Limiting the use of an OpenSource application

John Richter jmrichter at lbl.gov
Sat Mar 2 22:55:06 UTC 2002



On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, David Johnson wrote:

> Nope, wouldn't be open source. No way no how. You start telling the user how 
> or where they run your code and and it will never qualify.

Are there any software licenses that are like OpenSource licenses, but
restrict the use of the code in certain domains?

I ask this because this requirement puts companies with "ethical
practices" rules in a strange position. A company might have a rule saying
that it won't do business with companies that use sweatshop labor, for
example. They couldn't release any code they wrote as open source, because
to do so could violate their ethical practices rule (a sweatshop-using
company might decide to use their open source accounting software, for
example).

Does anyone know if there is a sort of "socially responsible" open source
license (a la socially responsible mutual funds)?

	-John

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