Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Tension between Open Source and Excluding “Bad Guys”

  • Many argue that if you restrict who can use the software, it’s no longer open source or free software under existing definitions; it becomes “source-available” or proprietary.
  • Several comments say the author’s real choice is between staying truly open (anyone can use it) or going closed/proprietary and hand‑picking licensees.

Defining “Evil” and Legal Ambiguity

  • Repeated concern that “evil”, “bad guys”, or political criteria are impossible to define clearly enough for a license.
  • Past attempts (e.g., “for good, not evil” style clauses, Hippocratic-style licenses) are cited as unenforceable, risky, and incompatible with OSI/FSF definitions.
  • Worry that shifting norms this way opens the door to any ideological license, including ones many would find abhorrent.

Enforcement and Real-World Effectiveness

  • Even strong, standard licenses like GPL/AGPL are frequently violated and costly to enforce; most maintainers lack time and money to sue.
  • “Bad guys” (or the worst actors) are seen as least likely to respect licenses; restrictions mainly deter cautious, law‑abiding, or corporate users.
  • Some suggest copyleft (GPL/AGPL) as a “poison pill” for big companies, but acknowledge it doesn’t block harmful uses, only forces source sharing.

Impact on Adoption and Ecosystem

  • Nonstandard or moralized licenses are seen as “poison pills”: corporate legal teams will simply ban them; open‑source projects avoid them due to incompatibility and uncertainty.
  • Expectation that useful projects with restrictive licenses will be forked under freer terms or reimplemented, and the original will be sidelined.
  • Concerns about fragmentation: many incompatible “ethical” licenses would break the current shared ecosystem.

Alternative Responses and Values

  • Suggestions:
    • Use standard noncommercial or source‑available licenses if you accept losing OSS status.
    • Keep code closed and license selectively.
    • Use GPL/AGPL to at least constrain proprietary enclosure.
    • Design software so it’s more useful for “good” use cases than for harmful ones.
  • Some frame open source as a gift to humanity: once released, you must accept that both good and bad actors benefit, and fight “evil” via politics, regulation, or organizing, not via software licenses.