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current license creates uncertainty #42

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stevegt opened this issue Sep 20, 2020 · 1 comment
Open

current license creates uncertainty #42

stevegt opened this issue Sep 20, 2020 · 1 comment
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@stevegt
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stevegt commented Sep 20, 2020

Licenses are code; tricky to the point of being analogous to cryptographic algorithms. Writing a custom one often creates unintended consequences. For instance, as currently worded, even with the best of intentions, a web developer might deploy the package believing themselves to be in full compliance with the license, then later learn that a site user is non-compliant; this new knowledge causes the developer to become immediately non-compliant.

Other than a return to a standard MIT license or one of the others listed at https://pkg.go.dev/license-policy, I don't have any good suggestions for what to do about this; I don't know of any standard open-source licenses that satisfy the full intent of the current license. That doesn't mean there aren't any -- the JSON license, for instance, is on the pkg.go.dev list, and is an MIT derivative that tries to do the right thing. Here's a related conversation on a stack exchange site that covers some of the issues in more detail: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/199055/open-source-licenses-that-explicitly-prohibit-military-applications

@stevegt stevegt changed the title nonstandard license creates uncertainty license creates uncertainty Sep 20, 2020
@stevegt stevegt changed the title license creates uncertainty current license creates uncertainty Sep 20, 2020
@pjebs
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pjebs commented Sep 21, 2020

Thank you for pointing out the json license.
I don't have the time to think about it yet I'll have another reconsider in the medium-term future.

@pjebs pjebs added the question Further information is requested label Sep 21, 2020
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