Climate-Strike License | Hacker News Reader

Climate-Strike License

github.com

27 pointsartur_makly29 comments

Using software covered by a license like this is the legal equivalent of Russian roulette.

Without precedence, nobody knows how “The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels.” would be interpreted in any of the thousands of different jurisdictions an online business could be sued in.

In the broadest interpretation, almost any business with a large customer base could be found in violation, because some customer has a customer that does something related to oil.

So while this license might be well intentioned, it would make any open source project that adopts it toxic to large corporations. That would cut off a lot of potential corporate support, and spawn forks and competing projects. Nothing good will come of this.

See also: the Hippocratic License 2.1 "An Ethical License for Open Source Projects" https://firstdonoharm.dev/

"prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form from being relicensed to any individual or organization which directly or indirectly facilitates, encourages, manipulates, coerces, or forces people to engage in behaviors that are in conflict with the rights enumerated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

Especially the "indirectly" part is probably something everyone can be guilty of if you search long enough. So, a great license if you want no one to use whatever you write. No idea why you even bother licensing it then, but to each their own.

agreed. The atmosphere license seems to have better wording "...materially and directly invested..."

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits speaking out against the actions of the United Nations (Article 29 paragraph 3), so it is in conflict with itself.

Open source software works because it's easy to use. Start including limiting clauses and you'll need lawyers to figure out what you can and can't use. Even then, there's still the chance that downstream the package will still end up somewhere you didn't intend. Which is why the current model is popular and this isn't.

the intention is not to make it easier for companies to use, it's to put a burden on them. The aim is not to make the software widely used - but ethically used.

> the intention is ... to put a burden on them

Sounds like a great model to get people to use software.

Yes. it is not a model to get people to use it at all!!

I think the aim is not to get as many people to use the software. It's to get certain people not to use it.

It's kind of like comparing a non profit to a for profit business and noticing that the non profit does not have the aim to make more money.

I wouldn't expect any library or application to have this license on to become popular at all. But there might be a use for better worded exclusive licenses somewhere in our world.

Great, now you've killed open source.

Exact text from the MIT variant:

"The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels.

The Software may not be used by companies that rely on fossil fuel extraction as their primary means of revenue. This includes but is not limited to the companies listed at https://climatestrike.software/blocklist"

I am not a trained lawyer but that seems pretty easy to understand to me, and has less ambiguity than some other open-source licenses I've read.

Would you be allowed to use it for a store that sells (gas or coal) grills?

prior art? https://www.open-austin.org/atmosphere-license/

The Atmosphere Licenses are open source, copyleft software licenses with fossil fuel divestment provisions.

"a similar license that prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form to any individual or organization that is materially and directly invested in operations or facilities that have significant negative impact on the global climate response, as documented by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat."

seems a bit more better worded than the climate strike license:

"The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels."

So if I create a library that helps chemists predict how to do something 30% more efficiently, and I license it with this license, refineries won't be able to use it, even if they are trying to improve their current processes to make them more eco-friendly...

Yep, because the point is that at this stage, we are basically screwed if we don't keep oil in the ground. There was a time when we could've focused on efficiency and given ourselves another century. It passed in the 80s or 90s, I expect.

And you wrote that on a device that would not exist without that oil.

This is not a free/libre software license.

Won't these oil and gas companies simply hire their own developers to create software that they need? Doesn't that mean lots of development time will go into solving problems other projects have already solved? This seems like it could create competition, but it doesn't seem very likely to me that it would ultimately help the environment.

Perhaps the awareness it spreads has a greater impact than the rest of it.

I wonder where Stallman lies on this. 'There ought to be a law!!!' or his actual beliefs.

I can't see this post on any of the ranked (default) pages, has it been demoted?

This is a disturbing new trend, open source software is just that, it is open source. Defining who can and can't use it goes against the spirit of FOSS.

Which they adressed in the last paragraph of the linked page:

"Is it an Open Source License?

While the Climate Strike License violates the Open Source Initiative's canonical Open Source Definition, which explicitly excludes licenses that limit re-use "in a specific field of endeavor", we feel that as tech workers, we should take responsibility in how our software is used, and that the urgency of climate change cannot be limited by the ideological position of open source software. Instead, we want adopters of the Climate Strike License to take a bold stance in the fight to save the planet."

Then why even make the license? This is a useless virtue signal. If you want to help solve environmental issues, there are many actual ways besides trying to ban industries from using your FOSS.

"the Climate Strike License violates the Open Source [Initiative]"

So it's not open source.

From the page:

>> Is it an Open Source License? While the Climate Strike License violates the Open Source Initiative's canonical Open Source Definition, which explicitly excludes licenses that limit re-use "in a specific field of endeavor", we feel that as tech workers, we should take responsibility in how our software is used, and that the urgency of climate change cannot be limited by the ideological position of open source software. Instead, we want adopters of the Climate Strike License to take a bold stance in the fight to save the planet.

Prevent oil and gas companies from co-opting your work and extracting more fossil fuels with this software license.

This seems nice on the surface, however I’m not sure it will be enforced at all or easily for that matter.

This reads like a parody of every bad "open source" license.

Particularly the list of offending projects. Requests? Sphinx?

Good. I always thought the stuff about letting weapons manufacturers and oil companies etc use OSS was rubbish. May there be many more of these licenses - perhaps ones stipulating gender balanced boards, or forbidding specific tax practices, or banning union busting.

I accept my downvotes gladly, because at this point anyone who wants to improve the world has to use any means at their disposal. Props to these people.

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