JSON non free license
The problem
JSON package is licenced under a MIT license but with an additional infamous clause:
The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.
This license is considered non-free by Debian, GNU Project, Fedora, Google, Red Hat legal, Free Software Foundation
The author Douglas Crockford is well aware of the harm he's doing but numerous request from different projects and parties could not change his mind.
How can I check
Lintian will help, see #692616.
Check the file for double licensing.
How to solve
- Reimplement the code - done by the android team (see below)
- Ask for relicensing upstream - tried, not possible
I started a petition to ask Crockford to change his license, please sign it: https://www.change.org/petitions/douglas-crockford-remove-the-not-evil-clause-from-your-license-because-it-is-evil-itself
alternative json implementations for java
cleanroom reimplementation of json.org by android libandroid-json-java
Google-Web-Toolkit has an alternate JSON implementation (two actually)
There are many json implementations in Java, but which one is the best to replace json.org?
Other upstream software which had or has this bug
HBase Issue solved.
Jitsi Issue
Transmission BitTorrent Client Issue
Closure-Compiler Issue
- Jenkins-Json
Google Web Toolkit? Issue
Debian bugs on json.org usage: list
Maven artifacts depending on json.org mvnrepository
I found this bug
Please report this bug by adding to the bug header the following usertag and severity:
severity: serious user: debian-qa@lists.debian.org usertags: json-evil-license
See usertags documentation for more information about usertags.