[liberationtech] The Haven Project - Review

[Daniel Colascione]

On 11/24/10 8:38 PM, Jacob Appelbaum wrote:
> On 11/24/2010 06:43 PM, Anders Sundman wrote:
>> Dear liberationtech readers,
>>
> 
> Did you really invent your own free software license[0] for use with
> this project?

It's not even a free software license.

Both DFSG and OSI standards for free and open source software prohibit
field-of-use restrictions, of which the OP's "no harm" clause is
definitely a type.

These clauses pop up every once in a while, all they all have practical
difficulties stemming from definition and scope: what constitutes
"harm"? Could a nuclear weapons research program use it under the old
"Peace is our Profession"-style rationale that they're _preventing_
harm? Would BP and Bank of America be prohibited from using the software
under the rationale that their economic activities cause harm? One could
argue that use by dairy farmers is prohibited.

No-harm clauses don't actually prevent any harm from coming to anyone.
Bad actors already have all the software they need --- not that they'd
consider themselves bound by EULAs anyway. Look at it this way: the
license is surrounded by legal uncertainty and is incompatible with
every other free software license on earth. That's the cost. The benefit
is zero.

If every software developer prohibited the use of his software for
causes he personally found objectionable, we'd have so many mutually
incompatible licenses that it would be impossible to create the kind of
free software ecosystem we enjoy today.

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