But who defines 'evil'? A hellfire missile kills, and maybe your stance is that killing is evil full stop (this is purely hypothetical - I have no idea what your views actually are) but maybe someone else thinks that firing missiles at an invasive force to their country is 'Good' and the killing is in this case justified.
There's an interview with Gen. Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47, where he's asked, is he ashamed of creating something that killed so many people? He replies, he created it to defend his country and his people from Fascists and he was proud of having done so.
As for the terrorist thing, it's a terrorist from your point of view. Eg. Israel bombing an UN school full of children was not seen as a terrorism, .... [Disclosure: I'm neither Israelite neither Islamic, neither at the side of UN, so neither from Iraqi.] Let's not talk about this "shit" in HN, sorry for going offtopic.
As for the license statement, it is there beacuase he wants to. Have you ever thought that he may want that giant corporates don't use his code without permission first.
A clear example of this it's the main story of this discussion and the response by tlrobinson.
EDIT: The startups don't have this problem. Big corporations do.
The example was a contrived one to illustrate my point. While I understand that the license statement is there because he doesn't want "giant corporates" to use it without permission, those kinds of licenses are in general hurtful. We only take this lightly because we trust that the author is a good person. The author could however easily take any corporation, startup or not, to court because just as you say – good is a point of view. It is unlikely that any judge would take it seriously but because there's (probably) no precedent it can still be a very large hassle for a small company, forcing them to hire lawyers and avert them from their core business.
These kinds of "licenses" are more likely hurtful to startups than large corporations.
The startups don't have this problem. Big corporations do.
What makes you say that this is not a problem for startups? Is it because you think startups are too small to profitably take to court and thus can safely ignore software licenses, or because you think that somehow companies below a certain size are incapable of evil?
Neither of them, all of them. Small companies, such as startups, are more concerned about creation: the team is strictly small, and it's fast responsive. Big companies have more bureaucratic practices and processes, and no one wants responsibility, there's more talk than getting things done.
"Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
- Ambrose Bierce
I wouldn't want to work with a company unconcerned about anything but creating things. Building cool stuff is awesome, but a company ignoring licensing issues isn't going to get very far. Regardless of that, I'm also an open source developer, and I don't take kindly to companies -- small or large -- who think OSS licensing restrictions don't matter.
> "Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility." - Ambrose Bierce
That quote is good for a laugh, but a lot of people actually believe that without thinking it through entirely. Corporations exist to limit legal liability to the corporation itself: So if a group of 10 people get together to do something, they can form a corporation, and the people won't lose their personal possessions if something goes wrong on the corporate level. Meanwhile, anyone who does business with the corporation is informed it's a corporation - in order to keep the legal protections of a corporation, the corporation must explicitly identify itself with markings of "Inc", "Co", "Corp", "Incorporated", or so on. When an officer of the corporation signs a document, he signs it as, "His Name, Pres." instead of just his name - indicating that he's signing in his officer role, not personally. People who do business with the corporation understand that if something goes wrong, they can sue the corporation, but not the individuals who invested in it and its employees, unless the people did something wrong as individuals as well.
Some people think this is a bad thing, but they ignore what happens if you didn't have them. If corporation limited liability wasn't available, established people would be muc more hesitant to go into a dangerous line of business for fear of losing what they already have. So you wouldn't have the most talented and established businessmen managing and investing in dangerous work like long distance shipping, mining, drilling, etc. Fields that are particularly dangerous would be populated only by people with nothing to lose - a scary proposition.
Actually, personally, I think the ideal is to make corporate limited liability weaker at the same time as generally having courts hold people liable less often. Currently, if you slip on ice in front of a business, you've got a decent chance of winning a lawsuit which is crazy. Spilling hot coffee. Etc. Reducing liability and generally admitting that "bad stuff happens and isn't always someone's fault" while simultaneously holding individuals more accountable when they actually do wrong would probably be the best legal mix. But, if you want lots of liability and broad judicial jurisdiction, you absolutely need to have limited liability in order to allow the most experienced people to get involved in dangerous and important fields without risking everything they already have.
As a practical matter I agree, but I think part of the general cynicism about corporations is that the Bierce definition so often seems appropriate. Even when a corporation is egregiously at fault in some matter, it's extremely rare to have the corporate charter revoked and the assets sold off. Sure, the shareholders could just go and form another corporation to do the exact same thing, but it would be massive inconvenient and thus serve as a deterrent from gross malfeasance.
As many others have pointed out, "good" and "evil" are completely subjective. And judging from your naitivity, I am quite sure that even you and I would have differing interpretations. I believe a Hellfire missile can, in fact, be used for "good". The clause is obviously worthless.
If that was the goal then they could simply add a provision that the code could not be used in any military projects or projects by military subcontractors. That would also be a lot easier to uphold in court than trying to define 'evil'.
