Douglas Crockford: remove the "not evil" clause from your license because it is evil itself

The Issue

Many free software activists are also active for good causes in other areas than software. The non-evil clause costs them time and nerves and distracts them from doing good.

Douglas Crockford uses the MIT free software license with the additional clause:

"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."

This clause makes his software effectively non-free because there is no universally accepted definition of good and evil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil

More details: https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil

Please explain to Crockford, why his reasoning for the license is wrong.

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The Issue

Many free software activists are also active for good causes in other areas than software. The non-evil clause costs them time and nerves and distracts them from doing good.

Douglas Crockford uses the MIT free software license with the additional clause:

"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."

This clause makes his software effectively non-free because there is no universally accepted definition of good and evil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil

More details: https://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil

Please explain to Crockford, why his reasoning for the license is wrong.

The Decision Makers

Douglas Crockford
Douglas Crockford

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Petition created on October 6, 2013