Re:Etherpad includes banned (on Google code) software JSMin
by neilc on Saturday December 19, 2009 @05:07PM
(#1005280)
Last week, Google banned my PHP port of JSMin from Google Code due to a quibble over a line in the license stating that “The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil”, which they believe makes the license non-free.
It probably does make the software non-free (e.g. according to the DSFG); more importantly, such a clause is utterly idiotic. Rather than bitching about Google Code, the JSMin author would be better served to get rid of the arbitrary, subjective and probably unenforceable clause from the license. The original JSMin is only 200 lines of C, so the simple solution would just be a from-scratch rewrite.
It probably does make the software non-free (e.g. according to the DSFG); more importantly, such a clause is utterly idiotic. Rather than bitching about Google Code, the JSMin author would be better served to get rid of the arbitrary, subjective and probably unenforceable clause from the license. The original JSMin is only 200 lines of C, so the simple solution would just be a from-scratch rewrite.