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

[Gil Yehuda]

Tobie,
It was my intent to convey a message with good faith. But to use humor to
make a point. I think there are serious issues in the world. The appeal to
human rights, genocide ("kids in cages"), etc. derails the productive
conversation about copyrights and author-responsibilities. More importantly
it offers victims of abuse little comfort. It uses an appeal to their
victimhood in service of making changes to license texts. I don't think
it's right, and does not conjure the term "ethical" in my mind. If we're
talking about making the world a better place, let's do something
productive. This is a discussion list about licenses. Hers we talk about
licenses.

As an author, I have granted to me by copyright laws and agreements certain
rights, such as the right to copy, use, display, modify, perform, and
distribute my work. I have the right to maintain that I am the author of
the work, etc. As a person, I also have responsibilities -- some imposed by
law, some by social conventions, some by my own moral sentiments.

Licensing is the management of rights. Yet, I'm still responsible for my
actions. If I execute a program I wrote that somehow breaks a law, exposes
your data, infringes a trademark, takes down a government server, etc.
someone's going to come after me. I probably should not use my code to
cheat on my spouse. If I blaspheme God in my code, I might worry too. But I
know that putting an OSI-license (or an ethical license) on my code does
not absolve me from responsibility. If anything it just adds irony.

But am I responsible for your actions? Was I a knowing and willing
participant? Did I fail to act in a reasonable manner to stop the crime?
I'm sure there are lots of great questions that lawyers here can expound
upon. But open source licenses have limitations of warranty text -- that
might protect me from some claims, maybe not all. Again, a good legal
question.

But what if the crime you commit with my code is not actually a violation
of a law, but something that irks me. Say you and I hold the opposite
position on an important and heated social issue related to guns, abortion,
death penalty, etc. and you use my code in service to the pursuit of your
position (e.g. you set up a website to advocate your cause and use some
Javascript code of mine). I might be upset about it. I might prefer not to
publish code under an open source license fearing that someone who
disagrees with me might use my code. That's OK. I'm not obligated to
publish my code. I have the right to restrict it. I'll note that
restricting my code does not make me more ethical, just more discriminatory
(and less open).

But what if your use of my code is more than simply setting up a website.
What if you commit a heinous crime that somehow involved my code? e.g. you
used a server with an operating system that contained a contribution I made
to that code. Who is responsible for the crime? Presumably, you.

Now, should I feel bad that I helped you? If I was the kind of person who
felt bad that you used my code to create a website I didn't like I could
also feel bad that you used my code to commit a crime. Or maybe I don't
feel bad -- since your action was unrelated to me. This is an interesting
question. I'm simply not convinced that it's a licensing question.
Moreover, framing it this way de-focuses on the perpetrator of the crime
and does no service to the victims.

If we want to talk about human rights, genocide, crimes, etc. let's think
about the victims and ask "what would they want us to do?" There is no
scenario that I imagine a victim showing gratitude that OSI modified the
OSD to approve licenses with anti-genocide clauses. In fact, the victims of
human rights violations are probably yelling "what the hell are you guys
doing -- can you see we're suffering!" while we discuss the merits of
adding text to limit fields of endeavors in ways that make us feel like
we've done them some service.

Thus, in good faith: discussing the taxonomy of discriminatory licenses
(source available, mostly-open, etc.) I understand. Discussing how this
helps address human rights, ethics, etc. -- no I don't understand. I really
don't. At first it sounded intellectually interesting, but when in a world
where people actually face real crisis, a discussion of how the OSD text
somehow relates to genocide seems tone-deaf and in poor taste. Hence my
comment.

I'm inspired by the wisdom conveyed in the 1992 movie "My Cousin Vinny"
where a similar concept was addressed related to a
seemingly inconsequential aspect of how a novice hunter should dress to
portray he fits in...

Vinny Gambini : What about these pants I got on, you think they're O.K.? [Looks
down] Oh!

Mona Lisa Vito : [comes out of the bathroom]  Imagine you're a deer. You're
prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your
little deer lips down to the cool clear water... BAM! A f#$% bullet rips
off part of your head! Your brains are laying on the ground in little
bloody pieces! Now I ask ya. Would you give a f@#$ what kind of pants the
son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?
I assume that victims of human rights abuse feel similarly about the
license text in our source code.

Gil Yehuda: I help with external technology engagement



On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 2:44 PM Russell McOrmond <russellmcormond at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 7:22 PM Gil Yehuda via License-discuss <
> license-discuss at lists.opensource.org> wrote:
>
>> I think part of the issue here is that in the face of real human issues,
>> this seems like a misuse of energy. Licenses manage the use of copyright
>> rights. We fight genocide with laws, with armies, maybe a good protest or
>> two?
>>
>
> I've participated in those protests and discussed those laws with policy
> makers, but the part of my personal activism that I believe is the most
> effective does relate to copyright and related government granted
> exclusivity.
>
> I spent much of my life trying to make fellow software authors transparent
> and accountable for the policies that their software and licenses inflicted
> upon society.  This will do far more to protect against geonocide committed
> with the use of technology than those who work against this ethical goal
> and try to convince authors that being for or against geonocide is
> something that should be allowed to be encoded in software or softare
> license agreements.
>
> While the discussion of geonocide may have been contrived, it it
> still useful to illustrate the problem.  I believe that not only is the
> descrimination that the "ethical" source movement not compatable with the
> open source development methodology and the variety of communities it is
> compatable with, I also believe it is counterproductive to the stated goal
> of reducing the threat of geonocide.
>
> _______________________________________________
> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not
> necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the
> Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
>
> License-discuss mailing list
> License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
>
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20200321/641408fa/attachment.html>