Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
All posts Dr. Quadragon ❌'s posts Post Back to profile
Dr. Quadragon ❌

I get the sentiment behind "Hippocratic" license. I just don't believe it works in practice as compared to free software licenses.

Hippocratic licenses are meant to prevent the software from being used to do harm, while free software skips the motivational part altogether and allows for any use. And I think it's for a good reason.

You see, you can't exactly KNOW the motivation of a person using a product. Thus, distributing a product will have to involve the way to somehow "prove" the validity and purity of their motivation. And even then you can't know it for sure unless you're a telepath.

So, instead of motivation, we'll have to see what they've actually done with the software. Consequences. This is retroactive, and I don't think that this is legally sound.

But then again, there's the case of a person who, having lied about their motivation, used the product to do harm. In this case, your license is not even working as intended: the harm is already done. What's the point, then?

1 Feb 2021 at 14:34 | Open on mastodon.ml
2 comments
Dr. Quadragon ❌

(Of course, I'm arguing from "shaping, prevention and harm reduction" model of lawmaking, as opposed to "crime and punishment" model. If punishment is what you want, then fine, go crazy, not like this model hasn't proven disasterous and draconian, but then again, it's may be what you want)

1 Feb 2021 at 14:38 | Open on mastodon.ml
Dr. Quadragon ❌

Also, if the consequences are the deciding factor, then in order to use the software you have to possess enough clairvoyance to foretell what the consequences of you using it will be. You know, even a pen and a piece of paper can be used to sign someone's death warrant. Sometimes, without a person writing even knowing it.

So, no. I don't think that software licenses should regulate an individual's morality. This is simply not its job. It is retroactive, not enforceable, and if it was, it would have been error-prone and ripe for abuse. It is more of a matter of what's acceptable in the society and what isn't, and the law that should be built and rebuilt around those norms, not the software's license agreement.

That is not to say that licenses don't have a moral charge. But still, you can only do so much with them.

Also, if the consequences are the deciding factor, then in order to use the software you have to possess enough clairvoyance to foretell what the consequences of you using it will be. You know, even a pen and a piece of paper can be used to sign someone's death warrant. Sometimes, without a person writing even knowing it.

1 Feb 2021 at 14:55 | Open on mastodon.ml
Go Up