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

[Florian Weimer]

* Russell McOrmond:

> When you have a license agreement that discusses specific policy goals, and
> doesn't grant a license if you carry out specific activities incompatible
> with those goals, that isn't as quickly going to come up against the
> non-discrimination core of software freedom.
>
> As soon as you name names (individuals or groups) you are closing the door
> to that specific name using your software or adopting your policy.  By
> accusing an entity of being "wrong" as opposed to a policy being "wrong"
> you are only trying to punish a brand name as opposed to trying to achieve
> a policy goal.
>
> The goal should be to encourage entities to adopt your policy goal, not to
> discourage them and anyone who disagrees with your evaluation of specific
> entities.

And it encourages asymmetric arrangements with contributors because
from a practical point of view, *someone* has to upgrade the
persona-non-grata aspect, and it's structurally not possible to do
this as a regular project contribution, given the way this whole
aspect is encoded in the copyright license.

(I think these asymmetric arrangements are one of the larger issues we
face today.  And not just in terms of fairness.  I think these options
can be tempting from a business point of view, but they tend to lead
people on paths which are not sustainable, whether it's from a
business or from a community management perspective.)