 All right, let's get started with the next debate, which is Short licenses be designed to advance general social goals. We have John Sullivan, Molly de Blanc, James Haseel, Josh Schimmins, Dastry Knoll. So I will give the mic to John Sullivan who's going to start fabulous The first affirmative. Okay But I have a mic, right? I have a mic. It's working. Is this working? I would hand it to you, but it will burn me if I touch it. Let me get my time Yeah, we're live Hello everybody, I'm John Sullivan the executive director and vice president of the free software foundation But like the slide says What I'm saying here has no relation to what I actually think individually or what the FSF thinks I want to say that in the November issue of the FSF Bulletin newsletter I actually wrote an article that starts to try and address some of these topics So if you're looking for what I actually think That's a that's a good place to look, but I very much appreciate this debate format I think it helps me understand other people's feelings perspectives and Positions a lot better. It helps me determine my own positions It helps improve my critical thinking and believe me it that needs a lot of improvement So with all that in mind Molly dash and I stand resolved that yes licenses should be designed to advance general social goals We're discussing this topic because there have been multiple new licenses written Which are largely in the spirit of free software and that they allow much more sharing Modification and use than typical default copyright law allows But they also include provisions seeking to prevent certain harms to society the environment humanity And we're not here to necessarily defend any of the particular licenses or even the idea that the best approach is To tackle these problems through individual separate licenses But I want to run down some quick examples of some of the recent ones and the harms that they're seeking to address Kind of set the stage for what we're talking about So we have the problem of climate change, which as we know will end the planet unless we do something Citation needed sure, but look at the weather outside at Boston. That's not right We all know it The atmosphere license that Lewis mentioned seeks to address this by requiring you to divest certain kinds of Investments and fossil fuels if you want to use the software the precondition Second of all, we have labor exploitation the anti-996 license, which is immensely popular I think it's the number two starred project on github right now Says you cannot use the software unless you comply with good labor standards Which do not include forcing your employees to work 9 a.m. To 9 p.m. 6 days a week licenses are Supposed to ensure that people have freedom while using the software, but can we really say that people being forced to work 72 hours a week? Have the freedom necessary to have the freedom to modify Share distributed software as compared to the people who have power over them who can't in fact use that software To enhance their exploitation over the people. They already have some amount of control over We have vaccines We have infectious diseases. We know they have caused massive amount of death over history That's that's why we have vaccines and why people take them people were refusing to take vaccines Cause other people put other people at risk of dying the vaccine license says you have to get vaccinated And make sure that everybody under your legal control also gets vaccinated before you can use the software The final one example I have is militarization that militaries and police departments are actually using free software to Violate other people's rights and kill them That's not good. So various licenses seek to forbid that specific use of the software or distribution to entities known to engage in that kind of activity We knew we need to be reasonably we need to be alive and we need to be reasonably healthy in Order to have any kind of meaningful freedom when we're interacting with software if we're dead. We don't have software freedom Nor if we're belting or you know drowning from sea level rise We also need to be free in other ways in order to be able to exercise our software freedom And we learned in militaries and we need our police forces to behave ethically in order to have a democratic society to begin with So what we're seeing what these licenses is that is that you know, first of all, they use the law to prevent The software from being used directly for bad things and second of all They're doing things to create incentives or leverage to discourage bad behavior and encourage good behavior You can't use the software unless you act in a certain way. There's beneficial to society And important for avoiding really catastrophic kinds of harm and yes, there are other ways to address these problems. There are laws There's economic incentives are purchasing power boycotts things like that But just because there are other tools doesn't mean we shouldn't use all the tools that we have available Especially when the consequences are so extreme And especially Because we can use multiple things in parallel. They don't compete with each other and in fact people are turning to Software licenses because other kinds of tools are not working or are not working fast enough and Software licenses are something that individuals have very direct control over and also make a very clear statement If you decide not to buy McDonald's does not know that I do not eat a McDonald's. I promise you That is not sending them any kind of message But if I put their name in a software license and they see that then they know exactly what kind of behavior You know, I or another developer is objecting to And let's remember also the companies aren't people they don't have individual rights Because they don't have the accountability that comes with an individual right either and also even when it comes to individuals We accept certain kinds of restrictions on our freedom in the interest of private in the interest of safety and security You can't shout fire in a crowded theater and you can't use my software to destroy the planet These licenses indicate that people who are very interested in the ethics of technology and software Things that are you know at the heart of free software So to tell these new ethical hacker hackers to get off our lawn and go read do that org slash philosophy is Not going to help We should encourage their participation even if we think that it might be imperfect And you know, maybe if we listen instead of talk Then if we're welcoming these social goal licenses will end up being a stepping stone Towards traditional free licenses like some people will argue their creative commons non-commercial licenses are way to get people more accustomed to the idea of Sharing their work more and then eventually they've become more comfortable enough to use fully free licenses And you know sure there might be some problems with this approach the negative team will tell us all about them But I don't think these problems will be a world-ending Or threatening the planet on a global scale and I think the problems that we're talking about actually are So we better try harder and we should use licenses to do it Okay All very very persuasive Hmm The first question that I that I have for you draws on a question that came up a little earlier in the previous discussion Which is How do we handle shifting norms around ethics? Because sometimes ethics shift in a positive direction. Sometimes they regress and that depends on where you are in the world as well If we are to codify ethics in a license How do we how do we make room for the fact that those things are going to drift over time as they are? Yeah, I think that's a fair question But I don't think it's that much different from how we deal with that in our laws You know, and I think that licenses in fact are are more flexible than many other kinds of instruments that try to Address ethical questions, you know religious texts foundational philosophical texts Statutes these things all have to be Revisited and I think that We've had the benefit of living with software licenses free software licenses that have had great staying power and been around for a long time But you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way We could put out a new addition of the GPL ever here That sounds very representative Along those same lines How do we if we are to make room for advancing general social goals through licenses How do we prevent? regressive ethics from from entering those licenses, so So at the license that may be Given the culture that it's created in might restrict reproductive autonomy for instance Well, I think that's kind of similar to the first question and that you know Ethics are their territory for disagreement and we have to have ways to you know have conversations about that and On one hand, you know licenses There's other people will not use them unless they agree with the stances that are taken there So there's kind of the basic democracy aspect and then maybe we have bodies that are responsible for That are ended up being trusted for making decisions about which kinds of provisions are acceptable in licenses And which aren't and the conversations can happen under their umbrella So lastly as we pursue More ethical technology and more just world which are all a lot of goals How do we work against how do we weigh against the unintended? Consequences knowing that there are projects that are built on the foundations of the for freedom in the open-source definition today That are making a dent in these problems. How do we how do we know that? adding ethics to the licenses will not adversely Detract from those efforts that already exist Well, we said we have to I mean that's that's kind of the question about keeping them up to date and revising them I'm so glad to hear that we're ready for GPL before I have some ideas So It has become Fashionable to start this talk with a disclaimer that you know, I don't really believe any of the things I'm about to say I barely mean these words as they come out of my mouth. You cannot hold me to them at any point in time so We've had a lot of Community discussion over the last few months around this question of what is the role of ethics in licenses? what is the right place to locate ethics in our community and Nobody up here and probably nobody in the audience thinks that there is a Reason why we should not have any ethics at all in the work that we do and the question really today is just why would we put them in licenses or why wouldn't we put them in licenses and Our position on this side of the stage Is that the licenses are the wrong place to put the ethics? Because there are better places and putting the ethics in the licenses makes your job harder not easier It's not only less effective than some of these other ways of going about it. It's ineffective So let me talk about that a little bit, right? We have all of these licenses, right? And I know people in this room really care about licenses, but I don't give a shit about licenses I think licenses are kind of stupid. I've spent a lot of time thinking about them I spent a lot of time working on them and I regret every second of it. I Have wasted years of my life thinking about the least consequential end of the free and open source software world Right the magic in the freedom we get is not in the freedom. It's what we do with it It's in the collaboration that we have it's in the people we meet we talk to we work with We get to do things together that are greater than what we could ever do alone and it's not because of licenses We don't really use the licenses Half an hour ago People tried to recite the four freedoms the people on the stage tried to recite the four freedoms It was a lot of uh, I Don't know if I can count that high. I can't recite the four freedoms. I don't know what they are I've read the licenses every time I have a question about them. I have to go back to them Who here has actually read gplv3 all the way through layers? layers All of you put your hands down Even if you did read it, I bet you just skimmed it And I bet you didn't even understand it because it's not written to be comprehensible Right have these licenses. They're like flags that we wave We pointed them we think they we all think we know what they mean But they each mean a different thing to each of us We have no common understanding of what they mean because we never test the damn things We never take them to court. We never litigate them, right? Even when we do it's a quagmire that we just want to get out of as soon as we get in. Sorry, Bradley The whole point of the licenses when we get involved in them is not that we're gonna use them to change the world to make everything better The point of the licenses is to have a common point around which we can gather and start working together And what truly controls the behavior of the people around the licenses is the norms in the communities that cohere around them When we get together We decide in this project the gpl means x in that project the gpl means y and They're different things right people disagree about what these licenses mean and that's okay because in each community where you want to participate You adopt the local definition you adopt the local norms about all kinds of things both what's in the license and what's not Right the the codes of standards of behavior the way people are gonna interact with each other Just the method of getting a pull request into a project. Those are all norms that aren't in the license We enforce those norms By saying if you want to come play with our community if you want to access the value the magic of the collaboration If you want to be here with us You have to behave in a certain way and the licenses are not what makes that happen It's the community that makes that happen if you want to enforce Ethical norms and standards of behavior around your software The answer is to build strong communities where there is so much value in participating in that community as a first-class Participant that you are going to collaborate alongside with those norms That is how we have always done License enforcement that is how we have always done community enforcement around codes of conduct and behavior and ethics In all sorts of ways that have that have preceded the current set of conversations So that is what we are standing for on this side of the stage is just that notion that if you want To do licenses you have to ground it in your community. We don't enforce the licenses We don't actually use that text for anything. Nobody understands what that text is and So we all end up falling back To this notion of community and it's not perfect, right? There's always going to be places where that's going to end where your community does not have the power and the control But the same is true of the licenses Right most of the time when there's license violations nothing ever gets done about it the vast majority of Software that doesn't comply with the licenses We just let it go because the cost of fighting is so high because the cost of collaboration is so low And so we end up at a place Where if you want ethical enforcement putting it in the license is pointless Unless you have the community behind you putting it in the license is pointless unless you have a strong community That is worth participating in So why put it in the license? What do you get out of it? If you get nothing out of it. What does it cost you? It costs you the rigidity of being stuck with a bunch of license terms That might meet the needs of her community today, but might not tomorrow, right? When we were working on gpl v3 Lenas famously said that he couldn't adopt it even if he wanted to now. I think he didn't really want to but The point is that he had this large community of people behind him and Getting all of them to sign off on moving to v3 was a non-starter If v2 had included a bunch of ethical clauses that were no longer relevant to his community He's stuck with them, right? So that's the problem with licenses. They're rigid They're friction once you start trying to enforce them. You're talking to lawyers who are not doing you any favors They're just getting in the way of actually getting people talking directly to each other Which is where the community conversation needs to happen. Thank you That given that I would given that I was name-checked. I would love to do the cross, but I am just a moderate I believe dash from the affirmative side will be doing the cross. Thank you, Bradley When I slept yes, yes, thank you. So question you James are all users of open-source software ethical Yes, yes, they are all users of open source of Exxon For instance, I mean in their use of free software if they're complying with the license I think they're doing there they're meeting their ethical obligations a Comprehensive ethical obligations Like beyond the license. Yeah. Oh, no the license goes as far as you know with the license covers and is climate change a good thing No, definitely not is child labor a good thing. No If you knew that a company was employing child labor, would you have standing to do anything about that? I? Certainly wouldn't if you if that company was using software that you had licensed to them under a license that Prevents anyone from using the license software should they employ child labor Would you not have standing then to enforce that against that company? I don't think I really would have any ability to do anything about it, you know I'm not a I'm not a child labor Crusader right I don't have access to a whole bunch of lawyers at my disposal who are going to fight that battle for me I don't have access to any of the resources I would need to fully understand the situation to even get into that conversation the notion that I as a random free software hacker who happens to have commits in that tree and The software happens to be used by this company is going to have the ability to even begin legal process Let alone litigate that process through to a conclusion that harms them more than them just saying screw it We'll rewrite your commits is Farsical right Exxon is not going to say oh oh James has 300 lines of code in that tree. We'd better listen to him No, they're going to hire some guy to rewrite those 300 lines and tell me to go screw off Sorry, there's no there's no scenario in the world in which I become some sort of effective social justice Crusader for children's rights because I have a few commits in a tree So it's a it's a it's a power fantasy that developers have that their free software is this Giant lever that can change the world in ways that it's just not realistic It's just not any any way that's going to happen. So you're gonna complicate all the licenses For the sake of this fantasy, it doesn't make any sense. This is a good to back to drowning out the questions But no, I mean, so are you suggesting then that it only applies to Software for which you're a small developer that indeed if you had developed a piece of software that Exxon could not simply rewrite your Commits out of that everything that you just said then would not apply I think it would be really difficult to find a developer with that kind of level of Level of contribution certainly. I don't know with any and and sorry last question How does putting ethics in licenses make them make your job harder? This one because I need two hands This is Molly for the second affirmative seven minutes And Those mics don't work if you don't have pockets So I would like to lead off with the statement that James made an argument against licenses in general And I think that's an important thing to address because software freedom in the first place Is based on licenses and copyright in order to make those things happen So I want to kind of lay the basis to begin with that. We do need licenses And I think that's a great place to start. I'd also like to respond to the comments about the power of developers So for example the Hillary for America campaign was using Debian for some of their stuff The International Space Station uses Debian Government organizations use Debian and build software off of Debian So if it's the case that that actual piece of software is that important It's been in development for a significant number of years creating an easy replacement for it is not so easy So by a large project making that adoption you're creating like a major use case and that's really important um Sorry, I'm not quite ready. Oh Reaching out to communities To encourage building a commons is possible. So one of the other things is the comment that like We're going to need to reach out to new communities to get them involved and it is possible, right? So you have people who are currently not developing in this sphere and not participating Because they're concerned about use so suddenly not just talking about definitions of freedom and openness We're building a commons that we weren't capable of building before Five minutes left. Okay Great in addition to that I would like to make some comments in support of what John had said Which are noted on my phone Somewhere great. No, that's not it Wow, thanks for your patience everyone. This is not Great. Anyway, let's see what I remember so from the environmental perspective I would like to add that we look at software In terms of one of the ways we can look at software and environmental impact is things like processing speed and server load And making significant changes to make our software more Efficient we'll have positive environmental impact So it's easy to argue that that will be more effective if you have free and open-source software But in addition to that you're going to be able To better reduce that load because you're going to have more people focusing on it since it's a thing that they care about right in Response to the concept of military and police use So one of the things that happens should we Reach a point where things like facial facial recognition technology and different surveillance technologies are under free and open licenses They're going to become better and more effective and this creates an even greater threat from police forces Right. So if we're able to build into those forced ethics It's going to make a bigger difference for these individual communities out there and the people who are already at risk Right in terms of labor practices We see abuse of labor all over the world Like and and things that limit labor, right? So one example I really like is in Saudi Arabia how there's a culture of women being unable to work especially with like without support from their husbands or their fathers and By creating licenses that ensure this sort of behavior We're creating an opportunity for them to participate in the creation of these comments I'd like to add that one of the things people brought up is the Confusion of licenses and the incompatibility of licenses All right There's nothing to say that you have to create licenses that are incompatible And there's nothing to say that you need to have 50 different licenses each addressing a different social issue I would propose the adoption of a creative commons based model Where there is a base license written off of which people can add things So that would mean that you can have your no ice claws and you can have your No child labor clause and you can have your equal like equity and equal participation clause You can add those clauses without Forcing yourself to deal with incompatibility in the same ways, right? And I would go as far to argue that while ethics change and what society views as ethics change the ethics of individual Contributors might not change as much So they're able to own these decisions and choose how their software is being used But also how their software is affecting the world and having an impact now I think the like the obvious question to that is like what if somebody creates a like only Nazis clause And I would like to immediately address That that sort of problem is something that we can deal with Managing by things like forking projects by looking Karen's frowning at me Are you sure? Okay And making adjustments and building code and all those other wonderful things So in general, I think there's a lot of opportunity to reinforce the good That licenses can do and like in another like immediate response I believe licenses can have teeth and I believe that licensing is really important Not just because it creates and ensures software freedom in the first place But because it has impact even when things like Employment pressure like pressure from employees doesn't work like let's look at Google Google fired people who are doing organizing for their company Obviously like companies maintain power right and companies maintain Control over our access to things we need to survive Like health care in some country. Sorry. I know you're different than the US Salaries which for which won't enable us to buy the things we need So companies will have more power Companies do have more power when there aren't forced ethics Hit me with your best shot. Okay, so now I've crossed examination from the negative side or from the negative side I would like to cross No, I'm not guy I would like to but I am the moderator Okay, I'm ready. All right, so You mentioned earlier that Debian could change its license and force NASA and everyone else to suddenly adopt something, I'm not sure what but What are the practical ways that it could do that? How many tens of thousands of people would it take to get on board in order to to change Debian's licensing? Well, I I think you could run a general resolution To manage that I'm not positive I should know this and in which case you'd only need a significant percentage of a thousand people to Agree to that decision and then you cross off some who won't vote So I think it's possible for Debian to make a decision like that So so Debian can relicence all the software in Debian with with a vote of the Debian people I think you can relicence a certain amount of software. These are things I'm not sure about like these are guesses on my behalf But like the project itself has a lot of power the individuals and it have a lot of power and any member of the project can put For the general resolution to make a significant change to the community So for example instead of relicensing the whole project They could make the decision to pass a general resolution That will mean all future packages and all future work are required to be under one of these ethical licenses If companies already have decided that they are avoiding things like copy left How do you how do you go about convincing them to adopt one of these license that have the ethical clause? That's a really good question I think because because companies are afraid of copy left and I have lots of stories about that And I'm sure people here have even more But When you're looking especially if we can look at the foundational technologies and the things that we're using as the basis on Which we're building everything then suddenly it matters a lot more who is putting these requirements on to things Now the No, I won't tell you what question you should ask me next in response to that. No, please go ahead No, no, it's all you all you So I think my last question really is if you really need Communities in order to do this enforcement. How does locking yourself into one rigid framework around a license help you when what you really need? Is that community power in the first place? That's a really good question. I think one There are social issues that we need to handle at a timescale. That's a lot shorter than things that can be Accomplished by having a community make enforcement and make social changes I think we can say with high confidence that there are terrible people in all communities And that social norms aren't being enforced to change that so by having something like lessons is you are forcing a very sudden change Now we have the second negative Construction that's going to be done by Josh Simmons. Thank you instructive. I'm new to this debate stuff Okay Disclaimer right start with that So first I want to say that I think we all share a desire for a more ethical and just world And I think that is something that we have broad alignment on However, I am here to persuade you further that licenses are not the way to go about this First I just want to ask the audience a question How many people here by a show of hands think that your code of ethics are? universalizable to everybody everywhere bold bold Realistically, realistically, I'm not here to make an argument for moral relativism I think that's a sticky wicket, but I do think that ethics are complicated and that they're highly localized And that what's right for us here may not be right for people everywhere and Even though there are there's much to be said about there the organizations like the United Nations who have definitions of human rights Which are reasonably universal? I Don't know That we can truly trust these organizations to maintain those definitions in good faith. I Mean this this is gonna be an easy one who thinks the United Nations is a good thing Yeah, right But how many people feel good about the efficacy of the United Nations? Exactly, okay So along those lines You know, I also want to note that the United Nations has a has this this this way of governing such that you could have a single Bad actor a single nation-state say no to a proposal to limit a really important expansion of rights Thus, I don't think that we should hinge ethics in licenses on on on a United Nations or other body Similarly, there's the American Civil Civil Liberties Union or the Red Cross only one of those really has opinions about ethics but both of them do Valuable philanthropic work, however Neither of them are an unalloyed good Both of those organizations have a history of causing legitimate harm as well as all the good that they're doing I Don't think that we can outsource our ethics because there's no institution that we can rely on to truly capture this Now Do no harm not do do no harm style licenses ethical licenses We we can't capture all of the ethics in these licenses And so I think we would need to outsource them to organizations and to my earlier point I don't think there's a single organization that we can really trust to do that further I Want to say a little bit about the unenforceability here, you know, there's even people who are proponents of ethical licenses Conceived that these things would be very very difficult to enforce. Can you really legislate these in a court of law? TBD, we really don't know but even if you could Who would the amount of enforcement action that's happening today is practically nil And so using licenses as a vehicle that just seems like an ineffective strategy and then there's the issue of vagueness You know some licenses are well-crafted most of them not so much and a lot of these things leave a lot of room for Leave a lot of room for interpretation and as far as I understand it Judges don't like it when people are trying to be clever and if something is vague and arguable Well, you're not going to be able to make a convincing case in the first place I also want to note that there is more than one ethical framework The most well-trained ethicists understand that for any sticky problem We need to bring multiple ethical frameworks to bear on that issue in order to really see our way through it such that in most cases We need to approach ethical ethical decisions on a case-by-case basis. It's really not universalizable We cannot capture this complexity in a license And I want to speak to some of the harms that people have have noted potential harms One of the reasons that we have the four freedoms and the open source definition and we have these organizations that Stewart licenses generally is to limit license proliferation We limit license proliferations that we can encourage adoption of a standard that gives us a solid baseline from which we can build on To the point about incompat about compatibility It may be that we can design a license that provides a solid foundation and we can have these additional Layers on top of it for you know, no ice or no child labor or nine to six But if we do that Do the components with those different licenses are those interoperable? I Think that's an open question, and I think that's one that we need to answer before we experiment here I also want to note that I think that this has the potential to drive down adoption of open source and free free software and Limit the very real good that's already happening through things like humanitarian free and open-source software We've got Sahana and Usahidi for disaster response my my fos initiative for the unbanked Libre health for health systems in the developing world water project and open air quality for detecting pollution We have projects that are making a difference in all of these spaces that people are Raising rightly raising concerns about the projects that are addressing them using the existing frameworks. I think That licenses are an ineffective vehicle and a vehicle That could cause unintended consequences. I think there are other proposals the other options that we have on the table Are the ones that we should really be pursuing now. I'm all for and all of the above approach. We are faced with Extraordinarily massive challenges at this time in our in our existence. We should try all of the things Let's throw the spaghetti at the wall and figure it out But I'm of the opinion that even though we may try with licenses that is not the right vehicle codes of conduct Refusing to support accept issues poor quest from bad actors Refusing to grant use of the project trademark Hell seeking regulation from governments doing labor organizing so that we can say no when we're asked to do something That we know is wrong. Thank you We're gonna have cross-examination from the affirmative who from the the sides gonna do it. Yeah dash Alrighty Okay, so first off So if if if the point if we shouldn't be enforcing licenses at all what what are we doing here? I mean specifically in this room in the legal and policy room at Fosdown I Didn't say we shouldn't be enforcing licenses. I think we should have more enforcement. Frankly, okay What does it matter if ethics are localized because aren't licenses personal to the author? Shouldn't it only be a question of whether the ethics Embodied by the license are those that the author releasing their work under that license would want them to be You know, I think every author has a prerogative to license things the way they see fit and I think that's that's right and proper however the whole point of ethical licenses as I understand it is to Move the needle in the world at large and so if it's only Addressing the concerns of that author but limiting the possibility for their software to be adopted by other people Then they're cutting off their nose despite their face I'm curious as to what you think as to why that would be limiting But I've got some other questions so I'll proceed you mentioned the UN can the UN sue you for something unethical you did I Have no idea. I don't think so. I believe the answer is no I didn't research that but I believe the answer is no Whereas if a licensor had licensed software to you on ethical terms and you had breached those with the licensor be able to sue you for that I Believe so presumably yes So it seems that licenses with ethical licenses then offer a lever that are larger than perhaps these other Community pressures and you know organizations I will know that though the UN may not be able to sue me the UN does have does have mechanisms for exerting pressure and So would you concede then that a bad actor can be pressured by positive actors to change their behavior? Yes, and that's why I made many alternative proposals Okay, and if someone was to kill me for instance, they could be tried for murder correct Yes, so they could be tried for murder. Why would there also be a framework for my family to bring a wrongful death suit? It seems that you're arguing that if there's an existing framework for addressing a problem that redundant frameworks aren't necessary I think that grossly mischaracterizes my argument What would you like to would you like to reinstate what you meant then by saying that there are better mechanisms than licenses? Why can't licenses also exist as a mechanism to reinforce what is already exists to police ethics because they are friction They are rigid. They are difficult to change Because there are better mechanisms that we could have to disproportionate impact with And so you mentioned that licenses are ineffective. How are they ineffective? Well, let's look at the level of enforcement action Okay, and then I guess finally sorry. I'm trying to struggle with this I'm not to admire this Why why does it that ethics have to be made So both teams have agreed to do only one to rebuttal so we can get the question So we'll have the first negative rebuttal. I think because they're right. Yeah So who looks to that? Yeah, I think what this comes down to for us really is that the effort you put in To putting all the stuff in licenses might theoretically if a whole bunch of improbable things happen Eventually result in somebody somewhere being pressured to act for the public good and the list of things you would have to do That would have to go right is just kind of amazingly long and and impractical, right? You'd have to convince communities to adopt it and maybe you could do that That actually seems like there are definitely some communities that will do it. I mean There's there's certainly some free software communities that want to consign themselves to a relevancy in one fell swoop I believe that that is true Then you would have to get knowledge of a violation Understand it well enough begin some sort of process to address it have that process fail begin some sort of enforcement Process have these clauses Even recognized anywhere in the world as valid and enforced and reach a point litigate something all the way to a conclusion and Then try to enforce a judgment. That's a lot of steps really improbable steps I don't know many free software projects that have that many steps. It's not a cost-free Process to get there right the the notion that we will get benefit out of this is all very theoretical very Attenuated and you end up with a rather small effect out the other end in isolated instances But you pay a big cost for that right every License bifurcation that splits a community into two where we've got the same piece of software being written 20 times for 20 different Ethical license offshoots and none of them are compatible with each other because the climate license says your stuff has to be climate Compatible and the labor license says your stuff has to be labor compatible and those two can't cooperate with each other Right the cost of splitting these communities is very high The only reason free software works so well why it's on the ascendancy and the way it is is because we've created this Massive pool of common value that is worth accessing if you split those into smaller pools They become tiny puddles that we can just hop over That's not going to work at the end of the day if you want ethics If you want ethical use of technology you have to do it without the shortcuts You have to do the organizing you have to do the community building. There are no cheat codes here So if you want ethics go back to your communities and talk to them about what your community is worth and why it is worth Being in that community that is how we're going to win this battle not by writing a bunch of rules. Thank you So we have the final affirmative rebuttal Because we agreed that we do that we forgot the last rebuttal for audience member you agree to the beginning I Apologize if you didn't agree Okay, go ahead am I unmuted now. Yeah, okay Okay. Well, so the world's gonna ends. We know that We really need to try to do something about this. I understand and I feel It's the concerns for free software as a model are serious if we start thinking about adding new things to it But I also think the free software has succeeded because because it's an ethical foundation And that's why people who have when it would she've other social goals are turning to our free software licenses to modify them to try To achieve different goals. It's that ethical foundation that's bringing people to it You know, it's it's github that made collaboration tangibly easy not the four freedoms the four freedoms The four freedoms are the ethical foundation and that's why people are interested in what we're doing now Will these licenses be enforced? Maybe maybe not, but I think they will be more likely to be enforced than Then copy left license is for example because they're embodying Things that are very tangible and immediate harms that people will feel very strongly about But as we know, even if they're not enforced, they still serve a strong function I think the argument about community norms is actually an argument for having ethical for having social goals addressed in license drafting Because that enables different communities to more concretely define the ethical reasons and the social reasons that they're working together Would we have incompatibilities? Maybe but remember that people can release their work under more than one license at the same time and make them available for all of The causes that they care about we also still have the option of having an omnibus license and a body that vets You know different parts what can be added to that and really what's the cost of incompatibility anyway? It just means that someone has to write code that really they shouldn't have to write because it's already out there Well, that's not as big of a deal as global warming. So I think we can stomach it You know and I'm also a little bit confused because free software is an ethical value these things that we're talking about are ethical values So kind of every argument against the rigidity of an ethical value or the You know ability to come to agreement on these things to me as an argument also against free software in general You know, how are we able to agree on any ethical value? Why is it free software alone? That gets to be the rigid ethical value, but not opposing labor exploitation and I think that You know, we have laws that are very complicated to enforce But they still get enforced and they still serve a deterrent effect Even though you can also list all the steps that you have to go through for a please You know a police officer to catch somebody doing something prove it in court Not make any mistakes along the way not have any appeal succeed like enforcing any laws are really difficult thing We think we can do that with licenses as well fundamentally We think we need to try and specifically we should try in the drafting stage see what happens We know a lot of people want these licenses so adoption really isn't a concern people have already asked them for them And they're already doing them Thank you So I want to thank both teams again for for going there final about rebuttals to have to have audience questions I'm going to ask them that more than any other debate. We've had today this slide obviously applies But I'm going to ask Everyone to stay in character for the audience questions if you don't mind because I think it'll be more fun Funtime is going to bring around. Let's mic for questions. I think Hello, hi, hi. Yes. This is the first time I'm asking a question like that. So So I could it was mentioned earlier that Having a policy like say the software has to be green or try to improve Reduce the the impact the environmental impact of the process making things faster a friend of mine he's working in Construction road construction. They say that if you build more roads, they will be more traffic So if you make a software faster It will be used more and more It's really a very temporary at least based on that idea very temporary The opinion is that it's temporary if you make something faster if you claim that this software Is used to make things faster or to improve the to reduce the let's say the the environmental impact We are just it's a very temporary fix. I'm sorry. Do you have a question? That's what I'm saying. It's a temporary fix. We are by playing But is this a question so the opinion if it's just a comment, I'm sorry we can respond to it and then move on Yes, sure I mean, I think I think the point one of the points that I think that you raised is that when we create tools those tools Can also enable the various behaviors that we don't want to see happen You build roads and you're letting traffic happen and I think that software is a great Allegory for that you build software and then people use it to police their societies to drill oil to do all these things But that that because of that that's all the more reason why it's incumbent upon us to build these ethical guy Guard rails in place so that people can develop software knowing and confidence that as long as they enforce their rights in it That it won't be applied towards these you know means that you don't want to see happen I would like to add to that that let's say you're building a fundamental piece of software like an operating system And you're making it more efficient. It's way better for people to adopt the more efficient operating system than it is to use something That's heavy clunky and uses a lot of resources Thank You a great panel. I have a question. Do you understand software freedom as the freedom of the user to choose? How to use the software or as the freedom of the developer to restrict how the user uses the software? Well, I mean, I think it's it's both and that the developer has the ability to Define the purpose that they are making their work for And the user has certain rights as well, but you know, we have examples all over society of rules about Users not being you know, there are limits when as soon as your use of something causes harm to another person that use can be restricted Likewise, if that harm that uses a public health risk, it can be restricted and that's where I think the ability That's where I think the ability of developers to have some more control comes in and distributors I Agree It's I don't I don't think that means I'm conceding conceding to the resolution, but I agree with their response to that I'd like to really quickly just Ask if there are any women or non-binary folks in the room who would like to ask a question Yeah, yeah sure while we're waiting for more hands I would just to follow up on the response to Mirko's question I think that it is definitively if we look to the four freedoms the freedom of the user receiving the software and that is What free software depends on but I think going back to everything that Louis so eloquently addressed in the previous talk That sometimes you have to decide where these freedoms need to cave in order to accomplish Other goals that are just as if not even more pressing and important and I think that that's what the core of this discussion is Very quick addendum. We're advocating putting the items in the license not in the four freedoms Hi So first the disclaimer is also for me and my question is for the affirmative team Over the last decade or so Pretty much all big open-source projects in addition to having an open-source license have a code of conduct and everything that depends on Governance and ethics and describing what is right and what is wrong in the community is defined in the code of conduct and how to handle that So my question is if it's easy to do all that in the license Why do we have code of conducts and where we all wrong in the last ten years? That's a very good question that I feel like I'm the one who's supposed to respond to it I would make a few quick points Which are perhaps that is a place where we need to be looking at including in licensing codes of conduct govern the behavior of individuals and how they're interacting and Also tie into a lot of their like fundamental, right? So Challenging that with a license. I think is a much harder question Like how do we look at what this means in a legal context? Especially as the legal context varies so much country-to-country I would also kind of add to that that codes of conduct are like Not always Effective so I want to I want to thank these Debaters here of all the debates. I think this is the where the people most had to take positions They don't necessarily agree with and I thank them for doing that for the pedagogical purposes of this debate. Thank you And So so we're doing Brief questions of the whole audience after each debate since we're not doing winners By raise of hands, how many people learn something about these issues in this debate They didn't know about before they came in And how many people's minds were on one side of the issue and now are on the other after this debate Only one Three three, okay But it looks like a lot of people learn something and we're really glad that you did If the debaters for the next debate could come down here, please