[License-discuss] Ethical open source licensing - Dual Licensing for Justice

[Nigel T]

That’s a distinction without a difference since the licensor gets to decide what is or isn’t a human rights violation.  So your own license is the example.

The licensor:

“If Licensor receives notification or otherwise learns of an alleged violation of any Human Rights Principles relating to Licensee's use of the Software, Licensor may in its discretion and without obligation (i) (a) notify Licensee of such allegation and (b) allow Licensee 90 days from notification under (i)(a) to investigate and respond to Licensor regarding the allegation and (ii) (a) after the earlier of 90 days from notification under (i)(a), or Licensee's response under (i)(b), notify Licensee of License termination and (b) allow Licensee an additional 90 days from notification under (ii)(a) to cease use of the Software.”

There is no requirement that the licensee actually has committed a violation of human rights.  Just that the licensor feels like they did and didn’t like the answer they got back.

So they can ignore human rights violations from entities they like and punish those they don’t for alleged infractions without any due process or concrete evidence that a human rights violation has actually occurred.

And the license doesn’t say anything about “minimum set of freedoms” set by the “collective agreement” by the world but instead 

“Where the Human Rights Laws of more than one jurisdiction are applicable to the use of the Software, the Human Rights Laws that are most protective of the individuals or groups harmed shall apply.”

Not the minimal set but the maximum.  By pretty much anybody...heck, I used to live in a municipality that outlawed nuclear weapons...which if they could make it stick worldwide I’d be inclined to agree with but given they can’t, not so much.

It may be that I have fallen off a turnip truck but it wasn’t yesterday.

>> On Mar 8, 2020, at 1:34 PM, Coraline Ada Ehmke <coraline at idolhands.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Mar 6, 2020, at 11:04 AM, Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I do NOT like the idea of ethical open source. It completely turns the idea of "forking without permission" into "you can only run this software if I think you are a good person.”
> 
> 
> I see statements like this being thrown around so often, and I’m really sick of it being repeated with exactly ZERO backing evidence. It is a slippery slope fallacy with no basis in reality. 
> 
> No ethical source license that I am aware of allows a licensor to discriminate against anyone for “not being a nice person”, not being likeable, or any other arbitrary and subjective criteria. 
> 
> The Hippocratic License, for example, does not discriminate against any person or group, nor against any field of endeavor. It simply states that the software may not be used in the commission of human rights violations. This is not a liberal vs conservative position; it is not a fuzzy grey area that is open to interpretation; it is not open to subjective “armchair” interpretation; it does not rely on a belief system that varies from person to person or place to place. It relies on the collective agreement of representatives from all the nations in the world coming together to establish the very minimum set of freedoms granted to every living human being. 
> 
> And in the context of open source, it actually both embodies and strengthens the ideal of software freedom by ensuring that such software freedom is always in service of human freedom (with thanks to Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy for that language.)
> 
> Ethical source is about exploring ways to empower creators to fulfill their greater-than-average moral and ethical responsibilities to their industry and human society at large. It rejects the notion of technology as a neutral tool. There is plenty of research into how software encodes, enforces, and promotes bias against marginalized communities, is abused by governments around the world, and works against social progress. I encourage you to do some googling on the topic.
> 
> If such a license exists that states “you can only run this software if I think you are a good person”, prove me wrong by sharing it.
> 
> Respectfully,
> Coraline Ada Ehmke
> 
> 
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