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<p>All,</p>
<p>I continue to noodle with the problem of people increasingly
aware of harm happening around them[1] seeking to add use-limits
to open source licenses:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ignoring this shift seems undesirable.</li>
<li>Tacking on use limits seems incompatible with what OSI is
about.</li>
</ul>
<p>An approach came to mind while commenting on a recent proposal to
license-review and I'd be interested in views on whether this was
workable: would/should it be an acceptable condition in an
OSI-approved license that an unmodified project manifesto be
included in any copy of the software? This potentially improves
both:</p>
<ul>
<li> the legal ambiguity problem: a separate manifesto need not
create legal obligations (wording in the license to make this
clear seems workable); and</li>
<li>the license reuse problem, because different projects will
have different values, beliefs, and missions.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>There is a real problem with updating the manifesto, but I'd like
to explore whether there's any upside at all, before heading too
far down that particular rabbit hole.</p>
<p>I am particularly interested in the abuse potential. E.g. an
activist organisation gets their software into use in a target's
systems. Assume that the above successfully excludes the use of
copyright law to invalidate the license on a use-limitation basis,
but has OSI-approval facilitated the creation of a tool for
outrage-industrial complex abuse? (Joe's Puppy Restaurant uses
software created by an animal rights organisation to advance the
welfare of animals in optimising its supply lines for arguably the
opposite outcome.) Does it matter?<br>
</p>
<p>- Roland</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>1: "woke" in contemporary usage, although that term it not
particularly neutral; it is frequently used in both approving and
pejorative contexts.</p>
<p><br>
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