Now I'm on the fence about adding philosophy to software licenses, even if only in a joking way. It can be fun and even thought provoking, but it could get in the way of genuine business adoption for basically no return (you never know if it helps influence anyone for the better, and most likely it doesn't).
Easter eggs in code that break things are evil!
I don't write code for corporates, so my license is purely fictive. I cannot enforce my license but I can prevent corporates from taking my code and wrapping it into a product and selling it on for a profit. While not passing on a cent to me.
If a corporate wishes to use my code, then they are welcome to pay me a license fee or a one-off payment for a non-distributable license.
My inspiration was came from Douglas Crockford and the JSONlint[1] license.
Why not have a message? I mean if big-tech won't use my software because they legally think they might do evil with it, so be it.
Do I really want big-tech to wrap my software into a product and sell it for profit while not giving me a cent because what I did was share my code without strings attached?
I don't know. I would like to make this place just that little bit better and if if that's a license that makes folks think about what is evil, heck why not!
[1] https://gist.github.com/kemitchell/fdc179d60dc88f0c9b76e5d38...
> Or they'll write to me and say, "how do I know if it's evil or not? I don't think it's evil, but someone else might think it's evil, so I'm not gonna use it."
> Great. It's working. My license works. I'm stopping the evildoers.
Or cautiously logical people who are probably doing good but don't have an absolute certainty that they are, which is probably the best way to live.
Any license that isn't a word-for-word match to one of the "approved" licenses can potentially trigger a need for legal review, depending on the enterprise. Lawyers are expensive so quirky licenses can be a deal-killer for any customers who take licenses seriously.
If you want to be funny, put an easter egg in your code, don't mess with your license.