Bug#579796: ITP: othman -- electronic Quran browser in Python
On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 11:18:34PM +0300, أحمد المحمودي wrote:
> * Package name : othman
> Description : electronic Quran browser
> * URL : http://othman.ojuba.org
> * License : Waqf Public License
http://www.ojuba.org/wiki/waqf/license
While I do like the preamble of the license (putting aside religion and
anti-Americanism), the body does include significant usage restrictions:
# The user may use the work for any good purpose and he may not use it to
# harm others or violate the permissive principles of Islam.
"Harm others" is a vague term that can be applied to a wide range of
activities usually considered ok[1]. Most of these seem to be irrelevant to
a Quran browser[2], unless you consider criticizing Islam to be "harming".
"Violate the permissive principles of Islam" seems to forbid using this
browser to search for, or refer to, lines of Quran which are harmful from
whatever side of view. This is a legitimate use of this package. This
fails the DFSG, unless we interpret the phrase "permissive principles" as
limited to only those parts of Islam which grant some kind of permission
rather than forbid something. Since religions (and laws in general) operate
by restricting things, being unable to actually grant something not
otherwise possible without that religion/law, such an interpretation doesn't
appear to make much sense, though.
Also, this comment mentions issues found by Fedora guys:
} 2009/11/14 21:21 هشام هواري,
} السلام عليكم و رحمة الله تعالى و بركاته،
} Before trying to submit hijra, I exposed this license to #fedora-devel on
} irc, and it was seen as being non-free, the reason is this excerpt : “The
} user may use the work for any good purpose and he may not use it to harm
} others or violate the permissive principles of Islam. Notice that any
} work that is most likely harmful can't be put under Waqf in the first place”
} The definition of “good” must be clear.
} I hope that you will take that into consideration.
} في أمان الله
} و السلام عليكم و رحمة الله تعالى و بركاته
[2]. Even if a restriction seems to be moot for the intended use, one of key
Free Software freedoms is being able to repurpose the program in question
for anything else, including taking small pieces of code for use in totally
unrelated software.
[1]. Examples of "harming others" being generally ok:
* any piece of software used in a company that builds a highway that would
relieve the traffic in a large city, but to build the highway, you need to
remove a single house. Obviously, that house's dweller will be harmed
even if he receives generous compensation due to childhood memories and
other such considerations.
* anything used during an audit that exposes a slacker, embezzler, terrorist
or fraudster. The person caught will be obviously harmed, even if he
intended harm himself. In fact, during a war or most struggles, you can't
even undisputably name one side as "good" and the other as "evil". Heck,
this includes even disputes between neighbours about a flower on the hedge
between their houses.
* use in a nuclear power plant. While many, including me, consider those to
be nearly strictly better, cleaner and safer than coal plants, there are
many which consider these to be outright evil. In fact, we have seen
multiple software licenses which disallowed any such use for "moral"
grounds as opposed to merely not risking standing afoul of some unnamed
regulation.
--
1KB // Microsoft corollary to Hanlon's razor:
// Never attribute to stupidity what can be
// adequately explained by malice.
Reply to: