On Sun, Mar 8, 2020 at 6:34 PM Coraline Ada Ehmke <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > On Mar 6, 2020, at 11:04 AM, Russell Nelson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I do NOT like the idea of ethical open source. It completely turns the idea > > of "forking without permission" into "you can only run this software if I > > think you are a good person.” > > > I see statements like this being thrown around so often, and I’m really sick > of it being repeated with exactly ZERO backing evidence. It is a slippery > slope fallacy with no basis in reality. > > No ethical source license that I am aware of allows a licensor to > discriminate against anyone for “not being a nice person”, not being > likeable, or any other arbitrary and subjective criteria. > > The Hippocratic License, for example, does not discriminate against any > person or group, nor against any field of endeavor. It simply states that the > software may not be used in the commission of human rights violations. This > is not a liberal vs conservative position; it is not a fuzzy grey area that > is open to interpretation; it is not open to subjective “armchair” > interpretation; it does not rely on a belief system that varies from person > to person or place to place. It relies on the collective agreement of > representatives from all the nations in the world coming together to > establish the very minimum set of freedoms granted to every living human > being.
Who decides what are human rights violations? Who defines these boundaries? How do we know what *is* a human right? > > And in the context of open source, it actually both embodies and strengthens > the ideal of software freedom by ensuring that such software freedom is > always in service of human freedom (with thanks to Karen Sandler of the > Software Freedom Conservancy for that language.) > > Ethical source is about exploring ways to empower creators to fulfill their > greater-than-average moral and ethical responsibilities to their industry and > human society at large. It rejects the notion of technology as a neutral > tool. There is plenty of research into how software encodes, enforces, and > promotes bias against marginalized communities, is abused by governments > around the world, and works against social progress. I encourage you to do > some googling on the topic. > > If such a license exists that states “you can only run this software if I > think you are a good person”, prove me wrong by sharing it. > > Respectfully, > Coraline Ada Ehmke > > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
