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Using JSLint For Evil

ryantravistate2 HN recommenders · 2013–2023
15K views · talk · evergreen · Uploaded 2011-01-20

A three-minute clip in which Douglas Crockford explains why he allowed the JSLint reference implementation to be used for evil. It recounts the license clause and how corporate lawyers reacted.

Linked in licensing threads as a short, funny story about the 'no evil' clause and IBM's request for an exception.

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6 comments from Hacker News

@rogerbinns2013 · in “Show HN: What do you think of this short End User Licensing Agreement?”

That doesn't work at all if it is the actual wording. For point 1 you can find warranty wording in any number of open source or creative commons licenses. For the second, objectionable requires a definition. For example many would consider the US drone assassination program objectionable, and hence tar US companies and people with the same brush. Does that mean US companies and people can use the software? How many steps do they have to be removed (eg is providing the payroll software to the defense contractor a problem?) [LINK] [VIDEO] Because of copyright laws, people can do virtually nothing with software. If you actually want to give the user freedoms - see [LINK] - then pick a well known free software license since it will have already addressed all these issues.

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@computer2013 · in “How to Corrupt an SQLite Database File”

See this 3 minute presentation fragment about the "Do not use JSLint for Evil" license clause: [VIDEO]

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@SonOfLilit2017 · in “Ask HN: Software licensing excluding military use?”

David Crockford puts a "don't use this for evil" clause in the license for all software he releases, creating some interesting situations: [VIDEO] (2:44 and worth it)

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@tlrobinson2020 · in “Does saying “Fuck You AWS” constitute offensive content?”

This reminds me of Douglas Crockford's classic story about the JSLint license containing a "The software shall be used for Good, not Evil" clause: [VIDEO]

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@easton2021 · in “SQLite Plus: Missing SQLite functions”

That's what I was talking about. Crawford said in a talk he had to make an amended licenses for corporations (namely, IBM), who had lawyers that needed to be able to get around the evil restriction. [VIDEO]

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@btilly2023 · in “In the bad old days we had Punchcards. How did people deal with that?”

When you know that history, IBM asking for an exemption to the JSLint license becomes less funny. Watch [VIDEO] (2 minutes) to hear the story from the developer's point of view. Then consider how many totalitarian states today are using IBM computers to track their population. The developer might not realize it, but IBM lawyers absolutely know that they can be fairly accused of using JSLint for evil.

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