Cатсн²² (in)sесuяitу / ChrisJohnRiley

Because we're damned if we do, and we're damned if we don't!

{Quick Post} DBAD License

1 Comment Posted by on October 1, 2012

In one of the many weird and wonderful hallway track conversations at this years BruCON conference, the topic of licensing came up. Not usually a wonderful topic, but something that seems to be a bit of a hot topic on a few fronts currently. As I’d just done some quick research on licenses for the Scythe framework, I thought back to the decisions I made on how and what my code could be used for. I wanted to make it as free as possible, but still retain some control over things. One thing I couldn’t control though was abusive companies using the software. Making something free for all to use means it’s free for ALL to use… not just the great people you meet at cons, be also the bad apples of the industry that continue to give us all a bad name.

This bought up a thought in my head, and despite that fact that people will poke holes in it, I wanted to share it with you before It drifts from my mind.

The basics are as follows. An addition that can be appended to any supporting license to add a single additional stipulation. That stipulation being that people listed on the Attrition.org charlatan list are not permitted to use the software. I’m no lawyer, but something like the following wording seems like it would make sense:

DBAD Clause

Redistribution, and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted only to people or organizations not currently listed on the Attrition.org Charlatans list. An up to date version of this list can be found on the Arrition.org website at the following URL – http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/

This clause does not affect or alter any other sections of the main license and is used only as an additional clause to a selected licensing scheme.

Feedback from the Twitters was mixed… and I know that licensing (especially amongst the GNU / Free Software community) is a tricky subject!

Yeah, I’m no lawyer… still, it’s a thought 😉

So DBAD… Don’t Be A Dick!

Conference, Security , ,

One response to “{Quick Post} DBAD License”

  1. Vimja October 1, 2012 at 16:34

    I can see why you would want to do something like that.
    But there’s a big problem with that: It infringes points 5 and 6 of the Open Source definition: http://opensource.org/docs/osd making any license that contains such wording incompatible to most (if not all, I’m no lawyer either ;)) Open Source licenses. That’s a very sad thing because it would prevent people from re-using your code.

    P.s. Tim Brown is absolutely right. The Open Source definition is, in fact, derived from Debians free sotware guidelines.

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