[License-discuss] "Ethical open source" and the Persona Non Grata clause.

I reject the "Persona Non Grata" clause, and all other attempts at so-called "ethical" open-source licensing, in the strongest possible terms. To get entangled in this sort of thing would not merely be against OSI's charter as expressed in the OSD, it would invite second- and third-order effects that would be gravely harmful. This is really what I joined the list to say. The fairness-vs.-mission issue I discussed in my previous post, though serious, probably wouldn't have been enough to motivate me in itself. I initiated the founding of OSI so it could pursue and defend freedom. Thomas Paine had an apposite quote: "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." Whatever hypothetical good might be done in individual cases by denying the use of open-source code to putatively evil persons and organizations would be swamped by the systemic harm from enabling people to use open-source licenses in political vendettas. Because such precedent, as Paine understood, always comes back to bite you; there would be no end to the feuds, the divisiveness, and the erosion of freedom if we went down that path. Clauses 5 and 6 are in the OSD in part for that reason, and approving mechanisms to end-run them - such as the Persona Non Grata clause - would be a direct and egregious violation of OSI's charter and my intentions in founding OSI. Such clauses are not even a fit topic for *discussion* here outside of a swift recognition that they are out of bounds. With whatever moral authority I still have here, I say to all advocates of soi-disant "ethical" licensing not just "No" but "To hell with you *and* the horse you rode in on." -- <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a> As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. -- Jeff Snyder