>In what world does using software to marginalize people or mislead the public create a better world?

The road to hell ... something something ... good intentions.

Who defines what 'marginalization of people' means (a strange term if you really think about it), and why would you think they would get that definition right?

> Who defines what 'marginalization of people' means

The software creators, which seems very reasonable to me. This isn't some arbitrary judge deeming what is marginalizing or not. This is the creators of the software saying "We don't want to build something that complete dickweeds can use for evil."

Don't like their definition of "dickweeds" or "evil"? Fine, build your own shit then.

For one piece of software, maybe. Now imagine what happens when a lot of open source software does the same thing. It would become impossible to use open source software of that kind because there is no way that you will be able to satisfy many different groups of people each with their own points of view on what is moral or not, at the same time.

On top of that, even if all the groups shared the same views you’d still need to suddenly spend a lot of time understanding each group before you used their software, and you’d need to continue to keep an eye on their views to ensure you are complying.

Thanks but I will stick to the plain old open source licenses like ISC, MIT, GPL, and Apache.

If you are writing a license, which is a legal document, then its meaning is determined not by you but by "some arbitrary judge", because you are not the only party bound by this license. If some other developer starts using your product based on the license that you published it under, then you don't have the right to change the license terms retroactively. Best you can do is change the license for the future releases.

That’s reasonable, but don’t call it open source, because it isn’t.

I mean, it's not the same thing as an entirely unrestricted license, but then again, neither are open source licenses entirely unrestricted.

I understand that people want to look at this like a kind of slippery slope (if you can define one kind of restriction, why not define another and another - until you have closed source software by any other name) - but just because arbitrary restrictions mean something isn't colloquially "open" doesn't mean that certain specific restrictions might not still reasonably be compatible with something described as "open".

Certainly we should not accept a formalized definition of any language term like this; i.e. just because an OSI or other group wishes to claim the definition of open source doesn't mean we all need to use that definition. Specifically, let's not accept https://opensource.org/docs/osd as a kind of gospel truth. It's a fine initiative, but not necessarily the only possible one.

I'm not convinced that allowing a few restrictions would be a great idea, but then again, I'm also sure it would be dramatically different from the status quo, nor that is makes sense to no longer call such software open source.

This has nothing to do with open source. I think that is the issue.

Not everyone needs to agree with your "One True Scotsman" decree.

Correct. There’s no need to listen to me because we have the OSI definition, which is widely accepted already.

>> Who defines what 'marginalization of people' means

> The software creators

I don't understand how that could work. Would "marginalizing people" have any concrete legal definition at all or would it literally be anything the creator decides now or in the future?

Software creator says I'm marginalizing people, I deny it and refuse to stop using their library. How would a court sort that out?

>Fine, build your own shit then.

Sure. Do what you want but don't try to claim that this is a good license. It's the opposite of a good license. It's ambiguous, capricious, and arbitrary.

> The road to hell ... something something ... good intentions.

That could be applied to *anything*, it doesn't have any substance.

Who gets to decide what behavior is marginalizing? Despite what you think, that isn't universally agreed upon.

See, this is where the creators of the CoC made a mistake, either of malice or ignorance.

>(Do Not)Use ml5.js to build tools that discriminate against marginalized communities

That could be better put as

>(Do Not)Use ml5.js to build tools that discriminate

By adding in "marginalized communities", they are creating loopholes. Some discrimination is good, as long as it is to people we don't like. Is discrimination against Chinese allowed? In the big picture, Chinese are the majority of the world population.

They don't mean the words literally. As you point out, there's no consistent and clear definition. What the ml5.js license actually means is that the creators will harass --- at first socially, then maybe legally --- members of their political outgroup who use their software. It's not conduct they're prohibiting, but aid and comfort to the enemy tribe.

That’s working as intended. They don’t want to prevent discrimination, they want to stop discrimination against groups they like.

It's such a silly Americanized view. With they would leave that crap out of everything they touch and just write software.

> Chinese are the majority of the world population.

No, they are roughly 1/5th of it.

True they are not majority by being over 1/2 population but they are majority in the sense of greater quantity or share.

Population by Country China 18.47% India 17.70% USA 4.25%

I could take your argument and use it to say that Christians are not the majority even though they are 31.11% if looking at the religious population size.

By mostly my point was to highlight that you can spin and manipulate the CoC however you want, thus leaving the CoC Steering Committee either over worked trying to enforce the CoC of using selective enforcement where they only go after "bad" people.

Also: >(Do Not)Use ml5.js to build tools to disingenuously manipulate public opinion

Would ingenuous manipulation be acceptable? https://www.wordnik.com/words/ingenuous adjective Of honorable extraction; freeborn; noble.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So is fairness and justice I fear.

The word you want is "plurality" not "majority"

roenxi wrote "Restricting software use to only people approved by the creators is a terrible idea." which you apparently interpreted "people approved" as people who marginalize or mislead others. Which shows your bias and dramatically misses the point. You would allow the restriction of software based on subjective measures like "misleading the public" and "marginalize people". Would you ban the CDC and the WHO? They have mislead the public. Would you ban twitter, they have marginalized conservative opinions. The open expression of thought increases human knowledge and prevents groupthink. You don't have to agree with everything you hear or read. In fact you shouldn't, but you should be fore open expression and you should gain the skills to counter the speech you disagree with logically instead of simply attempting to silence others.

presumably the same one where freedom of speech is valued because the people empowered to make decisions for others about what is right or wrong can be wrong.

Copyright already empowers the creator of the software to do this. Licenses are a loosening of the built-in restriction.

One perspective is that entities which want to do bad things with software will find a way, even if it means writing it themselves or buying it. Trying to build protections against that into the license will create a heavy enforcement burden and provide a point of compromise that could be used to target unpopular or inconvenient, but not "bad", users of the software. Making a free license deliberately allows the possibility that the software could be used for bad purposes.

because some people should be marginalized less than others.