PETA Creates New Animal-Friendly Software License

Anders writes "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the largest animal rights organization in the world, endorse a new FLOSS license. From the article: 'The Harm-Less Permissive License (HPL) is a permissive, non copyleft, software license. It is based on the FreeBSD license but with one additional restriction; the "harm-less" clause. It prevents software, licensed under the HPL, to be used for harming humans or animals.'" I guess this leaves the bunny-fueled power plant in Stockholm out in the cold.

Comments

I like PETA but....

[Improv]

I don't think PETA should be wading into the waters of making a new license - the mess they make in doing so is not worth the negligible benefit for the cause of animal welfare they're trying to serve.

If we had a time machine and could hop back in time to make initial versions of the GPL involve a broader cultural conscience, *maybe* this kind of thing would be appropriate, but it's too late now and adding another license that's likely to be incompatible with the GPL means that this is the license equivalent of "straight to videocasette".

Define 'Harm'

[MozeeToby]

I'm reminded of Asimov's 0th law of robotics, "A robot may not harm humanity or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm". Hunting deer, for instance, certainly harms the deer that are killed but in many areas the natural predators have been all but wiped out and not hunting would lead to massive overpopulation. Eventually causing much more harm to both the animals not being hunted and to the ecosystem in general.

So, what is 'harm'? Is a nuclear power plant harmful to humans or animals? Is a prison harmful to humans or helpful? How about a nuclear power plant? How about a video game that depicts the harming of humans or animals?

Re:FLOSS software?

[Tiger4]

PETA is anti-free all on their own. By definition, they want to people to either voluntarily, or by restriction of law, to behave in their version of "Ethical" or face serious consequences. Most reasonable people oppose animal cruelty and torture. But PETA's definition and most everyone else's are far different things, as in No pets, No work animals, Veganism for all.

It is a silly, shabby, and soon to be ineffective ploy for attention whoring.