(1) discriminating against marginalized communities
What does this mean? I bet I could get several different answers. Old people are marginalized by agism in tech, does this mean tech companies can't use this? How would they prove they don't marginalize old people?
(2) building tools that disingenuously manipulate public opinion
Ditto. To me this means no political party or marketing/advertising department can use this. Probably most news outlets as well.
(3) building tools of mass surveillance and prediction to repress the rights of people
Rights defined by whom? US Constitution? Right not to be offended? Rights granted by the Taliban or ISIS? Communist China?
(4) building tools that control weapons, including tools that automate the deployment, operation, and targeting of weapons.
I think most people can get on board with this one, unless we were attacked in earnest by a strong military foe.
All use of weapons and surveillance is abusive, so what you are saying "we" (who?) want is not something that I find reasonable.
No matter what you think, the authors might disagree, so you have no way of using the software in anything related to it. Worse yet, this can quickly change - the system you built that uses this software in the background might be totally fine to watch a womans shelter, but the license could be pulled any minute because the authors dislike that you also sold your product to a normal prison.
It cuts many ways.
Why? I mean, don't you believe you have a say on who you grant permission to use your intellectual property?
> Also, I think a person has a mortal obligation to allow that their political position is at least partially flawed.
This assertion makes no sense. You should not be forced to help advance anyone's goals when they are diametrically opposite to what you believe in and can be outright hostile towards you and your loved ones.
If the author of some software has a general good-faith position that others should use their software, then the conditions they associate with that software fall on a continuum from "reasonable to "unreasonable".
The MIT license is at the reasonable end. Saying "give me ten million dollars for this ROT13 algorithm" is at the unreasonable end.
When the person you replied to said:
> They can, which doesn't mean they should.
I think they were saying they personally considered the terms of the license at the "unreasonable" end. I don't disagree- saying "you can use this for now, but have to stop immediately if I or anyone I might sell this to say so" seems at least borderline unreasonable.
It certainly isn't "free software", though being wrapped in what is otherwise the Blue Oak license they're kind of hiding their non-free-ness. I think this is where I mostly take issue- it feels like the project is attempting to portray itself as a free software project, when it is not.
The "good-faith position" weasel words only serve to try to fabricate and cast doubt on the morality of a decision on how your work can and should be used, and only because you find it inconvenient. For some reason, your argument completely eliminates the author from the decision process. Do you find that to be fair or in good faith?
Meanwhile, I never saw anyone attack musicians based on "morality" for refusing to authorize the use of their work by specific politicians or specific election campaigns, even when authors only claim personal preferences or even prefering other candidates.
As someone reading through this: Yes. I find that argument both reasonable and fair.
The author is free to ask for compensation up front in exchange for the tool they've built. They can also just simply refuse to license it in the first place.
But a license that I can violate if the author simply changes their mind is quicksand: Nothing of value can be built on it, because it might sink at ANY POINT.
It's literally unusable as a tool.
Where I personally draw the line is something being presented as a "general purpose tool", versus as an exclusive work.
When Stuart Stemple created a pink pigment and granted license to use it to "everyone except Anish Kapoor", I thought it was a great artistic statement, but as a practical matter I think it's unreasonable.
It's the difference between a whitelist and a blacklist. Saying "you can use this if you meet these criteria (e.g. having no criteria, having paid me money, etc)" is okay, but saying "everyone can use this EXCEPT if I decide I don't want you too" is not. In my opinion.
Also, I think a person has a mortal obligation to allow that their political position is at least partially flawed.