

NHPL : The No Hate Public License - GuiA
https://gist.github.com/1756187

======
kstrauser
What a horrible plan! I mean, I support the basic idea of not wanting your
work to be used by, say, the Westboro group. But how could you possibly define
"communication that disparages or discriminates" in any meaningful way? Some
cases are obvious (see the above example), but what about someone who's
disparaging a repressive government? Last year's Arab Spring protestors
wouldn't think that they're being discriminatory or hate-driven, but the local
authorities had a different view of the matter. For a (possibly) closer-to-
home example, consider the opposing sides of the pro-life/pro-choice debate.
Either group would be very likely to accuse the other of disparaging or
discriminating against their own "religion, or other characteristic".

Furthermore, some overly-sensitive people interpret anything that doesn't
actively support them as opposing them. Who gets/has to decide whether a
particular instance of communication "disparages or discriminates": the
speaker, the listener, or you?

Also, remember that a license is actually a legal document. Do you really want
to have to defend these vague terms in court?

The GNU folks considered such things when crafting the GPL. According to their
rationale at <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> , the very first
requirement of a free software licence (freedom 0) is:

    
    
      The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or
      organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall
      job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer
      or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that
      matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are free to run the program for
      your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to run it
      for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.
    

While many people disagree with the GNU authors on many finer points, this is
a pretty fundamental freedom that many or most free software authors support.

Basically, while I sympathize with the motivation, this just can't work in
reality. Nor should it! It sets a very bad example of attempting to impose
behaviors on end users and that never ends well.

~~~
GuiA
Thanks for the politely written, well argued criticism!

My goal in writing+submitting this was more to ignite interesting
conversations like yours rather than to provide a legal document ready to use.

That being said, I have to say that in the light of what you said, I would
tend to agree with everything that you said. But it still bothers me that it
is possible to use free software for "hate" driven causes.

If a homophobic/xenophobic/etc. group used my work to efficiently promote
their ideals, it would bother me on a deep level. I don't think there's a
straight solution to that, but I still feel like it's a problem at some level-
despite the fact that yes, attempting to impose behaviors on end users is a
very slippery slope.

~~~
kstrauser
Thanks for taking it in the friendly spirit I intended it. Parts may have come
across a little more harshly than I planned, but I meant well. :)

Again, I totally understand the motivation. I'd hate to think that someone was
taking the software that I poured so much hard work into and using it to
mistreat others! I think that's just something we have to learn to accept. You
can use a rifle to shoot a wild animal or assassinate a political opponent. A
knife can open a box or hijack an airplane. Virus manipulation can end a
disease or end a country. The best you can do is make sure your own motives
are good and hope for the best from others.

------
GuiA
I had the idea for this when seeing the following website:

<http://www.debbiespenditnow.com/>

which heavily uses jQuery for blatant racism. As an open source developer, I
want a way to prevent people or companies to use my work for such things.

It also reminds me of Gnutella's license, which is modified version of the GPL
made to prevent military use.

It might be a bit idealistic, but it's better than nothing. I am also not a
lawyer, so feel free to comment/fork the gist.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Well done for seeing a problem and trying to fix it.

But ...

Could I use an NHPL-licenced editor to criticise the Church of Scientology?

Could I use an NHPL-licenced bulletin board system to post content critical of
the Westboro Baptists or Wahhabi Islam?

Could I use an NHPL-licenced chat program to criticise National Front neo-
NAZIs?

~~~
GuiA
These are some interesting examples. In all of them, we are talking about
disparaging intellectual positions, which I don't think belong to the same set
of characteristics like the ones mentioned in the text (race, disability,
gender, etc.) and therefore would be acceptable.

Maybe adding a recursion clause? "This software can be used to disparage or
discriminate on characteristics which inherently disparage or discriminate
characteristics such as gender, disability, [...], etc." ;)

~~~
duncan_bayne
Don't forget religion: that's an intellectual position that is (in most
countries) freely chosen.

------
yummyfajitas
I'll just suggest that you need to be far more explicit about what you mean by
"hate speech". Take, for example, this comment of mine:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3416977>

According to me, it's just a data-driven counterpoint to a claim made about
the Finnish education system. However, according to at least two people in
that thread, it was an expression of white supremecism.

Would I be forbidden from using NHPL software if I were creating a site
visualizing the TIMSS/PISA data I cited?

How can I determine this without actually getting sued and going to court?
(Compare to the GPL or most commercial licenses - where it's pretty clear
whether I'm violating it or not.)

------
jayferd
Nice. This is pretty standard practice for larger companies (TOS's), and I
look forward to seeing how this idea grows.

