this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2024
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The moment you exclude any group or persons from your licence, it is, by definition, no longer open source.
Of course that doesn't sit well with some people and there are some initiatives to try to account for that, for example the Hippocratic License that allows you to customise your licence to specifically exclude groups that might use your software to cause harm or the Do No Harm license with similar goals.
Honestly, I find it hard to object to the idea. Some might argue it is a slippery slope away from the ideals of software freedom (as has been the case with some of the contraversial licenses recently like BSL and Hashicorp. I'm not a hardline idealist in the same way and if these more restrictive licenses that restrict some freedoms still produce software that might otherwise not exist then I'm happy they are around.
Would I use one? Probably not, for me, whilst I like the idea, I think the controversy generated by using a non-standard licence would become its defining feature and would put off a lot of people from contributing to the project.
The biggest issue is that there isn't a universal agreement on what causes harm. There is agreement on the basics - murder, violence, etc - but they're already illegal anyways, no need to ban them by license.
Ouch/Dead = Harm
Not exploitation? Addiction? Hatred?
Mental Ouches
I like this one. Now we just gotta get everyone else on board with your definition!
What about self defense?
Ouches for self defence
That and it's impossible say whether or not a given tool or object will never be used to do harm if wielded by the wrong entity.
Like, say you're someone who makes free bricks. Someone uses the brick to build a house, great, that's what it's made for. Someone uses that brick to shatter a cop's windshield, even better.
But someone can also use that brick to smash in the windows of a school, or even that the house built with the bricks you made is being lived in by a bad person.
No one makes bricks thinking "this could be a weapon, I am responsible for the harm it causes" because its primary purpose as building material is self-evident. It therefore has no inherent morality outside of what people you can't control choose to do with what they have. All the brick maker wants to do is make the best bricks they can.
A lot of coopyleft or p2pp projects adopt the license and it's not discussed that much in the identity of the project.
I personally believe that software freedom shouldn't come at the expense of people's freedom, and I consider the FOSS movement a political failure because it's completely incapable of mediating between the two things. New generations are growing more and more alienated from a movement they consider a relic of the past.
For my projects, I avoid FOSS licenses, but they are also not relevant enough to get insights from them.