[License-discuss] How can we as a community help empower authors outside license agreements?

[Russell McOrmond]

On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 10:41 AM Tobie Langel <tobie at unlockopen.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 02:11 Russell Nelson <nelson at crynwr.com> wrote:
>
>> The fact that "ethical" software has no place at OSI? Well, it doesn't.
>> If it did, then she would have been elected.
>>
>
>
> With all due respect, I really feel like this is the wrong framing. If the
> OSI wants to be representative of the open source community—which it must
> if it wants to be legitimate—it can’t just ignore a concern that’s become
> mainstream* among open source practitioners.
>

The other Russell and I seem to believe that it is the new group that has
framed the problem wrong.


I believe they are dismissing those of us who already thought of,
discussed, and dealt with this concern that regularly resurfaces.   While
there are specific personalities that are new at the moment, the concern is
not.

I am not saying this to dismiss the concern, but to try to get the new
group of people to stop dismissing the rest of us.


I am someone who has strong political views, and right from when I
discovered the Free Software movement in the 1990's I believed and
continued to believe that FLOSS licensed software is already the most
ethical source (IE: ethical sourcing) of software.  The fact that it has a
"free as in free speech, not free beer" as the core of software freedom,
meaning you only believe in this freedom if you will protect it for your
enemies as much as your friends, is critical for what makes it ethical.

What I believe is needed is an education campaign to better explain why OSI
and FSF licenses (with IMHO a few exceptions) are already ethical source,
and why encouraging software authors to discriminate against people or
organizations they disagree with politically is counterproductive to their
own stated goals.



> Note I’m not saying: “change the OSD to allow ethical licenses,” I’m
> saying “work hand in hand to account for the concerns of the broader
> community to find reasonable solutions that meet those concerns.”
>

We have already accounted for those concerns, if only people were open
enough to listen.

What it requires is that each person that discovers this concern be willing
to discuss and learn from those who have already dealt with the concern.
To believe that each new person that discovers the concern must be
accomodated is to entirely dismiss the majority who believe they have
already dealt with the concern, and have already rejected the claimed
"solution" of empowering software authors to discriminate based on their
personal political views (which, BTW, is the same thing as their personal
interpretation of "human rights" given that is not a deterministic concept).


* For scale, the twitter poll I ran earlier this year from my personal
> account had more respondents in favor of a Hippocratic-like license than
> there are OSI members (and roughly twice as more than OSI members that
> voted).
>

I assume you realise that these two numbers can't be compared as they
aren't related.  I seriously doubt those responding to your poll have given
open source as much thought as the members of OSI, and I'd be curious to
see the wording of the question.   I bet I could word a question that would
get the vast majority of US citizens to apparently approve of all the
activities of ICE -- I don't personally approve, but that is largely
irrelevant.

Note:  I care deeply about open source, and have been advocating for
supporting policy for decades (politicians, bureaucrats, etc), but I'm not
currently a member of OSI.
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