Comment by maxdeliso
13 years ago
The amount of engineering rigor that has gone into sqlite over the years boggles the mind. It's a project that has been held up as a sterling example of successful software development many times, rightfully so. I especially like this part of their license, from the top of sqlite3.h
"The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing: May you do good and not evil. May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others. May you share freely, never taking more than you give."
It really is rock solid, heres an outline of their testing: http://www.sqlite.org/testing.html
It was originally designed to run on guided missile destroyers in the US Navy. Not sure if it was ever used for that, but it explains the scrupulous attention to testing.
Replying to myself, there is a good discussion on Reddit about what that actually meant: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1eyfk0/til_sqli....
> It was originally designed to run on guided missile destroyers in the US Navy.
Wouldn't that be in contrast to the license?
I dunno ... sharing frequently, never taking more than you give ... could be describing some kind of firefight ;)
That would be in contrast to the blessing, not the license.
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Unfortunately the FSF holds the view that a clause like that makes software "non-free". See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#JSON
It's a blessing, not an obligation or a demand or a condition of use.
Unlike the JSON license clause "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil", the SQLite blessing doesn't put any restriction on your "freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)" or on any of the other freedoms listed by the FSF.
It's no different from putting this in a library:
# This work is dedicated to the public domain.
# I hope you enjoy using it!
No one could argue that if you didn't enjoy using the library (maybe the API is a confusing mess) you would somehow be in violation of the license.
p.s. I upvoted your comment because I think you raised an interesting point!
> It's a blessing, not an obligation or a demand or a condition of use.
That's how we interpret it. The problem is that we don't know what the rights-holder has in mind, and what that entity's willing to sue over.
Lawyers can be comically risk-averse. Comical, that is, until you see the kinds of things people actually sue over.
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Fortunately we have the freedom to not care about what FSF thinks.
Fine, but the FSF doesn’t think that SQLite is non-free software http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/SQLite#tab=Overview
SQLite doesn't _mandate_ "do no evil".
Interesting, although the FSF example uses "shall", not "may". A lawyer might argue that only the prior is binding.
The FSF has a very narrow definition of freedom.
I wouldn't call this license free either. In many jurisdictions there is no concept of "public domain", in some you cannot even disclaim copyright at all. In those cases the work would be under copyright still, and in absence of a license permitting you to copy and change and distribute it, you can't (theoretically. no one's going to sue you).
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