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For example, Apache’s Hadoop is being used oil and gas companies to help them operate more profitably at a time when they should be shutting their doors so we can avert a climate disaster.

For example, Apache’s Hadoop is being used by oil and gas companies to help them operate more profitably at a time when they should be shutting their doors so we can avert a climate disaster.

Our licensee would prevent people from using our software for (among other things) taking action that is known to ruin the state of the planet for future generations, exploiting slave labour, promoting racism, or hacking behavioural psychology to make people waste loads of their life clicking ads.

Our license would prevent people from using our software for (among other things) taking action that is known to ruin the state of the planet for future generations, exploiting slave labour, promoting racism, or hacking behavioural psychology to make people waste loads of their life clicking ads.

I work for a company with a mandate to develop software products for progressive charities. We’ve recently created some libraries that we wanted to open source and, like the OP, we weren’t satisfied with the licenses that we could find.

Many of the objections I've read are related to the enforceability of such a license, but I would argue that the purpose of an ethical license is not to enforce it in a court. In fact, most legal documents you really don't want to be testing in court - it's expensive and painful. Yes, you should make them clear and unambiguous, but most people don't draft documents with the primary goal being to take the other party to court.

Our lawmakers are, unfortunately, among the slowest to move when it comes to responding to changing social norms, let alone technology. For starters, it’s 2018 and there are still products on our shelves that are made by actual slaves.

The JWL would prevent people from using our software for (among other things) taking action that is known to ruin the state of the planet for future generations, exploiting slave labour, promoting racism, or hacking behavioural psychology to make people waste loads of their life clicking ads.

I’m not going to kid myself that by placing the small libraries I've released off limits is going to materially inhibit big evil corporations, but what if bigger projects did?

If the Apache Foundation determined that such uses did not fall within the public benefit that their mission envisions for their resource and decided to codify that in their license, the companies would have to turn to something else, maybe an expensive proprietary solution. This drag on the bottom line of a company that harms our future would be a good thing.

I work for a company with a mandate to develop software products for progressive charities. We created some libraries that we wanted to open source and, like the OP, we weren’t satisfied with the licenses that we could find.

Many of the objections I've read are related to the enforceability of such a license, but I would argue that the purpose of an ethical license is not to enforce it in a court. In fact, most legal documents you really don't want to be testing in court - it's expensive and painful. Yes, you should make them clear and unambiguous, but most people don't draft legal documents with the primary goal being to take the other party to court.

Our lawmakers are, unfortunately, among the slowest to move when it comes to responding to changing social norms, let alone technology. For starters, it’s 2018 and there are still products on shelves that are made by actual slaves.

Our licensee would prevent people from using our software for (among other things) taking action that is known to ruin the state of the planet for future generations, exploiting slave labour, promoting racism, or hacking behavioural psychology to make people waste loads of their life clicking ads.

I’m not going to kid myself that placing the small libraries I've released off limits is going to materially inhibit big evil corporations, but what if bigger projects did?

If the Apache Foundation determined that such uses did not fall within the public benefit that their mission envisions for their resources and decided to codify that in their license, the companies would have to turn to something else, maybe an expensive proprietary solution. This drag on the bottom line of a company that harms our future would be a good thing.