[License-review] The Vaccine License

[Grahame Grieve]

>
> I have already written two blog postings on the issue of "ethical"
> licenses, one including this proposed license:
> https://perens.com/2019/10/12/invasion-of-the-ethical-licenses/
>
> https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic-license-cant-work/
>
>
hi Bruce

If we're going to talk about this subject (as someone else suggested), then
I'd like to ask
you about these posts (and thanks very much for them). Your posts take a
fairly hard legal
approach to the license, which I understand. But on the other hand, it
seems at least
reasonable for someone who has invested a great deal of work into
developing some
software to state that they do not wish it to be used for some goal that
violates their personal
or organizational ethics, and that they do not license it's use under
those circumstances.

While I appreciated the basic argument, I was bothered by the lack of
ethics implied in
the outcome. And I'm not sure that enforceability in law should be the only
criteria by
which this is judged. It seems to me that even if the condition is
unenforceable, that
doesn't mean it has zero value as a statement. Isn't that a false binary?

Also, with regard to this:

> So, what we’re left with are licenses that lawyers, and probably courts,
and the violators themselves, laugh at

Would they? Some one gives something of value away, on the condition it not
be used in a particular way?
Is there precedent on this?

Grahame
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