The Hippocratic License

firstdonoharm.dev

1 pointmthwl2 comments

This has been posted to HN a handful of times, mostly either ignored or criticized.

I’m posting it again in the hopes of fostering a discussion around the idea. Could something like this actually work?

What would it look like? Is the idea of defining harm so difficult and transient that it would always be a failure?

The underlying idea of a license that prevents people from doing things with the software that are deemed to be unethical is fundamentally flawed. Any such license would only apply to situations where the licensee does something with the software that is considered unethical by the licensor, but is not actually illegal per se. In that case, the worst thing that the licensor would be able to do according to the terms of the license is make you go through an arbitration process and try to revoke your license. They can't put you in jail or stop you from using some replacement to do the same thing.

This license is a fool's attempt to police people. There is a lot of hubris in believing that it is possible to prevent human rights violations using a software license. In reality, the responsibility to administer justice is the responsibility of the legal system and the actual police. The only thing this license does is give its authors a false sense of importance.

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