by trod1234 | 2025-05-02 15:08:23+00:00
I disagree, and the fact that you can't see this is wrong, and ethically dubious is the most important part of the problem. This is blindness, and worse it is a willful blindness.

I wasn't even aware that you had reached out directly where the author made themselves clear. The license doesn't supersede the authors words.

When there's a contradiction, you take the authors words and intent first, the same as any hierarchical set of documents. The authors words will be far more detailed than any license, and the social contract comes first so everyone can continue receiving benefit under it. There are edge cases, this isn't one of them.

By focusing on the license to the exclusion of all else, you pigeonhole the only actions that can be taken so the only alternative is to not provide any solutions, and in the process taking the authors work. This acts towards eliminating the social contract through destructive interference, towards not providing the benefits you enjoy under the social contract while you at the same time breaking it. This can't last forever, and while this is a minor example, it speaks to the much greater issue.

There isn't nuance that allows for you to do what you did. Its not a court of law that you can get to argue false justification, its a simple ethical question that includes the authors intent which you exclude, and the license, which you dissemble on.

There are things you can do that can't be forced by society, but the social contract has never been about forcing people. As you say its been about freeing people to act towards the benefit and survival of others.

Part of this is the important choice to know when you should not do something because it breaks that contract and incentivizes destructive outcomes. This is where ethics and reasoning following Method come in. You aren't following Method or Logic here, you follow fallacy.

> If the author truly intends their software to be used a certain way ...

The law is not perfect, and in fact many places the rule of law has failed following similar degradation in reasoning that you follow here, which has become known as judicial activism. I've already said what happens generically, so you've been warned even if you don't see it.

The true nature of evil is in the blindness it induces in self and others so they can adopt evil without resistance. I'm not saying you are evil, but this is a very slippery slope that you don't even realize you are on when you've become blind.

To become blind, you have to make a willful choice to be blind at some point through repeated action, and the nature of perception and your subconscious forces you to ignore anything to the contrary after that, you made the choice to not see, this is a basic psychological bias. Negligence is sufficient to consider intent when there is loss, and the loss here while quite subjective scales over time, having enabled others to undermine the authors' works.

We have many psychological blindspots as members of humanity, which is why in many religions they cover behaviors that help avoid adoption of destructive behaviors through those blindspots, and objective tests to know when (in Christianity a part of this is in the 7 virtues, and 7 sins). This has a lot of nuance that few read into.

Wrath for example is the loss of rationality, flawed reasoning meets that definition as a deadly sin when its to the exclusion of all else (i.e. blind).

Complacency, is sloth, most of the rest are primal desires towards destructive ends. You get the idea.

There are those that may claim to embrace these things but have blinded themselves so they don't know when they break them. You generally can't be good in the long run, if you are blind to the bad you do in the short.

You appear to have no resistance to breaking the contract. This is a perceptual blindness, and it disadvantages you, and it disadvantages those who you might induce to do the same, whether it be as a role-model from proximity or otherwise.

> I'm not going to try and argue about what the author "wants", ..., but is not expressed fully.

The author's intent is expressed to sufficient degree that choices can be made to either follow the authors intent if you use their work, or not. Its not a novel construction, so you can build it yourself on your own and then do whatever you want with that creation, that would be the right path to be ethical about this.

You don't seem to make the right choice here. This discussion is irrespective of the subjective definition of what individuals consider open source is. This is a cop out. The author published their expectations, you either follow them or you don't, and undermining those expectations is on the side of you choosing you don't.