A reminder that you should double-check the licenses for software you use(github.com)
github.com
A reminder that you should double-check the licenses for software you use
https://github.com/katharostech/ldtk-rs/blob/master/LICENSE.md
98 comments
The first two could qualify as 'mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information' depending how liberally that's interpreted. Extortion is already illegal, anyway (but then again, so are many of the prohibited activities in this license, although I suppose it's not illegal to simply 'support' them as this license prohibits).
its not stealing if people are giving that information out for free or if it's just metadata, nothing immoral there
Could be mass surveillance, depending on how liberally that's interpreted.
> its not stealing if people are giving that information out for free
If I leave a pie to cool on my windowsill and you take it it's still stealing even if there was no formal agreement or security measures in place to protect the pie.
Adtech is kind of like that. If I give a calendar app access to my contacts I certainly don't expect it to take that information and use it for tracking, targeting, and marketing purposes as well. For me to "give" you that information for free, you'd have to ask for it honestly. And yet Facebook - an ad tech company - has been fighting this kind of consent in the next iOS patch tooth-and-nail.
If I leave a pie to cool on my windowsill and you take it it's still stealing even if there was no formal agreement or security measures in place to protect the pie.
Adtech is kind of like that. If I give a calendar app access to my contacts I certainly don't expect it to take that information and use it for tracking, targeting, and marketing purposes as well. For me to "give" you that information for free, you'd have to ask for it honestly. And yet Facebook - an ad tech company - has been fighting this kind of consent in the next iOS patch tooth-and-nail.
> If I leave a pie to cool on my windowsill and you take it it's still stealing even if there was no formal agreement or security measures in place to protect the pie.
This is a excellent analogy, thank you.
This is a excellent analogy, thank you.
Isn't that the Office Space crime rationalization?
Extortion is illegal, and yet, 'mugshot' businesses continue to operate in the open.
Not to mention all sort of "review" websites where your company is suddenly flooded with extremely negative reviews and you get a helpful call from the website owner being like "hey, I see you got a lot of bad reviews, but don't worry, for only $5000 you can get our premium membership that lets you get them removed".
Ask me how I know.
Ask me how I know.
How do you know?
Because it happened to my company. A "review your employer" website went from having few reviews of us to literally having few thousand reviews in a week(which in itself was a dead giweaway as we had maybe 50 employees total with 100 over the lifetime of the company), all extremely negative, but very simple and vague in content so you couldn't make a legal case against any one of them.
We took it to a lawyer but he said that it's clearly blackmail but it would be extremely hard to get any kind of judgement against it. We just ignored it and that company eventually folded and disappeared and the website with them, but I'm pretty sure it made hiring somewhat more difficult for a while.
We took it to a lawyer but he said that it's clearly blackmail but it would be extremely hard to get any kind of judgement against it. We just ignored it and that company eventually folded and disappeared and the website with them, but I'm pretty sure it made hiring somewhat more difficult for a while.
OK thanks. Good to hear that the problem went away in your case.
I was interested since I believe we need the sort of quality-control that these review websites offer - the problem is the corruption of the review process that often (always?) takes place, and the crudeness of the review parameters. Google Pagerank (or whatever it is called nowadays) is not a satisfactory quality sifting tool.
I was interested since I believe we need the sort of quality-control that these review websites offer - the problem is the corruption of the review process that often (always?) takes place, and the crudeness of the review parameters. Google Pagerank (or whatever it is called nowadays) is not a satisfactory quality sifting tool.
WrtCdEvrydy(1)
I think it's meant as a joke... you need to read a bit further before you hit the "oh this is _supposed_ to be complete BS" part:
> The definition of what is "good" can be considered highly subjective [...blah blah] the definition of what is "good" and "pure", come from the Word of God, The Holy Bible. The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true and inspired by God and that He alone is the ultimate authority for what is good and just.
Says it all really.
> The definition of what is "good" can be considered highly subjective [...blah blah] the definition of what is "good" and "pure", come from the Word of God, The Holy Bible. The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true and inspired by God and that He alone is the ultimate authority for what is good and just.
Says it all really.
It’s not. This is on their website linked from the GitHub profile:
> Katharos Technology is a team that wants to make video games and other content and technology to the glory of God.
> Katharos Technology is a team that wants to make video games and other content and technology to the glory of God.
Not a joke actually. Here's their About Us page https://katharostech.com/about-us
[deleted]
This is why some people have fought hard to have some standards what is an acceptable FOSS license.
Things would be much harder if we wouldn't have such standards. Imagine a software ecosystem with a wild variety of licensing terms with all kinds of crazy clauses.
Remember that the next time some company with a deceptive "it's not open source, but we surely want it to sound like open source" license comes along. I was downvoted plenty of times trying to argue for more honesty from those players.
Things would be much harder if we wouldn't have such standards. Imagine a software ecosystem with a wild variety of licensing terms with all kinds of crazy clauses.
Remember that the next time some company with a deceptive "it's not open source, but we surely want it to sound like open source" license comes along. I was downvoted plenty of times trying to argue for more honesty from those players.
No license is going to satisfy everyone in all contexts.
For example I cannot use GPL at work (based on my own rules as team lead) but am open to it in personal projects.
And other folks would consider having something NOT GPL licensed to be suspect.
It is not possible to provide a uniform license that will be acceptable to all in all circumstances.
For example I cannot use GPL at work (based on my own rules as team lead) but am open to it in personal projects.
And other folks would consider having something NOT GPL licensed to be suspect.
It is not possible to provide a uniform license that will be acceptable to all in all circumstances.
I don't think they meant that there should be One True Open-Source License but rather that open-source projects should pick one of the 'standard' ones (GPL, MIT, etc.) instead of writing their own.
Well, if by “open source” you mean broadly any software available whose code is viewable on the internet, you’re essentially advocating for no projects that use “nonstandard” licenses to exist.
That seems like a waste if there would be otherwise be projects around with a nonstandard license that was acceptable to a subset of users.
For example the CPython interpreter (the official interpreter for the Python language) does not use a standard license. Would you not want Python to exist?
That seems like a waste if there would be otherwise be projects around with a nonstandard license that was acceptable to a subset of users.
For example the CPython interpreter (the official interpreter for the Python language) does not use a standard license. Would you not want Python to exist?
Any permissive software license (which it seems CPython's is) is broadly interchangeable with any other, and can be used with both other permissive licenses and copyleft licenses like the GPL. That can't happen with any license that places restrictions on what it can be used for.
Even the hardest core Stallmanites aren't unwilling to use BSD/MIT-licensed software, nor Stallman himself. In contrast, these sorts of licenses that restrict what the software can be used for are unequivocally condemned by the FSF.
> Imagine a software ecosystem with a wild variety of licensing terms with all kinds of crazy clauses.
People are dunking on trying to figure out what is considered "excessively gory".
What does "welcoming and inclusive language" mean?
People are dunking on trying to figure out what is considered "excessively gory".
What does "welcoming and inclusive language" mean?
Stallman put it best many years ago:
>I've stated some of my views about other political issues, about activities that are or aren't unjust. Your views might differ, and that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music.
>The result would be a system that you could not count on for any purpose. For each task you wish to do, you'd have to check lots of licenses to see which parts of your system are off limits for that task.
>How would users respond to that? I think most of them would use proprietary systems. Allowing any usage restrictions whatsoever in free software would mainly push users towards nonfree software. Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a long, soft, straight piece of spaghetti.
His words are just as valid about this license as they are about the various "ethical open source" licenses that have proliferated in recent years, whether they be of the "don't let Amazon host our code" variety or the "totally not a thinly veiled vehicle for injecting social justice politics into software" sort.
>I've stated some of my views about other political issues, about activities that are or aren't unjust. Your views might differ, and that's precisely the point. If we accepted programs with usage restrictions as part of a free operating system such as GNU, people would come up with lots of different usage restrictions. There would be programs banned for use in meat processing, programs banned only for pigs, programs banned only for cows, and programs limited to kosher foods. Someone who hates spinach might write a program allowing use for processing any vegetable except spinach, while a Popeye fan might allow use only for spinach. There would be music programs allowed only for rap music, and others allowed only for classical music.
>The result would be a system that you could not count on for any purpose. For each task you wish to do, you'd have to check lots of licenses to see which parts of your system are off limits for that task.
>How would users respond to that? I think most of them would use proprietary systems. Allowing any usage restrictions whatsoever in free software would mainly push users towards nonfree software. Trying to stop users from doing something through usage restrictions in free software is as ineffective as pushing on an object through a long, soft, straight piece of spaghetti.
His words are just as valid about this license as they are about the various "ethical open source" licenses that have proliferated in recent years, whether they be of the "don't let Amazon host our code" variety or the "totally not a thinly veiled vehicle for injecting social justice politics into software" sort.
Stallman is right but also he betrays his liberal leanings in that he accepts that it is okay for private profit makers to exploit whatever resources you produce. If licenses were only useful for personal, school, or research without a specific license from the publisher, that's not the end of the world and comports with the value system of the publisher. Removing the means of production from the marketplace is an anarchist/socialist idea.
However, for something as fundamental as an operating system (so long as it is a commodity), it does make sense to have a liberalized base of restrictions on use.
Injecting social justice politics is fine. Politics are present everywhere. People should express their opinions and live their lives in accordance with them. The US in particular has an obsession with pretending there is such a thing as apolitical when it comes to economic activity.
However, for something as fundamental as an operating system (so long as it is a commodity), it does make sense to have a liberalized base of restrictions on use.
Injecting social justice politics is fine. Politics are present everywhere. People should express their opinions and live their lives in accordance with them. The US in particular has an obsession with pretending there is such a thing as apolitical when it comes to economic activity.
>Stallman is right but also he betrays his liberal leanings in that he accepts that it is okay for private profit makers to exploit whatever resources you produce. If licenses were only useful for personal, school, or research without a specific license from the publisher, that's not the end of the world and comports with the value system of the publisher. Removing the means of production from the marketplace is an anarchist/socialist idea.
Which leads to fun situations where you have to determine what is or isn't "commercial use." Truly free and open licenses make that a non-issue, meaning software using them are more likely to become widely adopted, which is the entire point of the FOSS movement.
>Injecting social justice politics is fine. Politics are present everywhere. People should express their opinions and live their lives in accordance with them.
People are free to believe whatever they like, but creating (largely legally unenforceable) licenses to do so only hurts the adoption of free software (and helps large commercial entities developing proprietary software). See, for example, Bruce Perens's comments on the Berkeley SPICE license, which explicitly disallowed use by the police of South Africa. Even after Apartheid ended the police of South Africa were barred from use:
https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic...
Any license that places restrictions on what software can be used for makes the entire free software world a minefield.
Which leads to fun situations where you have to determine what is or isn't "commercial use." Truly free and open licenses make that a non-issue, meaning software using them are more likely to become widely adopted, which is the entire point of the FOSS movement.
>Injecting social justice politics is fine. Politics are present everywhere. People should express their opinions and live their lives in accordance with them.
People are free to believe whatever they like, but creating (largely legally unenforceable) licenses to do so only hurts the adoption of free software (and helps large commercial entities developing proprietary software). See, for example, Bruce Perens's comments on the Berkeley SPICE license, which explicitly disallowed use by the police of South Africa. Even after Apartheid ended the police of South Africa were barred from use:
https://perens.com/2019/09/23/sorry-ms-ehmke-the-hippocratic...
Any license that places restrictions on what software can be used for makes the entire free software world a minefield.
I would agree with that. I guess that's the actual struggle: get people to agree that preserving the ecosystem as a whole is more important than anything else. I love free software but I 100% can understand differing perspectives.
Commercial use is pretty easy to understand though: are you making money in excess of costs and are not non-profit? Commercial use.
I suppose there are cases where a non-profit can violate the spirit of the law. That's for the courts to decide or you can make it clear by saying non-profits are okay no matter what.
Commercial use is pretty easy to understand though: are you making money in excess of costs and are not non-profit? Commercial use.
I suppose there are cases where a non-profit can violate the spirit of the law. That's for the courts to decide or you can make it clear by saying non-profits are okay no matter what.
Ignoring the ambiguity of commercial use for which CC-BY-NC licenses have long been criticised for, there are very obvious reasons why they don't work for software.
Let's say we have a non-commercial photo-editing application, call it NCIMP. You're a hobbyist photographer, so your buddy wants to pay you to take wedding photos for him. That's a commercial use, right? Better get that commercial license... which you might not be able to get if there are hundreds of contributors to NCIMP and they don't have any organisation to whom they're assigning copyright.
So from the end user perspective, either you're paying an organisation for a commercial license, in which case it's not that different from just getting a license for Photoshop (sure, you'd have to pirate Photoshop to get it for free, but they only really go after commercial users for copyright infringement anyway and they mainly rely on employees to snitch), or you've sunk time into learning how to use a photo-editing application to develop skills you can't even accept compensation for... At which point, you may as well just have learned how to use Photoshop to begin with; if you're starting to learn photography even as a hobby, why choose to either limit yourself to never being able to take a photography gig or have to relearn new software for the same task? Even if you don't plan on doing any paid work, it doesn't make sense to use it unless the software is much better, which it probably won't be if it's being developed by exclusively hobbyist photographers who themselves can't use it for any professional work.
Let's say we have a non-commercial photo-editing application, call it NCIMP. You're a hobbyist photographer, so your buddy wants to pay you to take wedding photos for him. That's a commercial use, right? Better get that commercial license... which you might not be able to get if there are hundreds of contributors to NCIMP and they don't have any organisation to whom they're assigning copyright.
So from the end user perspective, either you're paying an organisation for a commercial license, in which case it's not that different from just getting a license for Photoshop (sure, you'd have to pirate Photoshop to get it for free, but they only really go after commercial users for copyright infringement anyway and they mainly rely on employees to snitch), or you've sunk time into learning how to use a photo-editing application to develop skills you can't even accept compensation for... At which point, you may as well just have learned how to use Photoshop to begin with; if you're starting to learn photography even as a hobby, why choose to either limit yourself to never being able to take a photography gig or have to relearn new software for the same task? Even if you don't plan on doing any paid work, it doesn't make sense to use it unless the software is much better, which it probably won't be if it's being developed by exclusively hobbyist photographers who themselves can't use it for any professional work.
I wonder if it would make sense to have a setup similar to music where commercial users of software pay a fee to an organization that distributes money to the producers.
Music and books have a lot of similarities to software in that the cost of copying is nearly free and people want to use stuff everywhere.
Music and books have a lot of similarities to software in that the cost of copying is nearly free and people want to use stuff everywhere.
There are fundamental differences between music/books and software.
Music and books aren't maintained and don't require it. An old song or an old book doesn't change. You can create new songs and new books based on old songs and old books, but they're different things. In contrast, software is in a never-ending battle against irrelevancy. You could use an old version of a piece of software, but then you can't open new versions of the file format for the same piece of software. You can always enjoy an old song or book, but old software will become less and less useful over time.
Songs and books typically have a limited and closed number of contributors. If people remix works, they remix an original, or a cover - the authorship chain is much shorter than what we see with software, which can in contrast involve hundreds of authors. If you want a license type involving a commercial license, you're going to have to need some sort of copyright assignment - and at that point, you've just created a corporation that sells commercial licenses for software. If you don't do this, anyone who wants to use it for commercial purposes will then have to track down a couple hundred authors and ask each of them for a commercial license. What if one of the refuses no matter what the price is? And then we end up in the second case, where the software can only ever end up used by amateurs.
Of course you can have a software project run by only a handful of people - but then they either have to refuse any and all outside contributions, or they have to require copyright assignment.
These sorts of problems can exist with the GPL if your business is selling GPL exceptions (e.g. Qt), but you don't have to do that to make money off of GPL software. And whereas a consumer of GPL software has zero reason to care about whether the software is GPL or BSD or MIT or whatever because they're probably not modifying and distributing it (and hence zero reason to ever require an exception), a consumer of software requiring noncommercial use will inevitably have to pay attention to this sort of stuff and require an exception for something as simple as turning a hobby into a side gig.
Music and books aren't maintained and don't require it. An old song or an old book doesn't change. You can create new songs and new books based on old songs and old books, but they're different things. In contrast, software is in a never-ending battle against irrelevancy. You could use an old version of a piece of software, but then you can't open new versions of the file format for the same piece of software. You can always enjoy an old song or book, but old software will become less and less useful over time.
Songs and books typically have a limited and closed number of contributors. If people remix works, they remix an original, or a cover - the authorship chain is much shorter than what we see with software, which can in contrast involve hundreds of authors. If you want a license type involving a commercial license, you're going to have to need some sort of copyright assignment - and at that point, you've just created a corporation that sells commercial licenses for software. If you don't do this, anyone who wants to use it for commercial purposes will then have to track down a couple hundred authors and ask each of them for a commercial license. What if one of the refuses no matter what the price is? And then we end up in the second case, where the software can only ever end up used by amateurs.
Of course you can have a software project run by only a handful of people - but then they either have to refuse any and all outside contributions, or they have to require copyright assignment.
These sorts of problems can exist with the GPL if your business is selling GPL exceptions (e.g. Qt), but you don't have to do that to make money off of GPL software. And whereas a consumer of GPL software has zero reason to care about whether the software is GPL or BSD or MIT or whatever because they're probably not modifying and distributing it (and hence zero reason to ever require an exception), a consumer of software requiring noncommercial use will inevitably have to pay attention to this sort of stuff and require an exception for something as simple as turning a hobby into a side gig.
Thank you for the thoughtful replies.
> I wonder if it would make sense to have a setup similar to music where commercial users of software pay a fee to an organization that distributes money to the producers.
Based on what we see in the music industry I suggest we don't do this.
Based on what we see in the music industry I suggest we don't do this.
So this claims the bible as the source of truth yet can't be allowed to produce it as it contains sexually suggestive material.
"Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love"
(proverbs 5:19)
"Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love"
(proverbs 5:19)
Which is really odd, because then it gives the full list of prohibited uses outlined in the license and none of them really have anything to do with the bible at all save one that tends to be pushed by bible folks and in fact, bans many things advocated by the bible, like slavery.
>sex trafficking - human trafficking
- slavery
- indentured servitude
- warfare
- weapons manufacturing - war crimes
- violence ( except when required to protect public safety )
- weapons of mass destruction
- sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
- excessively gory and/or violent images, artwork, or any other media
- abortion - murder - mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
- hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
>The Work shall not be used by any person, entity, product, service or other use that (i) lobbies against, discourages, or frustrates the following activities or (ii) that derives a majority of income from actions that discourage, or frustrate the following activities:
-peaceful assembly and association (including worker associations)
-democratic processes
>sex trafficking - human trafficking
- slavery
- indentured servitude
- warfare
- weapons manufacturing - war crimes
- violence ( except when required to protect public safety )
- weapons of mass destruction
- sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
- excessively gory and/or violent images, artwork, or any other media
- abortion - murder - mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
- hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
>The Work shall not be used by any person, entity, product, service or other use that (i) lobbies against, discourages, or frustrates the following activities or (ii) that derives a majority of income from actions that discourage, or frustrate the following activities:
-peaceful assembly and association (including worker associations)
-democratic processes
Not a supporter or otherwise of this particular license, but I think I could give Bible references for most of these (not giving chapter and verse but trust me if you don't recognise it!):
- sex trafficking
Sodom and Gomorrah
- human trafficking
- slavery
- indentured servitude
Neither slave nor free in Christ Jesus.
- warfare
- weapons manufacturing - war crimes
- violence ( except when required to protect public safety )
- weapons of mass destruction
They will beat their spears into ploughshares and swords into pruning hooks.
- sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out
- excessively gory and/or violent images, artwork, or any other media
- abortion - murder
Thou shalt not kill
- mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
??? The Bible does say little on mass surveillance for some reason.
- hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
Has no-one condemned you? Then neither do I.
-peaceful assembly and association (including worker associations)
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. (But I can't give a reference for unions!)
-democratic processes
Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.
- sex trafficking
Sodom and Gomorrah
- human trafficking
- slavery
- indentured servitude
Neither slave nor free in Christ Jesus.
- warfare
- weapons manufacturing - war crimes
- violence ( except when required to protect public safety )
- weapons of mass destruction
They will beat their spears into ploughshares and swords into pruning hooks.
- sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out
- excessively gory and/or violent images, artwork, or any other media
- abortion - murder
Thou shalt not kill
- mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
??? The Bible does say little on mass surveillance for some reason.
- hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
Has no-one condemned you? Then neither do I.
-peaceful assembly and association (including worker associations)
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. (But I can't give a reference for unions!)
-democratic processes
Give to Caesar what is Caesar's.
Doesn't this license defeat itself?
> The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true and inspired by God and that He alone is the ultimate authority for what is good and just.
vs.
> hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
Just think about "Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
> The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true and inspired by God and that He alone is the ultimate authority for what is good and just.
vs.
> hate speech or discrimination based on age, gender, gender identity, race, sexuality, religion, nationality
Just think about "Thou shalt have no other gods before me".
Well, you could argue that was directed at the Hebrew people under Moses, and not a directive to everyone everywhere. It's not contradictory to say not to discriminate against people's different religions while forbidding polytheism within your own religion.
Plenty of modern Christians believe the Law of Moses was superseded by Christ. Acts 15 even has a list of the parts of the law that the apostles told members of the church that they were still expected to follow, but even this isn't straightforward thanks to stuff like Paul's comments on eating food offered to idols.
That's not the only contradiction either, the bible contains plenty of rules on how to manage your slaves as well. And a plethora of other stuff in direct violation of the license rules. Like stoning women for example.
The Bible also contains passages calling homosexuality "shameful", among others. And it's hard to think of a book more discriminating by gender:
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."
-1 Timothy 2:12
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."
-1 Timothy 2:12
Cargo should have an "acceptable licenses" field in the project toml with a sensible default. I had to do a license audit in a past role and it was a pain.
Mark licenses that "require further attention".
Mark licenses that "require further attention".
Would be nice if built in, but cargo-deny is a neat project by Embark that can do this: https://github.com/EmbarkStudios/cargo-deny
Ah yeah, that seems useful, thanks.
I would love to see the functionality of cargo-deny built into cargo, and a sensible set of defaults added that prevent people from accidentally using proprietary code like this (while still allowing people to use proprietary code if they knowingly choose to, as well as allowing local first-party code by default so this doesn't stymie people's own internal development).
It already effectively does by having well-known identifiers for acceptable values for the license field (eg “MIT”) while these off-the-beaten track licenses require a path to a license. On crates.io, the license would be displayed as “other” instead of Apache, MIT, etc.
Reminds me of SQLite and the Rule of St. Benedict.
https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html
With the difference that sqlite's code of ethics applies to the (more or less closed set of) sqlite developers while that license applies to whoever wants to use the product - and small libraries (such as ldtk-rs) quickly sneak in somewhere, potentially creating lots of pain down the road.
So that "reminder" seems appropriate and package managers that download arbitrary cruft should have a license acceptance field somewhere to reject anything that's incompatible.
So that "reminder" seems appropriate and package managers that download arbitrary cruft should have a license acceptance field somewhere to reject anything that's incompatible.
Apatheist here. Behavioral rules are fine. I itch when expectations are laid down to sacrifice moral compasses to unseen agenc(ies) and unproven agents.
Wild that software that was developed for guided missile destroyers has " Do not murder. ", " Love your enemies. ", " Hate no one. " etc. in their Code of Ethics.
>No one is required to follow The Rule, to know The Rule, or even to think that The Rule is a good idea. The Founder of SQLite believes that anyone who follows The Rule will live a happier and more productive life, but individuals are free to dispute or ignore that advice if they wish.
>The founder of SQLite and all current developers have pledged to follow the spirit of The Rule to the best of their ability. They view The Rule as their promise to all SQLite users of how the developers are expected to behave. This is a one-way promise, or covenant. In other words, the developers are saying: "We will treat you this way regardless of how you treat us."
Nothing wrong with having an ideal to strive for, even if you aren't always living up to it.
>The founder of SQLite and all current developers have pledged to follow the spirit of The Rule to the best of their ability. They view The Rule as their promise to all SQLite users of how the developers are expected to behave. This is a one-way promise, or covenant. In other words, the developers are saying: "We will treat you this way regardless of how you treat us."
Nothing wrong with having an ideal to strive for, even if you aren't always living up to it.
Consider what thin gruel an ideal would have to be if you could always live up to it!
You are being transparent. SQLite was developed _for_ war machines, with that as its foundation. The code of ethics is merely an attempt to whitewash its history. The founders are shameful for their lack of self awareness.
I can't help but be reminded about this open source software license comic: https://burntsushi.net/stuff/wtfpl-strip.jpg
You know, it wasn't too long ago that people were unpublishing repos because they learned ICE was using their software. There was a strong drive to add a code of ethics to software, and an attempt to make software developers liable for how people use (or misuse) their software.
Opposition to this idea was very poorly received.
What makes this any different? Are we for using OSS to try and drive morality, or not?
(My answer is no to both accounts, for the record, and hasn't changed.)
Opposition to this idea was very poorly received.
What makes this any different? Are we for using OSS to try and drive morality, or not?
(My answer is no to both accounts, for the record, and hasn't changed.)
What makes this different is that is is trying to enforce unpopular ethics
Unpopular to who? Christianity is a massive chunk of the US population (whether they actually practice what they preach is a different question).
Christianity is among the religions that have the biggest amount of interpretations and custom versions believing in subsets or supersets of it ( just for starters, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Mormons, and a million others). Due to age, evolving interpretations, efforts of modernization and various sects, "Christianity" can mean different things to different people, and enforcing any version of it is bound to piss off any competing sect, religion and all non-religious people, which will probably be the majority.
Unpopular to a lot of the people in the position of deciding software ethics, going by the dismissive tone here
Codes of Ethics and licenses are somewhat orthogonal.
There are various engineering codes of ethics. Without looking, I think both the ACM and IEEE have them. I'd observe though that doesn't keep engineers from working on nuclear weapons for example. Which one may or may not agree with.
In general, I don't think the idea of ethical licenses which was at least a somewhat hot topic in certain circles a while back really was a popular idea overall. And, in any case, I haven't heard it come up for a while.
There are various engineering codes of ethics. Without looking, I think both the ACM and IEEE have them. I'd observe though that doesn't keep engineers from working on nuclear weapons for example. Which one may or may not agree with.
In general, I don't think the idea of ethical licenses which was at least a somewhat hot topic in certain circles a while back really was a popular idea overall. And, in any case, I haven't heard it come up for a while.
It's like we're rediscovering morality from first principles.
"Haha, look at those old fashioned religions and their quaint religious texts. How shocking that someone would not know how to behave if it weren't for some words on a page. Anyways, I've just submitted a pull request to update the terms on our code of ethics that all users are bound to adhere to. It's very important to use the software to advance social causes!"
"Haha, look at those old fashioned religions and their quaint religious texts. How shocking that someone would not know how to behave if it weren't for some words on a page. Anyways, I've just submitted a pull request to update the terms on our code of ethics that all users are bound to adhere to. It's very important to use the software to advance social causes!"
Can the title please be changed to something descriptive like “The Katharos License v0.1.0”?
I don't want people to think I wrote the license. Also, the purpose of this post is more general than this specific license. I feel the current title is appropriately general.
I don’t think the community expectation is that any given project post is a self-post unless it is prepended with Show/Launch HN.
"The Work shall not be used by any person or entity for any systems, activities, products, services or other uses that (i) lobby for, promote, or support the following activities or materials or (ii) that derive a majority of income from the following activities or materials:
sex trafficking ..."
So I can use the Work for a product that does not derive the majority of income from sex trafficking, etc.
Also, what is "excessively gory"? One arm chopped off ok, two is excessive?
I wonder if they really thought this through...
sex trafficking ..."
So I can use the Work for a product that does not derive the majority of income from sex trafficking, etc.
Also, what is "excessively gory"? One arm chopped off ok, two is excessive?
I wonder if they really thought this through...
I mean those sorts of issues are unavoidable and would be discussed in a court where there would probably be some invocation of what "a typical person finds" offensive, as has happened in obscenity cases before.
What I made sure to be part of my very popular answer on the OSS stack exchange about GPL, is a very careful perspective I have on this whole licensing debate. And that is, a license should be understood as fundamentally "about" what you are willing to sue over. Like, folks take a very moral view of licenses, what "should" you do with the software, what "can't" you do with it, etc., and the pragmatic statement is: you can do things, you just might get sued. A license is saying what conditions will definitely not brook a lawsuit.
When you start to see licenses-as-lawsuits, the BSD and MIT licenses are just like "look I don't want to sue you and I don't want you to sue me, let's agree to not do that." The GPL is much more "look I don't want to sue you and I don't want you to sue anybody else and I would be willing to sue you to stop you from suing other people," which is why it is much much longer than those other languages, that's a much more subtle point.
This is just saying "look I for the most part don't want to sue you but if I find out that you are promoting things that I find deeply morally offensive, such as {insert list of topics} then I might sue you if you're using my software for that." There's nothing too "not-thought-through" about this, it's just a matter that might have to be litigated where you say "look I don't personally lobby for abortion, just abortion-lobbyists use my platform" and some lawyers make some reasonable cases on both sides and some judge decides on some clarifying line as a result of the argument.
What I made sure to be part of my very popular answer on the OSS stack exchange about GPL, is a very careful perspective I have on this whole licensing debate. And that is, a license should be understood as fundamentally "about" what you are willing to sue over. Like, folks take a very moral view of licenses, what "should" you do with the software, what "can't" you do with it, etc., and the pragmatic statement is: you can do things, you just might get sued. A license is saying what conditions will definitely not brook a lawsuit.
When you start to see licenses-as-lawsuits, the BSD and MIT licenses are just like "look I don't want to sue you and I don't want you to sue me, let's agree to not do that." The GPL is much more "look I don't want to sue you and I don't want you to sue anybody else and I would be willing to sue you to stop you from suing other people," which is why it is much much longer than those other languages, that's a much more subtle point.
This is just saying "look I for the most part don't want to sue you but if I find out that you are promoting things that I find deeply morally offensive, such as {insert list of topics} then I might sue you if you're using my software for that." There's nothing too "not-thought-through" about this, it's just a matter that might have to be litigated where you say "look I don't personally lobby for abortion, just abortion-lobbyists use my platform" and some lawyers make some reasonable cases on both sides and some judge decides on some clarifying line as a result of the argument.
"excessively gory" is open to interpretation but it's a strange concept to allow gory but not excessively gory...
On the other hand, the other point of my previous comment is not open to interpretation: Not the majority of income is fine and because they use 'or' the fact that I lobby, promote, or support is irrelevant and all that matters is the majority of income. So I can use the Work for a free app that promotes abortion, for example. This is permitted although this is contradicting what they seem to want to achieve.
On the other hand, the other point of my previous comment is not open to interpretation: Not the majority of income is fine and because they use 'or' the fact that I lobby, promote, or support is irrelevant and all that matters is the majority of income. So I can use the Work for a free app that promotes abortion, for example. This is permitted although this is contradicting what they seem to want to achieve.
I would imagine that otherwise if you happened to have a client who derived income from sex trafficking that would present a problem.
Or even a client's client.
E.g., Paypal might be deriving income from sex trafficking if a sex worker takes payment via it.
Not that the rest of the license is unworkably vague, but that limitation at least makes some sense.
Or even a client's client.
E.g., Paypal might be deriving income from sex trafficking if a sex worker takes payment via it.
Not that the rest of the license is unworkably vague, but that limitation at least makes some sense.
> Also, what is "excessively gory"? One arm chopped off ok, two is excessive?
Given that the licensed software is a library intended for use in game development, this is actually an important question!
Given that the licensed software is a library intended for use in game development, this is actually an important question!
It just has to stay within the boundaries of taste set by the Holy Bible, e.g.:
Gore:
> For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. (Isaiah 34)
Sex:
> Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. (Ezekiel 23)
So, you know, as long as you go easy on the depiction of BBQ and shrimp, you're probably going to be OK.
Gore:
> For the indignation of the LORD is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. (Isaiah 34)
Sex:
> Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. (Ezekiel 23)
So, you know, as long as you go easy on the depiction of BBQ and shrimp, you're probably going to be OK.
I would love see someone build a pornographic themed game using this project just to see if such a licence can be enforced.
If you suppress any knee jerk reaction you might have against religious associations in the preamble, the actual restrictions in the “Permitted Uses” section seem fairly reasonable to me, if not with more moral restrictions than usual:
https://github.com/katharostech/ldtk-rs/blob/master/LICENSE....
Most OSes have a license restricting use in nuclear power plants. This license adds similar restrictions like “cannot use in adtech”. :)
https://github.com/katharostech/ldtk-rs/blob/master/LICENSE....
Most OSes have a license restricting use in nuclear power plants. This license adds similar restrictions like “cannot use in adtech”. :)
The main problem with this is that it misrepresents itself as an "Open Source" license, while not actually being Open Source.
People can write and use a license with any restrictions they want; there are plenty of proprietary licenses out there. I hope such licenses don't get used or propagated by anyone else, but people are still free to write them. But it would be especially problematic if people use code under such a license, or worse, put new code under such a license, while thinking they're using an Open Source license.
People can write and use a license with any restrictions they want; there are plenty of proprietary licenses out there. I hope such licenses don't get used or propagated by anyone else, but people are still free to write them. But it would be especially problematic if people use code under such a license, or worse, put new code under such a license, while thinking they're using an Open Source license.
This reminds me of the original JSON parse/stringify license, which stated
> The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil
This sounds all good and well, and in theory is great, but in practice how does this work? Who defines what is "Good", and what is "Evil".
Admittedly this license is much more targeted but there are a few ambiguous ones:
> sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
the understanding of what is explicit varies wildly between different cultures across the world; which understanding is applicable here? Can an art gallery/auction house that sells lots of portraits use this software? Does it depend where the art gallery is located geographically (and what if it has many sites around the world)?
> mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
What counts as surveillance? For example, can I use my software to track where you as a user go? I guess not. But then what if I then say it's for a "rent a bike" service, that has a partnership with the local city, which uses that data to figure out where to build cyclepaths?
I'm not saying that the objectives the license is trying to achieve aren't worthy goals (and perhaps the example use cases I gave have nothing to do with the project). I just think that the practical situation ends up being more complicated in the end than writers of the license intend.
> The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil
This sounds all good and well, and in theory is great, but in practice how does this work? Who defines what is "Good", and what is "Evil".
Admittedly this license is much more targeted but there are a few ambiguous ones:
> sexually suggestive or explicit images, artwork, or any other media
the understanding of what is explicit varies wildly between different cultures across the world; which understanding is applicable here? Can an art gallery/auction house that sells lots of portraits use this software? Does it depend where the art gallery is located geographically (and what if it has many sites around the world)?
> mass surveillance and/or stealing of private information
What counts as surveillance? For example, can I use my software to track where you as a user go? I guess not. But then what if I then say it's for a "rent a bike" service, that has a partnership with the local city, which uses that data to figure out where to build cyclepaths?
I'm not saying that the objectives the license is trying to achieve aren't worthy goals (and perhaps the example use cases I gave have nothing to do with the project). I just think that the practical situation ends up being more complicated in the end than writers of the license intend.
Or used in sexually suggestive content, or used in any way to limit workers, or used for violence (except for public good) or...
This is totally not usable for any serious project.
Seems reasonable to me that if a prospective dependency has a license that isn’t automatically tagged as a common license type that you be expected to actually read the license. This seems like basic standard of practice.
There should be a short summarization of a LICENSE file, like RECAP_LICENSE, then all users will read and understand it thoroughly.
All of LICENSE file i've seen so far is lacking of a short recap.
All of LICENSE file i've seen so far is lacking of a short recap.
But then you would miss the bible is truth part.
I honestly thought I was reading the side of a Dr. Bronner's soap bottle in the shower.
Just like every book/chapter has a summarization/table_of_content ?
https://tldrlegal.com/ is pretty good at summarising licenses. It doesn’t have a summary for this one yet though.
How do you reconcile other people's perceptions? The facts are defined insofar as we know we can't use the license if we actively frustrate worker associations, but from Amazon's perspective they are doing their employees a favor by creating "panels" internally "so the workers don't have to unionize!" Arguably they could hold the perspective that they "support" worker associations.
Obviously most of this licence is awful, to the point where I could be convinced it's a troll.
On the other hand, I don't fully disagree with some ideas of a moral license. I've even considered adding a line forbing any thing I make from being used for irl weapons/war as I don't think I could handle the weight of knowing code or hardware Ive designed was used to intentionally hurt someone. From the perspective, I can see how somebody that is a very devout Christian could want to use this licence. I think the idea of morality licenses deserve more thought than an outright dismissal. Of course, as other comments have pointed out, drawing that line will always be hard. If I already wanted to exclude being used for weapons/war, why not tack sexism, racism, use by opressive governments, being used to hinder free speech, etc. on there too? I suppose the easiest answer is to say that there's a threshold of ambiguity, that is while there might be edge cases in weapons/war, sexism and racism would be a lot harder to define- is porn sexism? Is talking about statistics about health data between races racism?
I suspect HN is pretty heavily left-learning atheist, which is leading us to immediately dismiss an otherwise not-crazy idea because of a particularly crazy example.
I suppose I'd like to know if there are some morality clauses that could be considered reasonable? Especially that of weapons/war.
I suspect HN is pretty heavily left-learning atheist, which is leading us to immediately dismiss an otherwise not-crazy idea because of a particularly crazy example.
I suppose I'd like to know if there are some morality clauses that could be considered reasonable? Especially that of weapons/war.
>The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true
Even the bits that contradict each other?
Even the bits that contradict each other?
Like all good religions, you get to pick which parts are true.
It's going to be an interesting day in court if this license ever gets litigated over.
It's likely this license is illegal and/or unenforceable in many jurisdictions. Also, given the craziness contained in it, it's that much more certain. Probably better off avoiding lunacy in the first place.
Poe’s law applies. A software licences job isn’t to encode “morality”. It just there to specify what rights are being granted.
Is that a variation for he Apple iTunes license that prohibits me from using apps to build nuclear weapons?
Especially at startups where you don't know if they were ever truly vetted
Every Sperm is Sacred
https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk
https://youtu.be/fUspLVStPbk
Someone should tell Github they're illegally hosting this.
Lol.
“ The Katharos License is based on the premise that the full 66 books of the Holy Bible are 100% true and inspired by God and that He alone is the ultimate authority for what is good and just.”
Are there legal implications of this premise being false? God is imaginary https://godisimaginary.com/.
Also the bible is ok with stuff such as slavery, can I use the software to promote slavery?
Are there legal implications of this premise being false? God is imaginary https://godisimaginary.com/.
Also the bible is ok with stuff such as slavery, can I use the software to promote slavery?
Slavery is explicitly excluded. It doesn't say anything about indentured servitude or underpaid/overworked wage slavery though.
Oh so God foresaw capitalism and exploitation and that’s what he meant in the bible. Gotcha.
So adtech, spam farms, and extortion are A-OK, but no genitals. Channeling my inner Olsen, "You got it, dude."