On Wednesday, 21 August 2019 22:07:28 CEST Michael Downey wrote: > Hi all, > > On Wed, Aug 21, 2019, at 12:22, Howard Chu wrote: > > Article 27: > > (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life > > of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific > > advancement and its benefits. > > (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material > > interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic > > production of which he is > > the author. > > Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was mentioned, I thought it > would be an important reminder that FLOSS software is often used by > marginalized groups in humanitarian relief contexts who are under threat of > political and other violence. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that > requiring those folks to publicly disclose their use of the software (via > forced disclosure of private modifications) could put their safety in > jeopardy.
That's a good point and I don't believe a license restricting private modifications would be a good fit for every type of software. I just think there are some sensible use cases, such as compilers, cryptography libraries, etc, where I don't think this is very likely to apply (though naturally every initial author would need to consider that for themselves in their particular case). > > Yes, as the creator of a work, you could certainly put any kinds of > restrictions you like on others' use of your work. But it seems contrary to > the OSD, and in $dayjob we certainly wouldn't encourage those restrictions > on any type of globally-beneficial FLOSS public good that could be used in > the contexts I describe above. I think it's important to distinguish between use of the software and creation of private derivative works. I've no interest in any restriction of the former. > > Appreciate the fascinating discussion. > > Michael Downey > DIAL Open Source Center > United Nations Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > License-discuss mailing list > License-discuss@lists.opensource.org > http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensourc > e.org _______________________________________________ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
