example, Palantir using
> hundreds of open source libraries to help ICE put kids in cages are
> valid, and as you say, developers have very strong reactions to knowing
> that the code they so lovingly crafted and devoted so much of their time
> to is being used in this way. Developers feel helpless. And to date no
> organization that I am aware of has prioritized addressing this feeling
> of helplessness.

I know that this is hard, and I spoke to this before, but you are not
responsible for how your software is used. ICE is funded by your tax
dollars, too, but good luck not paying those. It's a tough hand we've
been dealt, but ruining open source because we feel empowered to in the
face of our lack of empowerment to effect change in our government...
would be a really bad plan.

> I disagree on this point, which I see being made quite often (usually
> it’s more along the lines of “terrorists don’t care about
> licenses”. The activities that ICE engages in at its concentration
> camps are illegal but still being carried out by the government, and ICE
> cannot be sued for human rights violations. But to return to the example
> of Palantir: do you think their lawyers are going to even ENTERTAIN the
> notion of using software with an ethical license? Being sued for license
> violation is the least of their concerns. It would be a public relations
> disaster if it was discovered that they were using ethical source
> licensed software to support ICE.

Let's state for the sake of argument that I agree with this premise. In
that context, let me ask you the following: do you think that if we
prohibit ICE from using our software, they will be any less effective in
carrying out their mission?

I think we both know that the answer is "no".

Choosing an ethical source license is not actually solving any of these
problems. It's just making us feel better. I won't accept platitudes at
the expense of the core principles of open source.

> The OSD does not define open source, it defines the characteristics of
> open source licenses.

I do not agree with this position, and I find it very important. This
"fact" has been made up by people with ulterior motives in the past few
years, and is being used to justify gas lighting users with
faux-open-source software projects. This statement is made most often by
people who want to capitalize on open-source, but wish the definition
was slightly more suited to their interests. In fact, addressing this
issue is the most important criteria on which I judged my votes for the
new board members.

I'm prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, but be aware that,
like I was mistakenly using the "virtue signaling" language of bad
actors, you're using the language of bad actors here yourself.

> Don’t believe the OSD does much to serve the constituents of the open
> source community, the developers spending their precious free time
> putting all of themselves into code that they hope someone will find
> useful. Maybe the OSI shouldn’t concern itself with developers like
> that? That’s for the organization itself to decide. But I firmly
> believe that business-as-usual will lead to the increasing irrelevance
> of the organization, and I think that would be a tragedy and great loss.

I think that the OSI would do well to be a focused organization,
concerning itself only with maintaining the OSD, scrutinizing licenses
for compliance with it, and promoting the use of compatible licenses and
software licensed as such. The Unix philosophy: do one thing, and do it
well.

Rather than expand the mission of the OSI, I'd prefer to establish new
organizations (or support existing ones, they do exist, such as SFC),
for addressing the needs of the developers and improving open source
sustainability. Expanding the budget to support other initiatives is
risky, it introduces a lot of political problems and is itself an
existential threat to open source.

> So I resent us-vs-them framing, even as I admit my own contribution to
> that antagonism early on. I’m hoping that we can move past adversity
> and come together to create the next great hack that ensures, in the
> words of Karen Sandler, that software freedom is ALWAYS in service to
> human freedom.

Thanks for taking the time to address my concerns.



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