Like when we had to come up with laws for our make-believe countries for a class project in middle school and we tried to cover our bases with rules like "if you're a bad person doing all bad stuff, you're not allowed to!"

Also, those quotes are taken out of context for dramatic effect:

You will not engage in using this Software that will interfere with or damage the operation of the services of any third parties by overburdening/disabling network resources through automated queries, excessive usage or similar conduct.

You will not use this Software to engage in any activity that will violate the rights of third parties, including, without limitation, through the use, public display, public performance, reproduction, distribution, or modification of communications or materials that infringe copyrights, trademarks, publicity rights, privacy rights, other proprietary rights, or rights against defamation of third parties.

GP is really trying hard to smear this author for some reason, but you read the actual license you'll see that their criticism is based on fiction.

However I stand by my criticism that it is not possible to know if you are violating the license or not. I don’t want to have to learn and follow Czech law to use a git client. Why does this agreement cover how I use third party services and who defines what qualifies as interfering? How far does my obligation to not allow others to reverse engineer the application go? What rights might third parties have under Czech law that I have to worry about while using the software?

Compare Microsoft Windows’s license:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/U...

It also says you can’t reverse engineer, but it does not obligate you to stop others. It’s section about online service is a little bit more explicit about what is not allowed. There are no other requirements to follow every law of a particular jurisdiction while using the software.

Surely this applies to anyone using a piece of US-made software living outside the US. And without a governing law clause, isn't it always ambiguous?

Why does this agreement cover how I use third party services and who defines what qualifies as interfering?

Who am I to judge. That's what they want.

How far does my obligation to not allow others to reverse engineer the application go? What rights might third parties have under Czech law that I have to worry about while using the software?

Now that's a good question and the license should be clearer on that.

I don't think most software licenses say you can't violate some country's laws while using it. It is already illegal to do the illegal thing.

> Who am I to judge. That's what they want.

I'm not judging either. I am not able to confidently follow these terms, so I won't use the software. No hard feelings.

I'm guessing that the license author's intention was to avoid legal liability for people doing illegal things with their software. Usually this is addressed with some language in the license about limitation of liability or or indemnification. For example, see section 3.8 of Atlassian's software agreement:

https://www.atlassian.com/legal/software-license-agreement

OK, not allowed to use it for reverse engineering or other research the DMCA attempts to block?

It's also apparently one individual, and non-US. I've seen many clauses like that in European, especially eastern European, software. Sometimes, even in countries like Australia. It's inspecific, but seems pretty clear they're trying to say, "don't use our software for something you shouldn't." They're within their rights to desire that.

Would you perhaps want to edit your comment to remove the rather patronising comments about "like... laws for our make-believe countries", "middle school", etc?

There's conduct and commentary that follows the Hacker News ethos, and there's conduct and commentary that does not. This does not. It is a pity to read it.

You seem to desire to be an enforcer of rules in this thread, which is admirable, but ultimately not your authority or responsibility to do. I would respectfully suggest you leave moderation to those with the authority to do so.

Though, this license is pretty much radioactive for me: "You will not, and will not permit others to reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, derive the source code of, modify, or create derivative works from this Software..."

Fair enough if you want to use whatever license you want to use, but definitely a "no thanks" from me...

Because they are worth less than the bits used to write them in Poland - only the "distribute derivative works" would be enforceable because that would be blatant copyright violation

This comment isn't worth of HN, (critical, "lol", "...".) Instead, why not focus on something positive?

Git kraken, sublime merge, sourcetree. It is pretty common among the most famous ones, just look at the list on wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Git_GUIs

By using this Software or storing this program or parts of it on a computer hard drive (or other media), you are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement. You represent and warrant that you will not violate any of the requirements of this Agreement and further represent and warrant that:

You will not, and will not permit others to:

1) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, derive the source code of, modify, or create derivative works from this Software, or

2) copy, distribute, publicly display, or publicly perform content contained in this Software other than as expressly authorized by this Agreement.

You will not use this Software to engage in or allow others to engage in any illegal activity.^

You will not engage in using this Software that will interfere with or damage the operation of the services of any third parties by overburdening/disabling network resources through automated queries, excessive usage or similar conduct.*

You will not sell this Software or charge others for use of it (either for profit or merely to recover your media and distribution costs) whether as a stand-alone product, or as part of a compilation or anthology, without explicit prior written permission.

You will not use this Software to engage in any activity that will violate the rights of third parties, including, without limitation, through the use, public display, public performance, reproduction, distribution, or modification of communications or materials that infringe copyrights, trademarks, publicity rights, privacy rights, other proprietary rights, or rights against defamation of third parties.

You may not claim any sponsorship by, endorsement by, or affiliation with me.

This is more generally phrased than the very lawyer-written EULAs you generally find, but it's not unreasonable or unprecedented.

Embargoes and sanctions have no ethical force behind them anyway. They are merely a way to harm poor people while ginning up more pretexts for more wars. Anyone who can oppose such monstrosities using git should do so.

It's fair for a software author to not want their software used to make the world worse. I think you have a very different interpretation of "charitable interpretation" than I do.

As for embargoes - sure. It's just an example. There are plenty of other less morally ambiguous things too.

Whether it's enforceable, sure, that might be questionable.

If I cared about a git client for these platforms, I would file a bug about the license. Fortunately that is not the case.

Yes, they could have consulted with and paid a lawyer to tighten up the wording. But unless you either own a company, or intend to use this in consulting work, I don't think this license should bother you at all. The intent and general meaning are pretty clear, even if you could argue over the definition of one word or another.

Governing Law

This agreement shall be governed by the laws of Czeck Republic. If any portion of this Agreement is deemed unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, it shall not affect the forcibility of the other portions of this Agreement.

It is clear that those clauses are ONLY trying to protect them, the authors, from liability for the actions of others using their software. Perfectly reasonable.

It is clearly not written by a lawyer (IANAL), it may not be legally bullet proof, but this is freeware by a couple of people in their spare time. FOR FREE.

Congress could abolish the public domain or ban stuff like the GPL.

Eben Moglen (Free Software Foundation) sums up the differences:

> But most proprietary software companies want more power than copyright alone gives them. These companies say their software is “licensed” to consumers, but the license contains obligations that copyright law knows nothing about. Software you're not allowed to understand, for example, often requires you to agree not to decompile it. Copyright law doesn't prohibit decompilation, the prohibition is just a contract term you agree to as a condition of getting the software when you buy the product under shrink wrap in a store, or accept a “clickwrap license” on line. [..]

> The GPL, on the other hand, subtracts from copyright rather than adding to it. [..] Copyright grants publishers power to forbid users to exercise rights to copy, modify, and distribute that we believe all users should have; the GPL thus relaxes almost all the restrictions of the copyright system. The only thing we absolutely require is that anyone distributing GPL'd works or works made from GPL'd works distribute in turn under GPL. [..]

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.en.html

You can specifically ban (or make unenforceable) any subset of copyright licenses without banning copyright licenses generally.

That seems proper. AFAIK, these have (statistically) never protected the public, so the legalese is there for protect the company's ability to restrict and penalize the user, as well as fill the pockets of lawyers.