
The MIT license (with personal exceptions) - exolymph
https://github.com/jamiebuilds/license
======
wasd
For context, jamebuilds is the maintainer or contributor of many javascript
libraries like Lerna, Babel, and Yarn. He recently tweeted [1] that he would
go to war with Palantir for collaboration with ICE. He opened several issues
with Palantir's blueprint which uses Lerna [2]. He then opened a PR to change
Lerna's license with the MIT license (with persional exceptions) [3] where it
was merged after the original author agreed since jamebuilds is one of the
primary maintainers now. Palantir did respond in one of the issues [4] where
they clarified they work with HSI and would be open to meeting in person but
it did not seem to change jamebuild's opinion.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034517589001613312](https://twitter.com/jamiebuilds/status/1034517589001613312)

[2]:
[https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870),

[https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2875](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2875),

[https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2876](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2876)

[3]:
[https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1616](https://github.com/lerna/lerna/pull/1616)

[4]:
[https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870#issuecomme...](https://github.com/palantir/blueprint/issues/2870#issuecomment-416676079)

~~~
pnevares
Useful background, thank you. Am I alone in thinking the response from
Palantir looks like more feedback than one would have expected from the
average corp? It makes jamiebuilds' reply seem more provocative than it
otherwise would have, but I praise their conviction to their morals.

Edit for vague closing sentence: I'm praising jamiebuilds' moral conviction.

------
thaumasiotes
I don't get what this is supposed to accomplish. The license doesn't specify
that Walmart can't use the software. It grants everyone except Walmart,
Microsoft, etc, the following rights:

> to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
> the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
> and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
> Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

> The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
> all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

Those are the entire conditions to which a grant of rights is subject.

So, while Walmart doesn't get to use this license directly, anyone who isn't
on the list is free to copy the software, redistribute it to Walmart for any
or no charge, and to themselves permit Walmart to deal in the software without
restriction, including by using it, copying it, selling it, or anything else.

What rights exactly has Walmart lost here? Does this differ in any tangible
way from the standard MIT license?

Jamie's put up a disclaimer saying "I don't care if this is not 'open source',
it's the right thing for me to do." But this is just as open as it was before.
I'll grant permission right here for Microsoft, Palantir, Amazon, Northeastern
University, Ernst & Young, Thomson Reuters, Motorola, Deloitte, Johns Hopkins,
Dell, Xerox, Canon, Vermont State College, Charter Communications, Spectrum,
Time Warner Cable, LinkedIn, UPS, Walmart, Sears, Apple, Tyson Foods, Target,
Tesla, and the H&M group to use the software without restriction.

~~~
rys
You can’t remove the permission notice, though. So maybe legally they can keep
using the software, but they have to also keep the bit that says they can’t
use it.

~~~
thaumasiotes
The list of companies isn't part of the permission notice. The permission
notice is the text saying "Permission is hereby granted...". That's why the
terms say you have to include the permission notice _and_ the copyright
statement. Neither includes the list of disfavored companies.

------
rectang
Don't sponge off the MIT license's goodwill. Make up your own name.

~~~
thaumasiotes
As I point out sidethread, he hasn't actually modified the license, so it
seems fine for him to use the "MIT license" name.

He's published a list of companies, such as Amazon, to which he isn't directly
granting permission to use the software. But anyone who isn't on the list,
such as Jeff Bezos in his personal capacity, is free to both provide the
software to the companies on the list and to grant them permission without
restriction to use, copy, modify, distribute, sublicense, or otherwise benefit
from the software.

~~~
sdinsn
Couldn't MIT complain that he is using the "MIT" trademark for something that
they don't sanction?

------
exabrial
Please don't let this be a thing, sigh. I don't want to be further entrenched
in identity politics.

~~~
SuperNinKenDo
You're just throwing words around. There's nothing about this that has
anything to do with identity politics.

~~~
lylecubed
Do you really expect anybody to believe that?

------
SuperNinKenDo
I personally like the idea of these kinds of licenses, however I prefer the
idea of licenses which do not grant such rights to certain types of entities
without a written exception. Much more future proof. I remember somebody
posted here a license that required Government institutions to get explicit
permissions. That was quite a good way of doing things.

While I'm very strong on Libre software, for me I personally have a distaste
for blind ideological adherence to the idea, at the expense of actual outcomes
for human wellbeing.

------
newscracker
Seems like this would be fine if software is created by contractors or third
party vendors for these companies? If that’s the case, then the impact would
be lesser.

The “abusive treatment of workers” clause, if applied thoroughly, _should
cover every single large electronic device /appliance manufacturing company in
the world that gets things made in China_ (using China here as an example, not
that worker abuse doesn’t happen elsewhere) — like Samsung, LG, HP, Lenovo,
Sony, and many, many more.

Also, this license could have a larger impact if it’s adopted by many other
prominent and popular pieces of open source software.

~~~
notacoward
> Seems like this would be fine if software is created by contractors or third
> party vendors

I had the same thought. Seems like it would be trivial to create a "license
condom"[1] in the form of a contractor who exercises the rights granted under
the license as a proxy for the real user. I'd add "...or any entity acting on
behalf of same" to the end of the first paragraph. Or even better, I'd get a
real copyright lawyer's opinion about what phrasing to use.

[1] Don't blame me for the term. It has been around for a while, and the
subterfuge to which it refers is a large part of the reason GPLv3 exists.

------
kjullien
I think simply using a GNU LGPLv3 license would also be effective at deterring
companies that do not contribute in any manner to open-source, this without
taking a political stance. The way I see it, if the company has poor ethics
towards human forces, it will have poor ethics in open-source in general, so
no using a lib internally without releasing their code base publicly (which a
company with poor ethics would also probably never do, I think)

edit: Mozilla Public License 2.0 would also work

------
thsowers
An interesting idea. Part of me thinks this may be potentially useful in
causing change, depending on the projects that adapted it.

Another part of me dislikes bringing politics directly into software. What
offends people varies from person to person and imagining every FOSS project
having a different, and constantly changing exception list gives me a
headache. This seems somewhat antithetical to at least certain aspects of open
source

------
0xffff2
If you’re going to go down this road, shouldn’t the list also include ICE
itself and contractors hired by ICE?

