Would You Die To Respect a Software License? 233
Julie188 writes "Some 2,000 licenses cover the 230,000+ projects in Black Duck's open source knowledge base. While 10 licenses comprise 93% of the software, that leaves 1,980-odd licenses for the other 3% — and some of them have really crazy conditions. The Death and Repudiation License, for instance, requires the user to be dead."
Hell No ! (Score:4, Funny)
Even if I like a software to be free as in freedom, I respect a software developer to do whatever with his software
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There are and needs to be more stringent restrictions on what can be put in a license agreement. Right now you could sign away your first born with my Primary Recombinant DNA Acquisition license but I'd be SOL when I came to collect.
License often carry unreasonable terms for the licensee and no responsibility for the licenser. I think that licenses should be standardised (as in ISO) and ha
Math license (Score:5, Funny)
Which license redefines math so that 1980 + 10 = 2000, and taking 93% leaves only 3% remaining?
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The Sonny Bono License.
The humorless answer: (Score:5, Informative)
The summary left out part of a sentence:
It's important to note that the top 10 licenses cover 93% of all projects and the top 20 almost 97%.
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Welcome to New Math! Where any answer is the right one!
Way to go Jimmy!
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It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Slow day.
Re:It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Here's some more ideas:
Would you smell a nasty fart to prevent terrorism?
Would you give up your ability to see if it meant you could time travel?
Would you listen to an entire Britney Spears album if it could bring about world peace?
Re:It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
-- Would you take a job as Steve "Monkeyboy" Ballmer's toe-cheese extractor if it meant Microsoft would publish only via OSS licenses?
-- Would you take a position as Steve "Tyrant" Jobs' fashion consultant if it meant Apple would open up the app store?
-- Would you lick Stallman's neck and armpit if it meant GNU/Hurd became a complete, usable, modern kernel?
These are the type of choices that would keep me up at night.
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You owe me a meal and a bottle of brain bleach for that written Goatse/PainSeries.
Please mod down.
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just ask rms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25UeVXrEHQ [youtube.com]
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Re:It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose it would be a worthy sacrifice.
I am willing to expend my life in pursuit of turtlenecks if it means Openness for all.
No! Not in a thousand lifetimes, no! What do you think I am, you sick twisted fuck?!?
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Microsoft to publish their source code under OSS licenses? So you want Steve Ballmer's toe cheese to not only be smelled by you but also to proliferate throughout the entire internet?
Re:It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
-- Would you lick Stallman's neck and armpit if it meant GNU/Hurd became a complete, usable, modern kernel?
Would get Stallman to finally shut up? If so, I'd definitely consider it.
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you, sir, owe me a new keyboard, plus a case of hard liquor to remove the mental image of someone licking RMS's armpit from my brain
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-- Would you take a position as Steve "Tyrant" Jobs' fashion consultant if it meant Apple would open up the app store?
That's easy. I could write a program to do that!
#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
printf("Ah, Mr Jobs. Try the black skivvy - I am sure you will like it.\n");
return 0;
}
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Would you lick Stallman's neck and armpit if it meant GNU/Hurd became a complete, usable, modern kernel?
C'mon now, asking for someone to sacrifice his life for a cause, even as worthy as that, is too much!
Re:It's not news, it's Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Where did you get an Instant Adult (tm) cloning device? I thought they were sold out?
I personally lack the replicator necessary to fork Stallman and lick him myself.
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Would you listen to an entire Britney Spears album if it could bring about world peace?
Depends, is "world peace" defined as "all humans exterminated" and is the Spears album the delivery method of said destruction?
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Who put the Idle story in the News bin? (Score:4, Insightful)
If a software license exists, and no software is written that is available under the terms of that license, does it merit discussion on Slashdot?
It looks to me as somebody set up a site to create a gallery of TOSes so software writers can get some ideas... but then the site got attacked by the typical forum trolls took over and we get a comedy site as the end result. This belongs to Idle next to news from The Onion.
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No software? I'm dissapointed...
Seems like a decent fit for grave / graveyard info screens, embedded software used for some equipment required for transplants, controlling the morgue, etc.
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Although would it be possible for this license to have close to an applicable use? Ie. Software for dealing with funeral expenses. You can only use it if you are dead, and being dead gives leave for your family to access the software license only. If you aren't dead, then they or you are breaking the terms of the license. Just a thought, obviously the terms of excessive punishment may need to be edited.
Severability (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe a court would find that clause unenforceable and sever it from the rest of the contract.
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I believe a court would also find that you lack any sense of humor. The D&R license is a joke.
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No, really?
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So?
It's still offered as license. Since it's offered as an option with a BSD license it doesn't really matter, but if the software was actually valuable and other license more restrictive making such a joke could end up costing you when someone tries to get a court to strip bits out and just leave "you can have it all"...
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Only if it was unconditional. If (as with most free software licenses) it was conditioned on actions that would ordinarily violate copyright, the court might simply ignore the clause as irrelevant (and probably whimsical*), and rule that you're guilty of copyright violation. In fact, as with the GPL, it's unlikely that the license would ever be mentioned in court, since the plaintiff has a straightforward copyright violation case, and the defendant can't claim to be dead and thus protected from prosecutio
Quip on Contracts (Score:5, Insightful)
The "freedom to encumber" works is like the "freedom to punch someone" ... They are both 'freedoms' that only exist at the expense of others.
-- Gregory Maxwell, discussion on licensing
Re:Quip on Contracts (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be a good description of copyright, and thus copyright licenses, but not contracts in general. The terms of a contract are merely conditions which you require to be met before you will voluntarily give the other party some of your property, which you are in no way obligated to do. No matter what the terms may be, they impose no expense on others; one is always free to ignore the offer should one find the terms unpalatable. Licenses are similar, but the copyrights which give licenses their power are artificial social-engineering constructs which only exist at the expense of others.
Re:Quip on Contracts (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair, although contract law has recognised certain topics where contracts are not free for good reason - situations of some sorts are considered generally either coercive or one-sided enough that the public good is ill-served by the absence of some (or significant regulation). Landlord-tenant law is one example, although English common law has accumulated a long list of other circumstances and remedies to specific abuses, many of which we've kept in the US.
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I recognize that modern contract law has (incorrectly and unjustly, IMHO) rendered certain kinds of contractual terms void. However, even if such terms were fully enforceable they would still be nothing like the "freedom to punch someone" referred to in the Gregory Maxwell quote.
I don't know about serving "the public good"—that isn't really the purpose of contracts, at least not directly—but no mere contractual term is ever truly coercive per se. Somewhere along the line the idea came about that
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Many of us support the use of force to serve the public good, and feel that the public good is in fact the whole point of government and society.
I see where you're coming from though - there's a number of ways to think about the goals/purposes of these things.
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Many of us support the use of force to serve the public good, and feel that the public good is in fact the whole point of government and society.
I would not really disagree with either of those statements. However, in my considered opinion the initiation of force against non-aggressors never serves the public good. The purpose of government may indeed be to serve the public good, but I feel its fundamental nature as a legitimized aggressor can only serve to undermine that purpose.
I am not a utilitarian; I do not believe that it is possible to weight the benefits to some against involuntary costs imposed on others. The obvious corellary is that the o
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It's not only utilitarians who consider such weighings - various principled philosophies do as well. Any concept of duty that's not wholly negative requires it. It sounds like your perspective is somewhere in the Libertarian-Objectivist spectrum - mine is somewhere in the Academic-Socialist spectrum - I suspect we're not going to see eye-to-eye on what you'd call coercion. To me, autonomy is one thing that's important for human happiness and well-being but it's something I'd sacrifice in certain structured
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For example, in a fully free market (one in which there are no constraints on contracts), all landlords want maximum rents with minimal investment. Now, in theory, some landlords would become slumlords while
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I already responded to all of this in the GP comment:
Somewhere along the line the idea came about that because someone really wants something, it is somehow coercive to place conditions on giving it to them (even though you aren't required to give it to them at all). I obviously reject this notion; coercion is force, and only force.
"Really want" includes things you think you need for survival: food, shelter, work. No one is obligated to provide you with any of that; if they choose to offer it to you they have an absolute right to impose whatever conditions they want. Of course you are free to reject their conditions, but they are equally free to keep their property.
Tempering that somewhat, note that I consider contracts to only include transfers of alienable property. In other words
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Libertarian viewpoint which places liberty as the highest value is completely incompatible with the anarchistic viewpoint because liberty cannot exist in an anarchy, so those terms don't belong in the same sentence, never mind separated by a / as if they are two sides of the same coin.
Trouble is, in many housing markets, housing is constrained, either due to resource shortages (water, usually) or geography (too many mountai
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Libertarian viewpoint which places liberty as the highest value is completely incompatible with the anarchistic viewpoint because liberty cannot exist in an anarchy ...
On the contrary, liberty cannot exist except in anarchy. Simply put, government is legitimized aggression; that is the only trait which distinguishes it from other private organizations, such as co-ops. Liberty is the absence of aggression. The libertarian viewpoint is that aggression (initiation of force against a non-aggressor) is never legitimate. The libertarian society can only be anarchistic; if it had a government then it would be endorsing aggression, and thus not libertarian.
A fully libertarian soc
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"Contracts in general" is a really bad description of software licenses. Contracts are rarely one sided and almost always negotiated between parties. More over they require express consent in the form of a signature to be valid. A software license is never negotiated, has no responsibilities for the vendor and uses implied consent (shrink wrap Eula, press F8, click I agree). Most contracts define the
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The point of quips are that they state a position succinctly and with charm, not that they rely on the authority of the person who said them. I could tell you who he is, but it doesn't really matter.
BSD or die (Score:2)
Your honor it is clear the defendant rejected the BSD license. They must therefore have accepted the alternate D&R licenses. In recognition of this we demand the death of the defendant as fulfillment of the terms of the license.
Death and Repudiation License is peanuts (Score:5, Funny)
The Death and Repudiation License is nothing compared to the EULA of iPhone OS 5.1
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Back in the 80's... (Score:2, Funny)
I remember many shareware authors writing strange things in their terms and licenses.
I recall that a common graphics viewer those cool new GIF files (among many other formats) wrote that if you continued using their software after 30 days without paying then a demon would be visited by demons who would torment you.
I was just a kid, didn't have a job, and I never paid. Demons rarely ever visited, and when they did it was just to borrow a cup of sugar or use the phone.
Re:Back in the 80's... (Score:4, Informative)
I have seen ones, approved by the permit people no less, with instructions to the 'bat cave', lyrics from Pink Floyd, and all kinds of weird junk.
Re:Back in the 80's... (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall that a common graphics viewer those cool new GIF files (among many other formats) wrote that if you continued using their software after 30 days without paying then a demon would be visited by demons who would torment you.
Graphics Workshop had something like this. In fact:
If you want to see additional features in Graphic Workshop, register
it. If we had an Arcturian mega-dollar for everyone who has said
they'd most certainly register their copy if we'd add just one
more thing to it, we could buy ourselves a universe and retire.
Oh yes, should you fail to support this program and continue to
use it, a leather winged demon of the night will tear itself,
shrieking blood and fury, from the endless caverns of the nether
world, hurl itself into the darkness with a thirst for blood on
its slavering fangs and search the very threads of time for the
throbbing of your heartbeat. Just thought you'd want to know
that.
Mother Jones Software License (Score:2)
I was an adult, had a job, and never bought (mainly because I
When I was in college... (Score:5, Funny)
One of my schoolmates released some software with a custom license, which was basically the old-form original UC Berkeley BSD license with a restriction prohibiting any use by persons in "Country Code F", defined as (paraphrasing from memory):
"France, Belgium, Quebec, Sengal, Ghana, Did we mention France?"
I think it was bad experiences with language classes in high school, but I'm not sure.
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To be fair, that list lists Canada three times: Canada, New Brunswick, and Quebec are all member states. That lists governments that are French speaking, not just countries. There are 50 major governments in the US, for example, and thousands of minor governments.
I'm far too lazy to look at anything else in the list, but I'm sure there are more "governments within governments" that are recognized separately.
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D&R license (Score:3, Funny)
The D&R license doesn't require anyone to die... you just have to be dead to use software under it. The license even specifies how this is to be accomplished. You're allowed to tell your heirs to use the software on your behalf after you're dead.
The really puzzling clause is the revocation clause, which not only allows the licensor to revoke the license, but proclaims that the licensor WILL revoke the license, and then the heirs will be punished "to the fullest extent of the law." I believe a court would only find liability for usage AFTER the licensor revoked, regardless of the drafter's intention.
Another strange clause seems to say that ghosts and angels are not considered dead for purposes of the license. Pure silliness, of course. What court would claim jurisdiction over angels and ghosts? Certainly not a human one. And an inhuman one is not likely to respect software licenses. The drafter made a big mistake here in failing to define ghosts and angels. These words are just begging for a legal definition.
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
+1 Pedantry (Score:2)
Cake or Death? (Score:2)
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To Paraphrase Jefferson Airplane (Score:2)
"Would the software license [orig.: 'my country'] die for me?"
Viva la undead nation! (Score:3, Funny)
*Pointy Crowned Liches
Me (Score:2)
I saw this once on the intertubes:
I am willing to die to prove that my god exists!!! Are you willing to die to prove that he doesn't!
So it's all well and good.
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Wow! That sort of quote is the quintessence of the median of American theological debate.
Since the probability of the first happening is vanishingly small (at least for the moron who spouted it), and the probability of the second higher than the first (at least in this country), being rational, I'd tend to say no to the second. However, that still is not a proof of God's existence (or non-existence). A greater willingness to die stupidly does not a proof make.
Of course, being a heathen (and somewhat snar
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I'm willing to eat a tasty cupcake to prove your god doesn't exist. It may not be as dramatic as dying, but it is every bit as effective a proof! :)
D&R license (Score:2)
Thereware (Score:2)
Remember not to use Java.... (Score:5, Funny)
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There's my
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A -lot- of commercial software have that in their licenses. So many, in fact, that I find myself wondering if there aren't laws in some first world countries that force that to be in there somewhere unless you have specific certifications.
Re:Remember not to use Java.... (Score:5, Informative)
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You don't think Windows for the Navy actually runs the mission critical systems like the reactor do you? Regardless, every system on the modern navy has a manual control system, not that you can actually hit a target with manual fire control as was proved many times during WWII, but the controls are there just in case you want to fire 1000 shells and only hit the target once.
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You don't think Windows for the Navy actually runs the mission critical systems like the reactor do you?
I thought everything mission critical in the military had to be written in Ada?
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I don't know how they reconcile that with Windows for Battleships exactly.
I think that's a moot point, because nobody uses battleships anymore. [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Remember not to use Java.... (Score:4, Informative)
It was Windows for Warships.
Kids these days, just don't get alliteration any more.
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Windows for Battleships is specifically certified for such applications.
It's just like the operating systems that run the equipment on fighter jets - they are very thoroughly tested and cleared by the military first.
Unlike some oil companies I know, which buy the most expensive product then trust the vendor to tell them how awesome it is even though all their employees are screaming about how it runs slower and with fewer features than the 30 year old tech they were using before. *twitch*
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Well, thank god, really
I wouldn't want a java program controlling a nuclear facility!
Or better, I wouldn't want the average java programmer making a java program that will control a nuclear facility.
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Or better, I wouldn't want the average java programmer making a java program that will control a nuclear facility.
Yeah, but that provision means even drawing up a rough preliminary schematic on a drawing program written in Java is verboten. And I believe I found that gem in the JRE EULA, so all common users have to agree to it, not just developers. But you can always get around it by switching to OpenJDK, so beware!
Or iTunes. (Score:2)
The reality distortion field will not be weaponized!
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That's a really stupid way for them to word that provision. What if you work at a DoD lab or Northrup Grumman and you like to jam out while you work?
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...."the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility." That's in Sun's EULA. For real.
According to James Gosling, its there for good reason; to paraphrase: "During the early days of Java there were some guys getting support from Sun for a nuclear simulator. After some long discussions, they found out they were using it for the operation of a nuclear power plant. Sun and their lawyers wanted no part of anything like that, just in case."
No warranty fortune cookie (Score:2)
Somewhat related is one of my favorite fortune cookies:
NOTE: No warranties, either express or implied, are hereby given. All
software is supplied as is, without guarantee. The user assumes all
responsibility for damages resulting from the use of these features,
including, but not limited to, frustration, disgust, system abends, disk
head-crashes, general malfeasance, floods, fires, shark attack, nerve
gas, locust infestation, cyclones, hurricanes, tsunamis, local
electromagnetic disruptions, hydraulic brake syst
I would die for (Score:2)
My family and a few select friends that I believe to be better people than myself.
I would like to think I would give my life if it meant saving more that one person. As Spock said (which probably came from someone else I'm sure): The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few or the one.
There are several constraints on these things of course, and in reality if it comes right down to it, I would probably not have the courage to do so, even if I think I do now while I'm not facing the decision directl
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You mean if you don't accept the BSD license. If you accept the D&R license, you're fucked.
Re:Now that's.... (Score:5, Funny)
I strongly suspect the D&R license is a BSD license fan responding to someone wanting them to dual-license something.
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Why would someone want a developer to dual license a BSD licensed project? The BSD license is one of the most permissive there is, especially considering not all countries have the concept of public domain. It's not like it was a GPL/D&R dual licensing situation...
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Many GPL fanbois feel the BSD license is evil. I could see them demanding a dual license, and the developer giving them this subtle "go fuck yourself".
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That would be pointless. Having something with a permissive license be dual-licenses also with a more restrictive license would accomplish nothing.
Not to mention, I cannot think of a single GPL fan that has any issues with other people using BSD licenses if they chose to. In fact, the only real noise I hear coming from this difference of opinion is BSD fanatics criticising GPL fans for being less free.
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Give me the BSD License or give me...
No, not death...
What's the other one?
Freedom?
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Bread and circuses.
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That Death and Repudiation license is awesome. I wish I actually published software so I could use it, that's one hell of a mind-fuck.
The only way to use the software is if you are dead (there is an allowance to have your heirs carry out your uses for you), and if you follow the terms of the license it will be repudiated at a time deemed most likely to screw your heirs over.
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Not if you don't have death.
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A corporation also can't be considered dead, which is the prime requirement of the D&R contract. You must have been alive to be considered dead. There is even a clause for "dead but interactive", specifically covering ghosts and angels, but would probably also extend to zombies and corporations as well (assuming a corp could pass the dead test).
Even if they got around that part though, this part would screw them out the yin-yang:
After your following the terms of this license, the author has vowed to repudiate
your claim, meaning that the validity of this contract will no longer be recognized.
This license will be unexpectedly revoked (at a time which is designated to be
most inconvenient) and involved heirs will be punished to the fullest extent
of the law.
I'm not sure how that works if the license specifically removes the licen
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Keith is already dead, his brain just don't know it yet. The D&R license is likely for him, I think.
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Sadly kid's these days wont get this joke.