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

[Russell Nelson]

On 3/6/20 7:22 PM, Coraline Ada Ehmke wrote:
> “Hostile takeover” is not a goal of the Ethical Source Movement. 

Yes, it is. The Ethical Source Definition is hostile to the Open Source 
Definition -- that's why you want to change it. You want to take our 
authority, against our will, and use it to promote your ideas. That's 
not fine. What IS fine is for you to continue to promote the Ethical 
Source Definition using your own resources, not using our resources to 
promote it.

The OSD very specifically does nothing to limit the use of open source 
software. That is by design. The Ethical Source Definition very much 
attempts to limit the use of ESD. It's incoherent. ESD#1 says "can be 
freely used", but ESD#4 says that a license MUST prohibit software from 
being used by certain parties.

The ESD may be a good idea, or it may be a bad idea. What it definitely 
is, is against the OSD. Licenses which comply with the ESD are 
incompatible with licenses that comply with the OSD.