
Evil, or why Douglas Crockford is harmful to Free Software - slyall
http://apebox.org/wordpress/rants/456/
======
jasim
The article is in bad taste. The title even more.

If you don't like Crockford's license you are at liberty to write that code
yourself. Please don't call people who contribute a great deal to advancing
computing (Free Software or not) names like 'harmful to Free Software'.

Even if there is genuine concern in the license and its usage in Free
Software, it should be raised by pointing to the code and the license, not by
making a personal attack.

Articles like this are harmful to Free Software because it discourages people
from contributing. Not Douglas Crockford's license written in good humour and
with nice intentions.

~~~
bad_user
People need to be aware that using childish clauses in licenses can have legal
repercussions. This is not about "Free Software" or "Open Source" either,
because that same clause can get you in trouble even if it comes in the EULA
of a proprietary product.

The article was itself childish, but then again, it's a personal blog, not
some kind of official statement.

> _it discourages people from contributing_

True, but my perspective is different - what discourages people from
contributing are ego-driven testosterone-filled spoiled brats. Incidentally
that's why we also have so few women contributing.

~~~
jasim
I'm not disagreeing with the message of caution. But it could have been said
much better.

> True, but my perspective is different - what discourages people from
> contributing are ego-driven testosterone-filled spoiled brats. Incidentally
> that's why we also have so few women contributing.

Ego and Testosterone in the same sentence - that has to be bad! But it is a
different conversation altogether.

~~~
chris_wot
Contrary to popular belief, neither ego nor testosterone are absent from
women.

------
andrewguenther
Here is the quote the post refers to from "The JSON Saga":

 _When I put the reference implementation onto the website, I needed to put a
software license on it. I looked up all the licenses that are available, and
there were a lot of them. I decided the one I liked the best was the MIT
license, which was a notice that you would put on your source, and it would
say: "you're allowed to use this for any purpose you want, just leave the
notice in the source, and don't sue me." I love that license, it's really
good._

 _But this was late in 2002, we'd just started the War On Terror, and we were
going after the evil-doers with the President, and the Vice-President, and I
felt like I need to do my part._

 _[laughter]_

 _So I added one more line to my license, which was: "The Software shall be
used for Good, not Evil." I thought I'd done my job. About once a year I'll
get a letter from a crank who says: "I should have a right to use it for
evil!"_

 _[laughter]_

 _"I'm not going to use it until you change your license!" Or they'll write to
me and say: "How do I know if it's evil or not? I don't think it's evil, but
someone else might think it's evil, so I'm not going to use it." Great, it's
working. My license works, I'm stopping the evil doers!_

 _Audience member: If you ask for a separate license, can you use it for
evil?_

 _Douglas: That's an interesting point. Also about once a year, I get a letter
from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company--I don't want to
embarrass the company by saying their name, so I'll just say their initials--
IBM..._

 _[laughter]_

 _...saying that they want to use something I wrote. Because I put this on
everything I write, now. They want to use something that I wrote in something
that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for
evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. So could I give
them a special license for that?_

 _Of course. So I wrote back--this happened literally two weeks ago--"I give
permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for
evil."_

 _[laughter and applause]_

 _And the attorney wrote back and said: "Thanks very much, Douglas!"_

Good talk, worth a watch: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-JoyNuQJs>

~~~
jahewson
It's sad that Crockford thinks that causing this kind of hassle to diligent
users of his software is funny.

 _Ha ha, stupid user, you took the legally binding joke which I inserted into
a legally binding license seriously, hahah you sooo funny._

Yeah, a real barrel of laughs. Never mind that licensing law is a lot less
flexible than contract law, in which unreasonable terms are readily removed.

~~~
tptacek
It's sad that Crockford wrote a piece of code and gave it away for free in
such a way that some people feel they can't use it? How much sadder than all
the code every YC company writes and doesn't publish at all?

~~~
monochromatic
If others are encouraged to make similar "jokes," yes.

~~~
tptacek
So, just to be clear, your take is that the authors of software are not in
fact entitled to use whatever license they please?

~~~
monochromatic
Obviously they are, and I don't think anyone here is arguing otherwise. Are
you focusing on that point because it's the only one that makes this seem
acceptable?

The question is whether it is harmful to free software to put unfunny non-
jokes like this into licenses. The answer is "yes, it is."

~~~
tptacek
No, it isn't. It is harmful for free software projects to blindly incorporate
software with incompatible licenses. It is not harmful to write software with
incompatible licenses. Most software written is incompatible with Debian. With
very few exceptions (for instance, the sole-sourced drivers to popular
peripherals), _none_ of it actively harms the project.

Debian is not entitled to Douglas Crockford's work and therefore Crockford
cannot harm Debian through incompatibility. Someone else can write a
replacement JSON library; it's an intern-level project.

------
jballanc
Sometimes I find the cognitive dissonance in the software community to be as
entertaining to watch as that in various religious sects...

Software types are famously inclined toward libertarian views. An oft repeated
mantra on HN is "let the market decide". Yet, here we have myriad complaints
about a decision the market has made.

What I particularly love about the Open Source/Free Software world is that it
is a market in the truest sense. Barriers to entry are extremely low and,
while there aren't necessarily dollars to throw around, consumers vote with
their time and attention, both quantities arguably more valuable than
currency. It is interesting to watch this market choose benevolent
dictatorship models of governance over more democratic rule. It is intriguing
to see reinvented wheels succeed for seemingly inconsequential reasons.

And, in this case, it is rather informative to observe how expediency wins
out, even to the potential detriment of the very consumers who have made this
choice. Reimplementing the code in question would require work. Clarifying or
requesting a change of licensing terms would require work. Instead, the
"market" (many, many OSS projects in this case) has chosen the preexisting
solution that contains a potential time bomb.

If I didn't know any better, I'd almost say that this article is a veiled call
for regulation. It's almost as if the market, left to its own devices, doesn't
always make the best long-term decisions when short-term benefit weighs in
opposition.

The world of Open Source/Free Software really is fascinating to watch...

~~~
skreech
If you see it as a market, this is a typical market failure (externality and /
or information assymmetry).

Since the author has chosen a non-standard license, I doubt government
regulation would help (unless that regulation outlawed non-standard FLOSS
licenses).

Probably would be better to reduce the information assymmetry. Maybe Github
could have warning notifications for custom licenses, for example?

~~~
markokocic
Do I understand correctly that you think that outlawing creation of custom
licenses besides the chosen and already existing few will solve the perceived
problem?

What's the next step, outlawing forks, since there are already enough
projects?

And why do you see the very existence of the library with "no evil" clause as
a market failure? Is that some people think that it's basic human right to be
allowed to do evil? Doing evil, if we define evil as illegal, is already
outlawed, so this one phrase is clearly redundant.

I said you, but it's not addressed to you, but to people that got so offended
and turned up by this small "do no evil" purpose.

The market already decided, and that clause is there for a purpose. The author
clearly didn't want people unsure if this piece of software will be used for
good or evil to use it.

It's funny that people are ready to sign all kind of nonsense in commercial
licenses, and this small clause makes so much pain to some "open source"
developers.

~~~
skreech
No, I'm saying that will not solve the perceived problem.

I suggest more information, such as "Be aware that this software is licensed
under a custom license. Click here to view the license."

I don't think the author of the article suggests that evil should be allowed,
but that it is very hard to define evil, and that this clause makes the
license non-free software.

~~~
jballanc
It honestly would not be that difficult to implement something like this. Both
the OSI and FSF maintain lists of "approved" licenses along with standard
license text. In fact, Pivotal Labs has created a tool along these lines for
Ruby: <https://github.com/pivotal/LicenseFinder> , and the Leiningen project
tool from Clojure allows for licenses to be specified in a machine parseable
format:
[https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample....](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/master/sample.project.clj#L30)
.

------
runningdogx
There is no place for humor or overly subjective terms like "evil" in a
software license or other legal document, and the problem with Douglas
Crockford's license is that he fails to understand that.

That is, unless his intent is to keep every entity with sane lawyers from
using his software. I don't think that's his intent. He said he wants to keep
people without a sense of humor from using his software, but sane lawyers with
a good sense of humor will object to the license just as strongly as sane
lawyers with no sense of humor.

Venue matters. A lawsuit based on the evil clause of the license, in San
Francisco or Los Angeles, would probably go nowhere. However, consider a jury
in Birmingham, AL, and whether they would find that using some of Crockford's
software in an abortion clinic was a violation of the license.

~~~
jasim
I don't disagree to this premise. Yes, it could be an issue - but Douglas
Crockford is not morally obligated to worry about it. His code, his license.
When you use it, you accept the risks that come with it.

The post could have made a sane argument that the license is ambiguous and
should be avoided in Free Software. But it focused on the author and made
unjustifiable personal remarks. Not cool.

The author also seem to forget that there are advocates of the MIT license who
would never use GPL software because of its viral nature. Does that mean
Richard Stallman is 'harmful to software'? Criticize the license, but don't
name-call the author who has made major positive contributions to the field.

~~~
scott_w
""" The author also seem to forget that there are advocates of the MIT license
who would never use GPL software because of its viral nature. Does that mean
Richard Stallman is 'harmful to software'? Criticize the license, but don't
name-call the author who has made major positive contributions to the field.
"""

There is a large difference here:

* The GPL is pushing an agenda in their licence, and attempts to clearly state your legal obligations.

* Crockford, on the other hand, is trying to crack a joke in a legal document. As the author states, this is dangerous to people who don't understand the legal ramifications of using this. From what I can see, the author is venting their frustration that Crockford appears to be treating the whole affair like a big joke, and I can totally understand that.

~~~
markokocic
You can also say that GPL is pushing an agenda, while Crockford is standing up
to his high moral principles. If you don't agree with it, just don't use it.

~~~
Evbn
_vaguely stated_ moral principles.

------
mmahemoff
A license like this has two red flags. I previously worked in a programme
providing corporate governance of open source. It's a fairly big industry with
companies like Black Duck helping companies manage their legal risks, and
licenses like this aren't popular.

Firstly, it's non-standard. As others have said, it's the author's right to
make it non-standard, but I don't recommend people try that unless there's a
really good reason to do so. If it's non-standard, a lot of companies simply
won't use it. There's no box to check, so you can't have it. Good tracking
software will of course allow for exceptions and deltas to the standard
contracts, but it still creates delays and management overheads as if it's
allowed at all, it will require someone's manual sign-off.

This gets worse when you consider the whole chain of software use. One library
inside another library that's used by a subcontractor who added it to a build
script that's used by the main contractor to distribute to developers. The
whole thing needs to be linked through, which is hard enough with standard
licenses.

Now startups don't need to worry about sign-off from some department, but they
still need to stop and inspect the nature of the licenses they're using, and a
non-standard license causes extra time and energy lost.

The second problem is ambiguity. A non-standard contract can still be
precisely written, so developers know what they're getting into. In this case,
though, it's not. It hinges around the definition of "evil", which is
naturally ambiguous.

Comedy goes a long way, but is not always appropriate. This is a good article
on the subject: <http://www.natpryce.com/articles/000225.html> "It may be less
amusing to the programmer writing the code but, more importantly, it is less
infuriating for the programmer maintaining the code." Think the same applies
to licenses.

~~~
thedudemabry
Well said. And while I absolutely agree with several other posters that
Crockford has free reign to define the terms of use of his product, he didn't
choose the most effective terms for what we all assume is his goal: spreading
the use of json.

A license is like a piece of code that binds to a system of laws at runtime.
Effective license terms, like effective code, work within the problem domain
and avoid ambiguity where it is likely to cause problems. His license
compiles, but can throw runtime exceptions depending on context.

------
jasonkester
Seems like this could be avoided by simply approaching the author and offering
to pay for a version of the software with the license you want. If I'm not
mistaken, the author in question has in fact given companies in the past
permission to use this particular library for "evil purposes".

Most importantly though, one should refrain from making demands on people who
are offering you things for free.

If you like the code and are willing to use it under the terms provided, use
it. Otherwise you're no worse off than you were before. Write your own version
and get on with life.

~~~
andreasvc
It doesn't work like that. For the code to be part of a Linux distribution
like Debian, they have to be able to distribute it to everyone, so such a
request would amount to asking can you please remove the clause from the
license. And your point about not making demands to things you get for free is
not true in general. When someone offers money to the local animal shelter
under the condition that it's only used for cute red cats, they're right to
refuse I'd say. Bad licenses obstruct the progress of free software, so it's
necessary to call them out.

~~~
darkarmani
Maybe someone add Debian should have paid attention when they included the
incompatible license? This really looks like a Debian tantrum because they
screwed up by including it.

It seems like this Debian developer is mad because an author didn't write a
license the way he want it written?

~~~
lmm
It's an easy mistake to make seeing how Crockford's license is almost, but not
quite, identical to the MIT license (which would've been fine).

------
markokocic
I don't understand. The guy complain that json license is not "Free" in the
FSF sense of "Free". So what? Not all licenses has to be FSF or FSF
compatible. How is it harmful to FSF is the license of some piece of code is
not compatible with GPL?

Guess what, I can't use GPL in my projects, because it's not compatible with
the kind of license I release my programs. You can't use this software because
it's not comapatible with GPL. Feel the pain. FSF would advice people not to
use GPL software if they can't stand the license. The same applies to you, if
you really want to use your software for evil purpose, just license it that
way. Otherwise, use something else. It's that simple.

~~~
lmm
It's a license that's misleadingly almost-free. It's like the old 4-term BSD
license with the "obnoxious advertising clause".

~~~
irahul
> It's a license that's misleadingly almost-free.

Like the GPL is misleadingly almost free? As in it's free but if you release
software which uses GPL software, it is under GPL? I am not arguing about the
meaning of free, I am arguing against your "it's a license that's misleadingly
almost free". Just like GPL's terms doesn't make it non-free, "don't use it
for evil" doesn't make it non-free.

EDIT: I see people arguing about "don't use it for evil" violates "can use it
for any purpose" clause. Fine. GPL's clause violates "use it to distribute
software without making my whole software GPL."

~~~
lmm
On the terminology side: language is about communication, and there is a broad
consensus on the meaning of "free" in terms of free software, exemplarized by
the FSF's defnition, the OSI open source definition, and the DFSG. None of
these definitions is identical to the others, and no doubt there are edge
cases that would fall under one but not another, but neither the GPL nor
Crockford's license is one of them; under this consensus meaning of "free"
(which you claim not to be arguing about), the GPL is a free license and
Crockford's is not.

On the practical side: the GPL is established and popular enough that you
should know what you're getting yourself in for with GPL code. In theory I can
imagine someone unfamiliar with the free software movement hearing that a
piece of GPL code was "free" and assuming that meant they could use it in
their closed products, but in practice when people talk about "free" software
they tend to either mean the free software definition, or "freeware" (i.e.
binaries which can be downloaded without charge) - which generally doesn't
permit modification and redistribution. So I don't think this is a practical
concern.

By contrast Crockford's license is not popular or established. Worse, it looks
exceedingly similar to a popular, established license - the MIT license -
which _is_ free (in the free software sense). So it's very possible to
accidentally download a Crockford-licensed piece of code, thinking that you
can use it in a free software project, when in fact the license does not grant
all the rights you would need to do this - _as is demonstrated by the fact
that the author of this post did exactly that_.

Crockford is free to distribute his code under whatever license he likes, but
using a license that looks very much like the MIT license but grants you a
much smaller set of rights (a set which puts it on the other side of a line
that, while in many ways arbitrary, is of great practical relevance when it
comes reusing code in the wider internet community) is not nice.

~~~
markokocic
If it were really established that in software free means "Free" the way FSF
defines it, then we would not have this 100+ messages discussion here arguing
what is free, and in which context.

Maybe if would be easier if instead of "free" we started using more precise
terms like Free(c)FSF, $Free, or name actual licenses, since each one goes
under some assumptions.

~~~
lmm
My position depends on "free" being a broadly-applicable concept. If I'd said
"Crockford's license is not DFSG-compatible" then the response would (quite
rightly) have been "well, who cares, the DFSG is just Debian's set of
arbitrary rules". The reason the line between free and non-free matters so
much from a pragmatic perspective is that there is this consensus, the
criteria for being included in Debian are (more-or-less) the same as those for
getting free hosting on sourceforge, or for being able to use the OSI
trademark, or...

------
raganwald
Shouldn't this be, _Why you should know what you're doing legally before you
contribute code to free software?_ Or perhaps, _The system works, notice how
we avoided the mistake of including software with an eccentric and non-free
license from being included in free software?_

It takes me back to the frenzy over VLC on iOS. People write code, we need to
respect their choices with respect to how they license it, even if their
choice is whimsey with a dangerous side of legal morass.

This argument sounds dangerously like a tirade because Mr. Crockford did
something that did not benefit the free software movement. His software is un-
free, just as the GPL is un-free. I'm ok with that, even if my lawyer isn't ok
with me using his code.

~~~
bad_user
I agree with your argument, however I don't agree that _the GPL is un-free_.

First of all, there's a clear distinction between the GPL and this modified
MIT license - the GPL was written with the help of actual lawyers and it's a
solid license that can stand on its own in a court of law. If you think that
the GPL gives you certain privileges or takes away some freedoms, then it's
actually easy to verify that by simply asking a lawyer.

Also, GPL is a license that has restrictions on _distribution_ and not
_usage_. Usage of GPL-software is completely free. Of course, sometimes the
usage/distribution boundaries are blurred when you're speaking about
platforms, so GPL 3 drew a line in the sand to prevent cases such as Tivo,
however to quote Linus Tolvards which represents the other side of the coin in
any talks related to GPL [1]:

""" _If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil
plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the
GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I
like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me
back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their
changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-
mounted lasers all they want._ """

This is also not a matter of free / un-free. But rather a mater of legal
liability. If somebody can prove that you used the software for "Evil",
whatever that may mean, then you're legally liable. So what's evil anyway? Is
making money evil?

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/09/torvalds-linux-licensing-
cz...](http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/09/torvalds-linux-licensing-
cz_dl_0309torvalds1_print.html)

~~~
benatkin
The GPL says plainly that it shall not be modified. I find that equally
worrying. What if I save a word wrapped version of it to a file?

~~~
bad_user
You're making a confusion between the content and the distribution format.

------
tptacek
To sum this story up: a programmer wrote a small piece of software that other
people want to use and gave it away for free, with an idiosyncratic license.
Therefore, sysadmins are entitled to disparage him.

This story definitely makes me want to get more involved with organized free
software.

------
pooriaazimi
Don't say "Free Software", please. Because you actually mean "FSF-compliant"
license. Some people don't give the slightest damn what FSF or any other crazy
institution has determined to be a "free" (as in thought/speech) software
license. In my humble opinion, a true "free" software license is the kind of
license that lets you do "whatever the fuck you want to do" with it - in other
words, "public domain".

GPL (whatever the version might be), in my opinion, is _not_ a true "free"
license because it forbids you to, for example, re-publish the source without
attribution or using them without being GPL-compliant or any number of other
restrictions. BSD is _much_ better, but still has some restrictions. Even
WTFPL[1] is not "free" (as in speech/thought), because it requires you to
change the "name" upon re-distribution.

So, yes; Douglas Crockford _is_ harmful to "FSF"-kind of "free software", but
I think GPL and BSD are also harmful to the more "idealistic" definition of
"free software".

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL>

~~~
aw3c2
GPL/BSD are "restrictive" to protect the freedom of the software. You cannot
have freedom without having a rule for freedom. Free software is not anarchy
software.

~~~
dpark
> _You cannot have freedom without having a rule for freedom._

Of course you can. Freedom is the lack of restrictions.

I think you're confusing freedom with rights, which do indeed need protection.
An argument could be made that what the GPL attempts to do is assert a _right_
to the source code which they protect with restrictions to the developer's
freedom. (Just as the right to life is protected with restrictions to the
freedom to kill.)

~~~
fmoralesc
> Freedom is the lack of restrictions.

That's just the negative sense of freedom. People mean sometimes a different
sense of "freedom" , where to be free to do something implies rights, which
then implies duties.

See <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/>

------
mibbitier
Writing a complete json parser would have taken less time than writing this
rant...

------
noonespecial
_This non-Free license is intended to mock people who take licensing
seriously._

It seems to be working. (Though I might add a "too" in front of seriously).
Sometimes ridiculous things need mocking.

(And just for the record, I do fully expect future generations to find our
preoccupation with "owning" and "licensing" every stray line of text or bar of
musical notes to be thoroughly ridiculous.)

~~~
icebraining
As long as violating one _without a profit motive_ can get an individual
convicted to pay $1.5 million dollars, there's nothing ridiculous about taking
licenses seriously.

(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_v._Thomas>)

~~~
noonespecial
That's the satire. That's the joke. It's like an insane bit of legal
performance art. The fact that you actually _do_ have to take it seriously is
the punch line.

------
nicholassmith
If you don't like his license, don't use it. Drop the packages out of the
system, kill PHP and YUI and jQuery and anything else that's decided they're
okay with the licensing specifying that it shouldn't be used for evil and
taking a slight poke at how restrictive a non-restrictive license can be. In
the end the morals survive but the platform suffers. Or approach him and ask
him to relicense, or create a derivative or one of the other options.

Blog post reads more like the author has a specific problem with Crockford and
is doing this in public to try make him seem foolish.

------
opminion
Crockford triggered an argument at least as old as the Lutheran reform.

The irony is that Crockford's licence is an unintended success in line with
Eich's JavaScript itself.

JavaScript, as a Lisp in disguise which survived early standardisation,
browser wars, Microsoft's JScript, European bureaucracy (the E in ECMA?),
Adobe and Crockford's own jslint, is a success at being something very, very
useful.

Crockford's "Good, not evil" licence, it could be argued, is a free licence
only if the definition of good/evil is a personal one. One of the main issues
of Luther's reform is that good and evil are a personal choice [1]. Crockford
is succeeding at indirectly making people think of who has the right to tag
something as good or evil.

[1] At least that's what I remember from school.

~~~
ams6110
_One of the main issues of Luther's reform is that good and evil are a
personal choice_

I wouldn't say it like that. Luther's main position was that salvation or
forgiveness of sin was a personal matter between God and the sinner; that
salvation comes directly from God and cannot not be conferred by a priest or
church, in exchange for money, etc. and that the Bible itself was the source
of divine knowledge, not the church.

------
scotty79
Good and evil are arbitrary concepts that are not formally recognized by
courts (am I wrong?) so the phrase in the licence is meaningless. How can
anyone be so lawyerised to care about that?

Lawyers, licences, copyrights, patents are modern though police. So many
people consider every creative action (and unfortunately often abandon it)
afraid of what laws they might be potentially braking by executing this
action.

~~~
rmc
_Good and evil are arbitrary concepts that are not formally recognized by
courts (am I wrong?)_

I'm pretty sure court judgements have use moralistic statements and refered to
things like "respect" or "evil", "inhuman". Judges are humans, not compilers.

In fact a search of the British court judgements shows many instances of
"evil" being referred to in judgements ( [http://www.bailii.org/cgi-
bin/sino_search_1.cgi?sort=rank...](http://www.bailii.org/cgi-
bin/sino_search_1.cgi?sort=rank&query=evil&method=boolean&highlight=1&mask_path=/)
).

It's the legal ambiguity that is the problem.

~~~
snowwrestler
> Judges are humans, not compilers.

This is exactly why I would not worry about it. No judge is going to look at
that clause and think it is in any way intended to be enforced. Contrary to
popular belief, there is plenty of room for common sense in a courtroom.

------
ivan_ah
I disagree. While it //is// unprofessional to joke around with licensing, I
think the author of the article (and some of the commenters her) seriously
exaggerate the thread of a legal suit.

Who will sue? EFF? Crockford?

I am no expert in "license law", but I am sure a you-are-using-this-for-evil
accusations would not stand a chance.

~~~
Evbn
Crockford's heirs could sue. There is long established precedent of greedy
heirs harassing the beneficiaries of their ancestors' largesse.

~~~
jlgreco
Seems like more of a case for copyright reform than the relicensing of a
javascript verifier. (Unless we are only interested in putting a bandaid on
symptoms I suppose.)

------
kriro
If you don't like the license, don't use the software. I think it's fairly
ironic that freedom is supposed to undermine freedom.

The man has the freedome to write up any license he wants and you have the
freedom to not use it.

I like the article, it's well written but (once again ironically) it also
reads like the typical "the stuff is cool, I really want to use it pleaaaaase
change the license" which I typically hear from people complaining about the
GPL.

------
RyanMcGreal
This article goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished.

~~~
Evbn
Not evil deed.

------
klausa
>It’s fairly clear that the JSON.org license clause goes against both of
these, making any piece of software using that license neither Open Source nor
Free Software

I'm sorry, is there some definition of Open Source that I'm not aware of?

~~~
rmc
There are a few definitions. The FSF has one
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> the OSI has one
<http://opensource.org/osd-annotated> Debian has one
<http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines> They are nearly all
extactly the same.

Another defintion is if the code is released under and OSI approved "open
source licence" (<http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical> ) or an FSF
approved "free software licence" ( <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-
list.html> ). Again AFAIK, nearly exactly the same.

------
Jach
This whole thread is ridiculous. So I'm going to contribute something
productive, and give a plug for a sensible JSON replacement, edn:
<https://github.com/edn-format/edn>

------
alexjarvis
I think that this has probably been taken a little too literally. It would be
interesting to get the original author’s opinion.. I agree completely with
Sehe’s comment about the terms of the statement not being clearly defined and
thus no judge could reasonably use it in court against any uses of the
software. Good and Evil are subjective opinions to which each individual has
their own beliefs.

~~~
jahewson
There's no such thing as "too literally" in a legally binding contract, which
is intended to be used anywhere on the world. All it takes is one open-minded
judge. Sure it's 99.9% subjective, but why take a chance? What happens if it's
used by a company that openly labels itself as evil? Not so subjective
anymore...

Crockford's act of granting special licenses to companies who may have evil-
doing clients is a strong indicator that the clause is not a joke, that in
practice it is taken seriously. A court would take this into account.

The real problem with this stupid joke is that it requires a trip to court to
invalidate it. Thanks Douglas!

~~~
saraid216
> The real problem with this stupid joke is that it requires a trip to court
> to invalidate it.

I find myself strangely okay with the idea of requiring people to walk into a
courtroom and admit that they intend to enact or permit evil.

~~~
andreasvc
Uhm it's more typical in a court to accuse or deny. And invalidation would
prove the whole thing a waste of time anyway.

------
thenomad
The key issue here seems to be whether the "good not evil" clause is in any
way legally enforcible.

If it's not, it's a bit of harmless fun.

If it is, then potentially anyone using software licensed under the license
discussed in the article is in some serious trouble, and the article itself
has merit.

So, any lawyers around who can give us a definitive answer to that one? Sadly,
all the lawyers I know specialise in UK rather than US law.

~~~
jahewson
It's not harmless fun if you have to get lawyers involved. The legal system is
not the place for harmless fun, because it often backfires and causes harm. In
this case, Crockford has issued special licenses to companies which may do
evil, which is a pretty strong indicator that the clause is in fact not a
joke.

How would one enforce this license against a fictitious "Evil Inc." who self-
proclaim "We do Evil", well now that's not subjective anymore? Hmm...

... oh hang on, aren't jokes supposed to be funny?

------
ams6110
So quit whining and write your own json parser.

------
olliesaunders
Am I wrong here but isn't all this concern a bit excessive because the only
person who can actually sue you for a breach of this license is Crockford.

------
rbanffy
The author makes a valid point - people should be able to use free software
for _any_ purpose and inclusion of this restriction in the license makes it
non-free.

In this specific case, I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil and therefore
should be prevented from using Crockford's software at all. If Microsoft
embeds a Crockford-based JSON parser in their own releases, they are in clear
violation of its terms. ;-)

~~~
andyjohnson0
_" I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil"_

Could you explain why this is? I use Mono and I'm genuinely interested.

~~~
irahul
>> " I'd argue Mono is intrinsically evil"

> Could you explain why this is? I use Mono and I'm genuinely interested.

From the op's profile: "I really don't like Microsoft much."

Apparently not liking MS much is reason enough to dislike an open source
project implementing an interesting runtime and languages, which provides
options to use aforementioned runtime and languages without being married to
MS.

~~~
kaolinite
I suspect the reason he dislikes it, as many seem to, is that it's potentially
legally unstable as Microsoft own IP related to C# and .net. I don't know the
specifics (I don't use Mono myself), but I have heard people talking about
possible problems in future if Microsoft changes their mind about encouraging
Mono.

~~~
nicholassmith
There's plenty of possible problems, but I think Microsoft regards it as a
nice way to keep developers developing using their tools, similar to how Adobe
takes a pretty hands off approach on piracy of Photoshop.

~~~
rbanffy
Exactly.

The more people use Mono, the more valuable the .NET runtime, and Windows
itself, becomes.

~~~
nicholassmith
Pretty much, always a bit puzzled when people assume that Microsoft will throw
the toys out of the pram at some stage. It's a net benefit for them if more
people are using the language, rather than shifting to C or C++ and sticking
with that instead.

------
macspoofing
This clause was put in there for humour and is completely unenforceable in
court, and that's even if someone actually wastes his or her time challenging
it. They should get over themselves.

------
0x0
Funnily enough, Apple seems to be OK with this license, as it's shown on all
iOS devices inside that long list of acknowledgments/legal inside settings
somewhere.

~~~
theorique
Apple doesn't do evil.

~~~
curiousdannii
That they use the licence makes this undeniable, right? This is the ultimate
proof we're after?

------
darrenkopp
The real sad part is that is likely used by JsonSerializer class which was
just kind of a quick hack to quickly add json support to a few things and it
has been deprecated in favor of DataContractJsonSerializer.

So the only people who are using that are people who started using it really
quickly after it was released and haven't updated their code to stop using it.

------
Kilimanjaro
To use Javascript you don't need a license. Javascript object literals are
part of Javascript, ergo, you don't need a license. Json, which is the string
representation of a javascript object literal for transmission and storage,
doesn't need a license either.

I can do whatever the fuck I want with JSON and nobody can touch me.

Look, I can even use it for EVIL if I want!

So sue me.

~~~
Evbn
Json isn't copyrighted. Json parsing libraries are.

------
happywolf
My software is for those who put their mugs at the right side of the desks.
Wait, which side is right?

------
damian2000
Legal repurcussions? what I'd like to know is how many times has this "do good
not evil" phrase in a license actually come up in court or been tested by
lawyers? Probably never.

~~~
YokoZar
If it ever actually ends up in court it has had far more than a single
repercussion. Mere legal threats, or even the possibility of them, can
seriously get in the way of productivity.

Yes, it's stupid, and we should all lighten up and be able to laugh about it.
We should also be able to laugh at obvious jokes about having weapons at an
airport.

There are some really unfunny people in this world, and in the meantime we
unfortunately have to just deal with it.

------
scotty79
I read that you can't distribute code that has no license.

Why can't you do that?

Will someone punish you for that if author won't sue anybody?

Will his descendants inherit the right to sue distributor?

~~~
icebraining
IANAL

 _I read that you can't distribute code that has no license.

Why can't you do that?_

Because copyright law says so - it reserves the _right_ to _copy_ to the
author.

 _Will someone punish you for that if author won't sue anybody?_

I believe depends on whether you fall under a criminal or civil violation.
<http://www.chillingeffects.org/copyright/faq.cgi#QID885>

_Will his descendants inherit the right to sue distributor?_

Yes, it's pretty common for estates (of which the descendants are usually the
executors) to sue distributors.

~~~
scotty79
Mind-bending. Especially condition for violation to be criminal:

1) for commercial advantage or private financial gain

or

3) by distributing copyrighted work where the infringer knew or should have
known the work was intended for public distribution.

Does that also cover non-American authors? And distribution of works of
American authors abroad?

------
tomrod
"Son, you will NOT use this software for evil. The LAW won't let ya!"

/s

Is this _really_ a big deal?

------
arctangent
"Good" and "evil" are relative concepts, not absolutes.

------
darrencauthon
Programmers.............

------
yarrel
> Before the jokers in the room claim that this kind of problem is deserved by
> Mono

Sizzle.

