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Ethical Open Source


OSI approved open source licences grant the liberty to use the software for ANY purpose. In a country with poor legislation ("anarchy"), the software may legally be used for evil purposes. Also countries with good legislation are quite permissive in regards to ethics. Therefore ethical licences are evolving. Some of them are listed at ethicalsource.dev/licenses.

The purpose of this website is to show how ethical source may be included in open source communities currently using AGPL / GPL / LGPL licences.

Free vs. Ethical vs. Neutral Source

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) grants four freedoms:

0. Any usage

Open source

  1. Read/modify sources.
  2. Share sources.
  3. Share modified sourcs.

Ethical Source restricts the usage to ethical purposes.

Neutral Source is neutral in regards to usage and may therefore be combined with free or ethical source.

Neutral/Ethical and Open Source

Here is a suggestion of how to make neutral/ethical open source licences.

Neutral Open Source Software (NOSS)

N-AGPL = AGPL*.

N-GPL = GPL*.

* except the "any use" restriction of the software and combined software.

Ethical Open Source Software (EOSS)

E-AGPL = Ethical + N-AGPL.

E-GPL = Ethical + N-GPL.

E-LGPL = Ethical + LGPL except the "any use" restriction of the software.

Combinations of licences

When licences are defined as described above:

LGPL, N-GPL and N-AGPL may be combined with all of them.

GPL and AGPL may not be combined with any ethical licence.

The diagram shows in vertical the legal combinations of licences.