
The MIT License, Line by Line (2016) - Tomte
https://writing.kemitchell.com/2016/09/21/MIT-License-Line-by-Line.html
======
Stratoscope
This part is hilarious and sad:

> The canonical horrible, no good, very bad example of this is the JSON
> license, an MIT-family license plus “The Software shall be used for Good,
> not Evil.”. This kind of thing might be “very Crockford”. It is definitely a
> pain in the ass. Maybe the joke was supposed to be on the lawyers. But they
> laughed all the way to the bank.

Indeed they did. It's a good reminder to not pull this kind of “very
Crockford” stunt and just use a standard, well understood and accepted
license.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#%22Good,_not_Evil%22)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866)

~~~
ggm
I recommend all readers to follow footnote [20] in the Wikipedia article. This
is bonus round good.

~~~
kuhhk
Direct link for the uninitiated:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170722132351/https://dev.hasen...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170722132351/https://dev.hasenj.org/post/3272592502/ibm-
and-its-minions)

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beefhash
Sometimes I wish that the basics of copyright law, (in the US: softare patent
law as well) and open source lienses were a mandatory part of formal education
in field related to computing. This has clearly become essential, but
knowledge still seems to be here and there and everywhere.

~~~
kemitchell
[https://fieldguide.kemitchell.com/](https://fieldguide.kemitchell.com/)

[https://oss.kemitchell.com/](https://oss.kemitchell.com/)

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Pulcinella
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12559169)

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ePierre
I remember reading this article back when it came out, and it made me think a
lot about software licenses.

I encourage everyone here to invest some time to read the different libre and
open source licenses out there and decide which one would be the best for the
software they produce.

The choice of a software license is important and is a political choice.

~~~
bjoli
I recommend not spending too much time researching the license. For copyleft
there are not that many choices that are standard enough for people to be
comfortable using your code (GPL, LGPL, MPLv2 and maybe some ecosystem
specific licenses like the EPL).

For BSD-style licenses there is Apache for large projects (which has your
back) and a myriad of others that does not.

~~~
beefhash
> For BSD-style licenses there is Apache for large projects (which has your
> back) and a myriad of others that does not.

I don't know, the BSDs seem to be doing pretty well without Apache licenses.

~~~
bfrydl
They are, but if you start a new project and you want a permissive license you
should probably choose Apache 2.0. It grants the same rights as an MIT or BSD
license but also includes an explicit patent grant and a section that deals
with the licensing of contributions.

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paultopia
As a law prof, I have mixed feelings about this.

\- On the one hand, as a piece of legal education, this post is brilliant and
lovely.

\- On the other hand, I wonder that it is just part of the regrettable
tendency in the legal profession as well as the tech industry to take
intellectual property as well as funny contractual-esque terms far too
seriously.

The exemplar of point (2) is the Crockford clause (along with the discussion
in this comment[1]). Nobody in their right mind would litigate this; there's
no universe in which "use for good not evil" is actually a legally enforceable
constraint. So what harm does it do?

Like seriously. Look at this[2] complaint:

 _Without a clear definition of “good” and “evil”, people need to seriously
consider whether they are safe to use the code – because if the developer and
users’ interpretations of the terms differ, there could be hell to pay. Would
you want to ship a hardware device – let’s say you’re making a smart TV – and
have some developer of a library send his lawyers around to tell you “sorry,
TV rots kids’ brains, it’s clearly evil” to get your entire distribution
channel shut down by injunction?_

No. Just no, no, no. Find me a judge who is going to issue that injunction.
Worrying about that is paranoid in a really unhealthy way. But, alas, we
lawyers do that all the time, and that kind of worry is contagious, and we've
spread it to everyone else, and it's just silly.

I find it really uncomfortable to think that there are people who are
seriously like "THIS DOESN'T COUNT AS AN OPEN SOURCE LICENSE BECAUSE IT
FORBIDS US FROM DOING EVIL." Like, really? What litigation are you actually
imagining? The only way I can ever imagine someone with a Crockford clause
actually convincing any court in any non-dysfunctional jurisdiction to award
damages for copyright infringement for unauthorized evil use is if the use is
so deeply unambiguously evil that copyright liability is by far the least of
the unauthorized user's problem. I mean, we're talking about linting the JSON
containing the list of the peoples to be genocided level of evil.

And, you know what? If you use JSLint to do a genocide, I hope Crockford does
sue you.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19014052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19014052)

[2]
[http://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456](http://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456)

~~~
Stratoscope
You are probably right in many respects. But I don't think the objection to
the Crockford clause is the worry that he might sue you if you commit
genocide.

The objection is that it muddies the waters and costs users money for no good
reason.

If a clause like this is so inherently unenforceable, then why put it there in
the first place? To make a statement? To annoy people? To make your potential
users have to pay their lawyers extra money to find out if they agree that it
is something you can safely ignore?

A public company can't just rely on your opinion or mine. They have to do at
least some due diligence on an issue like this. And that's money they wouldn't
have to spend if the author used a standard license.

~~~
paultopia
This is all fair and true. I'm mostly just lamenting that the world is that
way. We have structured our collective existence so that it is unsafe for
people to draw common sense conclusions like "of course nobody can
successfully sue you for copyright infringement for a do no evil clause." It's
a horrible side effect of our creating horrible giant forms of human activity
that require massively bureaucratized forms of organization in order to
function. It's necessary, but still tragic.

~~~
Stratoscope
Very well said, and I share your sorrow.

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hwj
Here's a wizard which helps to choose a license:
[http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/licences/](http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/licences/)

(You'll need to enable JavaScript, though...)

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eslaught
I think the author significantly misrepresents the argument against copyright
assignment. The issue is not the overhead, the issue is control. If you assign
copyright to e.g. FSF then FSF has the exclusive right to relicense to
whatever they want. Maybe in the case of FSF I trust them not to abuse this
power, but in several recent cases this has been used to relicense projects to
be effectively closed source---which is almost certainly not what any
independent contributor wanted done with their contribution. The DCO is a
compromise that retains protections for the project but also avoids stripping
contributors of their rights, which is a safety mechanism of sorts against
unilateral relicensing on the part of the original developer.

~~~
kemitchell
I don't recall covering copyright assignments in this piece. I do recall
touching on DCO, but only briefly.

If you'd like my views on contributor license agreements and assignments:
[https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/01/06/CLAs-Are-Not-a-
Sha...](https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/01/06/CLAs-Are-Not-a-Sham.html)

If you're interested in new ideas on relicensing projects with many
contributors: [https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/30/Contributor-
Counci...](https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/30/Contributor-
Councils.html)

------
kemitchell
Wow. That was 2016?

