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Comment by maxdeliso | Hacker News Reader

The amount of engineering rigor that has gone into sqlite over the years boggles the mind. It's a project that has been held up as a sterling example of successful software development many times, rightfully so. I especially like this part of their license, from the top of sqlite3.h

"The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing: May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give."

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It really is rock solid, heres an outline of their testing: http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html

It was originally designed to run on guided missile destroyers in the US Navy. Not sure if it was ever used for that, but it explains the scrupulous attention to testing.

> It was originally designed to run on guided missile destroyers in the US Navy.

Wouldn't that be in contrast to the license?

That would be in contrast to the blessing, not the license.

It wouldn't be in contrast to anything. Destroying a guided missile is probably an act of self defence, hence likely to be considered good by the author.

No. A "guided missile destroyer" is a type of ship that sends out guided missiles to hit targets, not the other way around.

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyer

It was not intended for the weapons system, which is a completely different beasts. There are many other things for a destroyer (which is a type of ship) to do. Good discussion here: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1eyfk0/til_sqli....

If you are building a guided missle or the destroyer it launches from, you are doing so because you believe it to be good and not evil to have a strong military defense. And the best defense is a good offense or something like that, I don't really follow sports.

I dunno ... sharing frequently, never taking more than you give ... could be describing some kind of firefight ;)

Replying to myself, there is a good discussion on Reddit about what that actually meant: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1eyfk0/til_sqli....

Unfortunately the FSF holds the view that a clause like that makes software "non-free". See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#JSON

SQLite doesn't _mandate_ "do no evil".

Interesting, although the FSF example uses "shall", not "may". A lawyer might argue that only the prior is binding.

It's a blessing, not an obligation or a demand or a condition of use.

Unlike the JSON license clause "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil", the SQLite blessing doesn't put any restriction on your "freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)" or on any of the other freedoms listed by the FSF.

It's no different from putting this in a library:

# This work is dedicated to the public domain.

# I hope you enjoy using it!

No one could argue that if you didn't enjoy using the library (maybe the API is a confusing mess) you would somehow be in violation of the license.

p.s. I upvoted your comment because I think you raised an interesting point!

> It's a blessing, not an obligation or a demand or a condition of use.

That's how we interpret it. The problem is that we don't know what the rights-holder has in mind, and what that entity's willing to sue over.

Lawyers can be comically risk-averse. Comical, that is, until you see the kinds of things people actually sue over.

Don't overthink it:

https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html

See this 3 minute presentation fragment about the "Do not use JSLint for Evil" license clause: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCimLnIsDA

It's so idiotic. Who of those who do evil in my view, do agree that what they are doing is evil?

The quote explicitly "disclaims copyright" and includes the blessing "in place of a legal notice". It would be truly absurd even for a lawyer to believe that the blessing constitutes a copyright license anyway.

> That's how we interpret it.

No. That follows from the fact that the author gives up copyright. No copyright -> no license terms.

The FSF has a very narrow definition of freedom.

I wouldn't call this license free either. In many jurisdictions there is no concept of "public domain", in some you cannot even disclaim copyright at all. In those cases the work would be under copyright still, and in absence of a license permitting you to copy and change and distribute it, you can't (theoretically. no one's going to sue you).

I'm not calling this license free. I'm just pointing out that the FSF's definition of free is a very specific one of many.

The copyright page mentions that they will provide a commercial license through their employer if requested.

Fortunately we have the freedom to not care about what FSF thinks.

Fine, but the FSF doesn’t think that SQLite is non-free software http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/SQLite#tab=Overview

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