Consider not defining harm and using a well defined global minimum standard

[reconbot]

Overview

I really want an accepted open source license that has moral clause. I got excited when I saw this license but immediately started disagreeing with a few stances it takes. I've 👍and 👎 a few issues, but exactly what I disagree with doesn't actually matter. Nobody is going to agree on everything and that's ok. We don't have to agree, this can exist being a specific set of ideas about what does harm.

But I want to propose something different. Don't decide what's harmful. Let the United Nations do that. Instead focus on getting a new type of open source license, one with a moral clause accepted as a standard for use today.

I think @chrisjensen wrote more eloquently then I can. They summed up the current reaction from the Open Source Community. He states the argument against a moral clause is a violation of "freedom 0"

While there are sound reasons to demand that FOSS software licensing prevent proprietary or commercial restrictions, it is unacceptable to demand that participation in the open source movement requires people contribute their hard work and generosity to any and all unconscionable possible uses in the name of freedom 0.

And these are the same arguments were used (and still are) against the GPL. The GPL has it's own social mission. And similar to when GPL was released (more like v2) there's work to be done in figuring out how it works. There's legal and commercial considerations. How do humans use and make software with a moral clause license?

As a global society we have already set a moral standard around protecting humans. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a generally agreed upon standard we can hold people's behavior to. It's a low bar for everyone to clear, and unlike (despite our best intentions) what we design here, it's pretty much beyond reproach.

There are a few good counterpoints.

1. It's not a treaty or super well defined. True but there's a long body of work dealing with that, and I bet we can find a treaty we could use that encompass it. An "implementation" of UDHR
2. Countries already have laws that cover most of it. Except when they don't, or when they have exceptions (like the USA and ICE), or loopholes. Licenses don't really matter on a state scale, they matter on a person to person one. A tyrannical government is just as likely to follow the GPL as they are to follow a moral clause. However people building software with the license will know it and see it every day.
3. It's leaves out a lot of harm protection.

It's a low bar, much lower than what's been done here, and I think that's important. In order to survive the fight for acceptance, we don't argue over the morals themselves.

Proposed Resolution

There should be more research and discussions with people who actually help set global no harm standards. There are a bunch of groups at the UN worth talking to, including the Department of Public Information Outreach Division, the (http://unctad.org/en/Pages/CSTD.aspx), United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, and maybe a librarian or an ethics professor?

And then there's the open source communities who have faithfully gotten software to where we are today, this is probably not even a new idea to them. I haven't asked. The Free Software Foundation will be our stanchest critics, The Open Source Initiative coined the term open source and literally approve open source licenses,

(And please do excuse me if this whole idea is out of line. I haven't been along for the ride, and I've only been researching and discussing this for a few weeks not a few years. So I'm not aware of all the work you've already done.)

1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was published, was a long time ago so there's bound to be an update by now. Whatever the minimum level of "no harm" that the global community has agreed to, I want us to start there, so we have a better chance of widespread adoption.

Thank you for your time.

[chrisjensen]

I can see the merit in this approach. However, for us (Raisely) this would probably not cover some activities that we believe definitely should be excluded. Most obviously, climate change & fossil fuels. I'm not aware of any resolution from the UN that would adequately cover this, and given that there is still no binding agreement after almost 30 years of negotiations, I find it hard to imagine there would be.

The other issue with this is that it still doesn't solve the issue of how you draw the line on collaboration (discussed in #16). Do you take the Lerna approach with Microsoft that any level of collaboration with entities that violate the UN convention on rights of the child would be excluded from all use of the licensed software, or do you continue to allow MS to use it, and the usage exclusions would apply to ICE only?

This feels like a good candidate for an alternative license to NoHarm. I think the world in which NoHarm is adopted is one where there are 2 or 3 ethical licenses. Much as we have the GPL, MIT. BSD and other licenses, I can see a need to cater for people to wish to choose a "low ethical bar" license and others who want to set the bar higher.

[reconbot]

That's perfectly reasonable and understandable. I never thought I'd be advocating for the "lowest bar" of no harm, but I currently feel like it's the best way get something approved by the OSI. I do realize however, it is hardly the only way. So please don't let me derail your efforts here. 👍

[reconbot]

And for the record I'd limit then use in projects specifically. I think it's hard or even impossible for some of the larger companies in the planet to know what everyone is doing. When you get parent companies and investors involved. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ it may be up to a lawyer to figure out what an acceptable scope is. If companies can't approve the license it can't have an impact.

I think I'm going to go find my standard and then come back to this.

[chrisjensen]

Great. Not at all. I think that this may end up spending sparking several licenses is wonderful. Do share a link to your licence that we can share