Re:Etherpad includes banned (on Google code) software JSMin
by Kadin on Saturday December 19, 2009 @04:07PM
(#1005202)
It's a pretty stupid line to put in a license. What the hell does it even mean? Without defining "evil" in the context of the license, it could mean anything -- who gets to decide what constitutes "evil"? The original author? In that case, it's like making the license immediately revocable for any reason at any point in the future.
It's understandable that Google, or just about anyone else, would reject a license with that sort of vague language in it.
There's a time and place for whimsy, but a software license isn't it.
But it does create a bit of a mess for people who take certain principles in their work as seriously as these programmers care about their craft and personal expression.
License text is code, of a sort, and overall it's a good thing that large organizations care about the precise meaning of the legal agreements they enter into.
Similarly, it's a good thing that the 'Open Source Definition' says licenses can't discriminate against fields of endeavor (including those some would label 'evil') and still be considered 'open source'.
So this little license flourish throws a couple of monkeywrenches into the gears for well-meaning folks just trying to get good stuff done.
Perhaps it succeeds as a thought-provoking bit of performance art, but it's lousy as a license term for enabling sharing and building.