[HN Gopher] License to Use JSLint for Evil
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License to Use JSLint for Evil
Author : erenon
Score : 81 points
Date : 2022-04-14 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (web.archive.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (web.archive.org)
| altgoogler wrote:
| Here's the source talk:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-JoyNuQJs#t=2480s
| demetrius wrote:
| > I give permission to IBM, its customers, partners, and
| minions, to use JSLint for evil.
|
| I thought this was a funny joke. Then I read "IBM and the
| Holocaust".
| [deleted]
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Don't put clauses that rely on subjective concepts (like "good"
| and "evil") in your software licenses, because they can render
| the license impossible to enforce.
| [deleted]
| amp108 wrote:
| Pretty sure most licenses have a clause stating that, if one
| clause is deemed invalid, that fact doesn't render the entire
| thing null and void. Check with your lawyer when in doubt.
| user3939382 wrote:
| It's called a severability clause
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severability
| TheDong wrote:
| If you're curious about the specific license being
| referenced, it didn't have any clause like that:
|
| https://github.com/kaizhu256/jslint/blob/e188c37059ec66aedf9.
| ..
| tbranyen wrote:
| Do you think Douglass Crockford didn't know that? He was being
| cheeky and doesn't care. This was also a huge pain point for
| JSHint and a lot of work went into undoing that by finding a
| single commit that didn't have the clause iirc.
| Uehreka wrote:
| I guess some people might find it cheeky or funny to build an
| entire software product that does something people want, and
| then make it impossible for most people to use by adding a
| silly licensing clause. I'd consider it a huge waste of time,
| but hey, it's not my project.
| [deleted]
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| It makes it impossible for most organizations to use, not
| for most people to use.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| It also makes it impossible for Open Source projects to
| use and depend on. This isn't a companies-vs-people
| thing; people and projects who care about their users
| should not go "meh, whatever" about software licensing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Does Crockford care about Open Source?
|
| People who aren't doing evil can use it. It's not
| compatible with FOSS. It's a linter, it doesn't require
| being incorporated into people's projects.
|
| Making it proprietary would be more limiting, making it
| Free would also be limiting (in a good way imo.) He chose
| to make it his way.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Right. It's probably the second worse place to put jokes,
| next to an employment contract.
| msdrigg wrote:
| I looked it up and found this interesting read:
| https://jshint.com/relicensing-2020/
| doliveira wrote:
| Pretty sure it is human judges that enforce the licenses, not
| computers.
| munk-a wrote:
| This is a pretty moot point - judges do go by license intent
| rather than literal license text whenever possible but
| putting abstract statements in licenses without severability
| clauses is a great way to make those licenses unenforceable.
| A license that includes the statement "This may not be used
| to further the end of mankind in any way" for instance - is
| completely null and void, the intent is clear but the set of
| actions that can be argued to fit that are... everything.
|
| Also, that original intent can be lost to time (in three
| hundred years a judge might rule that they can't properly
| evaluated what we today consider good and evil since this was
| before we acknowledged residents of Alpha Centauri as
| intelligent beings and thus our moral code is
| incomprehensible) and in that case judges will take a literal
| reading of the text which can lead to issues like ambiguous
| comma styling[1].
|
| 1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/think-commas-don-t-
| matt...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| What effect do purely normative statements have on licenses?
| Because the original only says you _should_ use it for Good,
| not that you _must_ use it for Good.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Legal teams evaluate licenses and then ban the usage of your
| software because your attempts to be cute with license
| clauses pose an unacceptable business risk compared to the
| value you provide.
|
| If you want your software to be usable, choose standard
| licenses and don't modify them. Unless you find value
| entirely in creating something and not in being useful to
| others, be extremely careful with creative licensing.
| im3w1l wrote:
| It will not deter everyone from using it. Who will it deter
| and who will it not? Maybe that split is intentional.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It will deter people who are accidentally telling on
| themselves.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| What is the business risk about disregarding a clause that
| says you merely _should_ do something, with no carrot or
| stick if you do or don 't?
| colechristensen wrote:
| Copyright holders suing the licensee for a breach.
| Regardless of if the suit has merit there will be
| significant legal costs in defending against it and
| significant engineering costs in replacing the software,
| often quickly. Likewise there could be image issues for
| the company violating license terms.
| michaelt wrote:
| Who are all these people going to court and getting their
| software licenses enforced?
| Thiez wrote:
| The default for copyright is 'all rights reserved' though, so
| it would seem to me that it's in the software users best
| interest to hope it's enforceable, otherwise they can't use the
| software at all.
| ajkjk wrote:
| One of the weirder things I have done in my life is contributing
| some code to JSHint (a derivative of JSLint) so that it can
| finally be used for evil. The lead maintainer has a series of
| blogposts on the subject that are an interesting read:
| http://mikepennisi.com/blog/2020/you-may-finally-use-jshint-...
| georgia_peach wrote:
| Doug Crockford is a ray of sunshine.
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