Hi, I can respect where this comes from, especially as someone who works in atmospheric science. I'm glad people are trying to do what they can.
With that said, I am -1000 on this. In my opinion, a software license is a wholly inappropriate venue for trying to do this. At the top of the home page for the Free Software Foundation: "Free software developers guarantee everyone equal rights to their programs". What you're proposing is essentially "everyone equal rights so long as they aren't working on things I disagree with". The nobility of the cause in my opinion doesn't justify compromising the values behind free software. As someone with some miniscule commits in the numpy codebase, I would not want them distributed under the modified license. As a developer of other downstream projects, I would switch to the BSD fork of the project that would inevitably materialize. Ryan On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 12:35 PM John Preston <gizmog...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello all, > > The following proposal was originally issue #16722 on GitHub but at > the request of Matti Picus I am moving the discussion to this list. > > > "NumPy is the fundamental package needed for scientific computing with > Python." > > I am asking the NumPy project to leverage its position as a core > dependency among statistical, numerical, and ML projects, in the > pursuit of climate justice. It is easy to identify open-source > software used by the oil and gas industry which relies on NumPy [1] > [2] , and it is highly likely that NumPy is used in closed-source and > in-house software at oil and gas extraction companies such as Aramco, > ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and others. I believe it is possible to use > software licensing to discourage the use of NumPy and dependent > packages by companies such as these, and that doing so would frustrate > the ability of these companies to identify and extract new oil and gas > reserves. > > I propose NumPy's current BSD 3-Clause license be extended to include > the following conditions, in line with the Climate Strike License [3] > : > > * The Software may not be used in applications and services that > are used for or > aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or > transportation > of fossil fuels. > > * The Software may not be used by companies that rely on fossil > fuel extraction > as their primary means of revenue. This includes but is not > limited to the > companies listed at https://climatestrike.software/blocklist > > I accept that there are issues around adopting such a proposal, including > that: > > addition of such clauses violates the Open Source Initiative's > canonical Open Source Definition, which explicitly excludes licenses > that limit re-use "in a specific field of endeavor", and therefore if > these clauses were adopted NumPy would no longer "be open-source" by > this definition; > there may be collateral damage among the wider user base and project > sponsorship, due to the vague nature of the first clause, and this may > affect the longevity of the project and its standing within the > Python, numerical, statistical, and ML communities. > > My intention with the opening of this issue is to promote constructive > discussion of the use of software licensing -- and other measures -- > for working towards climate justice -- and other forms of justice -- > in the context of NumPy and other popular open-source libraries. Some > people will say that NumPy is "just a tool" and that it sits > independent of how it is used, but due to its utility and its > influence as a major open-source library, I think it is essential that > we consider the position of the Climate Strike License authors, that > "as tech workers, we should take responsibility in how our software is > used". > > Many thanks to all of the contributors who have put so much time and > energy into NumPy. ✨ ❤️ 😃 > > [1] https://github.com/gazprom-neft/petroflow > [2] https://github.com/climate-strike/analysis > [3] https://github.com/climate-strike/license > _______________________________________________ > NumPy-Discussion mailing list > NumPy-Discussion@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion > -- Ryan May
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