Climate-Strike License

Using software covered by a license like this is the legal equivalent of Russian roulette.<p>Without precedence, nobody knows how “The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels.” would be interpreted in any of the thousands of different jurisdictions an online business could be sued in.<p>In the broadest interpretation, almost any business with a large customer base could be found in violation, because some customer has a customer that does something related to oil.<p>So while this license might be well intentioned, it would make any open source project that adopts it toxic to large corporations. That would cut off a lot of potential corporate support, and spawn forks and competing projects. Nothing good will come of this.

See also: the Hippocratic License 2.1 &quot;An Ethical License for Open Source Projects&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;firstdonoharm.dev&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;firstdonoharm.dev&#x2F;</a><p>&quot;prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form from being relicensed to any individual or organization which directly or indirectly facilitates, encourages, manipulates, coerces, or forces people to engage in behaviors that are in conflict with the rights enumerated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.&quot;

Open source software works because it&#x27;s easy to use. Start including limiting clauses and you&#x27;ll need lawyers to figure out what you can and can&#x27;t use. Even then, there&#x27;s still the chance that downstream the package will still end up somewhere you didn&#x27;t intend. Which is why the current model is popular and this isn&#x27;t.

prior art? <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.open-austin.org&#x2F;atmosphere-license&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.open-austin.org&#x2F;atmosphere-license&#x2F;</a><p>The Atmosphere Licenses are open source, copyleft software licenses with fossil fuel divestment provisions.<p>&quot;a similar license that prohibits the redistribution of the software in modified, derivative, or collected work form to any individual or organization that is materially and directly invested in operations or facilities that have significant negative impact on the global climate response, as documented by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.&quot;<p>seems a bit more better worded than the climate strike license:<p>&quot;The Software may not be used in applications and services that are used for or aid in the exploration, extraction, refinement, processing, or transportation of fossil fuels.&quot;

So if I create a library that helps chemists predict how to do something 30% more efficiently, and I license it with this license, refineries won&#x27;t be able to use it, even if they are trying to improve their current processes to make them more eco-friendly...

This is not a free&#x2F;libre software license.

Won&#x27;t these oil and gas companies simply hire their own developers to create software that they need? Doesn&#x27;t that mean lots of development time will go into solving problems other projects have already solved? This seems like it could create competition, but it doesn&#x27;t seem very likely to me that it would ultimately help the environment.<p>Perhaps the awareness it spreads has a greater impact than the rest of it.

I wonder where Stallman lies on this. &#x27;There ought to be a law!!!&#x27; or his actual beliefs.

I can&#x27;t see this post on any of the ranked (default) pages, has it been demoted?

This is a disturbing new trend, open source software is just that, it is open source. Defining who can and can&#x27;t use it goes against the spirit of FOSS.

Prevent oil and gas companies from co-opting your work and extracting more fossil fuels with this software license.

This seems nice on the surface, however I’m not sure it will be enforced at all or easily for that matter.

This reads like a parody of every bad &quot;open source&quot; license.<p>Particularly the list of offending projects. Requests? Sphinx?

Good. I always thought the stuff about letting weapons manufacturers and oil companies etc use OSS was rubbish. May there be many more of these licenses - perhaps ones stipulating gender balanced boards, or forbidding specific tax practices, or banning union busting.<p>I accept my downvotes gladly, because at this point anyone who wants to improve the world has to use any means at their disposal. Props to these people.