'Don't-be-evil' Google spurns no-evil software

Google, the company that made "don't be evil" its corporate motto, IBM Laptop Battery is shunning use of an open-source license variation that precludes use of software for evil purposes. The matter illustrates the tensions between the sometimes free-wheeling ways of open-source programming world and the buttoned-down corporate realms where open-source software is no longer unusual. This particular issue bubbled up at Google Code,IBM ThinkPad R40 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R32 Battery, IBM 02K6928 Battery, a site that hosts open-source projects from Google and others. When he wrote JSMin, Douglas Crockford added this line to the open-source MIT License. (Credit: Douglas Crockford) Google only permits software governed by a limited list of widely used open-source licenses to be hosted at Google Code; one that's permitted is the MIT License. Douglas Crockford picked a variation of the MIT license for his JSMin program to shrink JavaScript programs so that Web browsers can download them faster, and Ryan Grove carried that license over for his variation called JSMin-PHP rewritten in the PHP language. JSMin-PHP had been hosted at Google Code until earlier in December, when it came to the attention of Chris DiBona, Google's open-source honcho, that the software's license had an extra requirement added to the regular MIT License: "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." "As Google (and some others) interpret it,IBM ThinkPad R40 Battery, this additional requirement constitutes a vague use restriction and thus makes the license non-free. Chris [DiBona] explained that if I were to remove that line from the license and 'return to a proper open source license that we support,' then jsmin-php could stay on Google Code. Otherwise, he said, 'we can't host you,'" Grove said on his blog. "Of course, I can't change the license, because it's not my license. It's Douglas's license...All derivative works and copies of jsmin.c either include this license or are in violation of it." Consequently, Grove moved JSMin-PHP to the GitHub collaborative programming site. "If you currently have a project on Google Code that is derived from or includes jsmin.c, you might want to consider migrating to a new host with less restrictive policies," Grove added. How did this all come about? According to a July speech by Crockford,IBM ThinkPad R40 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R32 Battery, IBM 02K6928 Battery, who works for Yahoo and describes himself as a heretic, the license was an artifact of the George Bush administration's war on "evildoers." He uses the licenses for all the projects he's created, he said. "This was late in 2002, we'd just started the war on terror, and we were going after the evildoers with the president and the vice president, and I felt like I need to do my part," he joked. "So I added one more line to my license, which was that 'the software shall be used for good, not evil.'" "About once a year I'll get a letter from a crank who says, 'I should have a right to use it for evil! I'm not going to use it until you change your license.' laptop  Battery, Or they'll write to me and say: 'How do I know if it's evil or not? I don't think it's evil, but someone else might think it's evil, so I'm not going to use it,'" Crockford said. His conclusion: "My license works, I'm stopping the evildoers."