[Stratoscope]

Several comments mention the "Software shall be used for Good, not Evil" licensing issue in the JSON code from json.org.

The original json.js file from json.org had this copyright and license:

  Copyright (c) 2005 JSON.org
  
  Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
  of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
  in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
  to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
  copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
  furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
  
  The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.
  
  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
  IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
  FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
  AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
  LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
  OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
  SOFTWARE.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060226161035/http://www.json.or...

This was a standard MIT license with one change:

"This license uses the Expat [MIT] license as a base, but adds a clause mandating: “The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.” This is a restriction on usage and thus conflicts with freedom 0. The restriction might be unenforcible [sic], but we cannot presume that. Thus, the license is nonfree."

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON

However, the current versions of json.js and json2.js on GitHub contain only this public domain dedication and disclaimer:

  Public Domain.

  NO WARRANTY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js/blob/master/json...

So it's no longer an issue. You can feel free to use json2.js for good or evil.

[tedivm]

You mean Douglas Crockford broke down and gave into the "pro-evil fanatics"?

For context, after Mr. Crockford gave IBM permission to use the license without the clause a few open source projects (mine included), also asked, and Mr. Crockford's response was a bit over the top-

> I released to free use for all with the only condition that it not be used for evil. If that is unacceptable to you, then you may not use it. Your options are to bend to the pro-evil fanatics, or to find a more reasonable hosting solution.

It's nice to see he's become a bit more reasonable.

[MichaelGG]

"Pro-evil"? Wow. Is it so hard for people to realise the problem is the potential interpretation of "evil" is very open ended?

[flatline]

I suspect that quite a few people wanted to use it for projects that had a high likelihood of being considered "evil" by some people, so while the licensing restriction is ridiculous, I wonder if it didn't actually serve its intended purpose? (I'm thinking DoD/intel stuff primarily).

[tedivm]

It's not just a matter of being ridiculous, it's a matter of being unenforceable and impossible to comply with. If I created an open source project that used a "no evil" library then how am I supposed to restrict the actions of my users? How do we even define "evil" (which has no legal definition)?

That last bit is the tough one. Some people define homosexuality as evil, others define it with things like women going to school. DC obviously isn't that extreme, but he's using a term in a legal setting that can be defined by different people in completely different ways. This makes it so no business can use this code, and even things like open source projects should be extremely weary.

What this essentially did was allow Douglas Crockford to claim that he open sourced his code while actually keeping it closed and forcing people to go through him if they actually wanted to legally use it. While I'm sure plenty of people use it regardless, there's nothing preventing DC from simply stepping in and forcing them to stop. If he had used a real open source license that would be impossible, but as it stands all he has to do is walk over and say "I consider that evil" and you need to rip his library out.

This isn't just hypothetical. I had to remove code from an open source project because of this. It's why I wrote JShrink, as an open source replacement for the JSMin libary. https://github.com/tedivm/JShrink

[rogerbinns]

As Richelieu said "Give me six lines written by the most honourable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him."

I pay US taxes and the US government kills people around the world. They also subsidise farmers which puts others around the world at a disadvantage contributing to poorer economic circumstances for them. The US incarcerates a large number of people. If the project benefited me or anyone else paying US taxes, then hasn't it benefited the US government, and hence evil?

[sneak]

I moved far away from family and friends to stop paying US taxes for exactly these reasons.

Vote with your tax dollars.

[calinet6]

I believe that's quite the point. It makes you actually question whether what you're doing could possibly be construed as evil. Ridiculous, yes, and legally troubling, but thought provoking for sure.

[MichaelGG]

Not really thought provoking at all. Just opens legal issues as anyone can construe anything as evil. It's not like moral relativism is anything special or novel or needed to be brought into a software license.

As others have pointed out, this is just the license on one implementation, not the spec, so it's not really as big a deal.

[mikeash]

I don't know how thought provoking it really is. It's so general, and the range of human opinion is so vast, that it could cover almost anything. For some people, typing up this comment on a fairly power-hungry computer, in an area where most of the electricity comes from burning coal, could be considered evil. Sitting here could be evil. Not sitting here could be evil.

[jlgreco]

No, I think people understand that. They just don't care, and find it amusing that other people do care/must care.

Consider it an "anti-'people who take licensing seriously' license".

[MichaelGG]

Yeah, people trying to comply with laws are just hilarious. Sigh.

[jlgreco]

You can't please everybody (particularly when you are having a laugh at somebody's expense.)

[Stratoscope]

That was a million dollar laugh.

Yes, a million dollars.

We have testimony in this very thread from tedivm who had to rewrite JSMin because of this laugh. That has to have been a multi-thousand-dollar project right there.

Think about the time IBM alone spent on this issue. Developers, managers, lawyers. Five grand? Easily. Maybe more.

Play out this scenario a few hundred times across the globe, and there's your million dollars.

The problem is, when you have a laugh at somebody's expense, it isn't free. It comes at somebody's expense.

And ultimately the laugh wasn't worth a penny, because the license was finally changed to a true open source (public domain) license.

[squirrel]

I actually enjoyed going to my boss at TIM Group (financial services software, in the City of London) and asking him whether he was comfortable asserting in our open-source audit that we did Good rather than Evil. He thought for a moment - and knowing him, he really did think about it - and then opined that he was, indeed, comfortable that we were doing Good. We proceeded to use JSON happily for years.

[Stratoscope]

That is the best Good vs. Evil story of all!

[jmulho]

That's great news. It has been a major inconvenience to remember to use XML in all of my evil applications.

[alexhawdon]

I switched a few of mine to JSON but the clients complained that this undermined the final deliverable. I was forced to switch back.

[troels]

I suppose it explains how SOAP came about ...

[mikeryan]

You can feel free to use json2.js for good or evil.

The NSA breathes a sigh of relief.