Tanguy Ortolo

If you were going to design an optimal protocol from scratch today, you would not make TCP/IP or HTTP (check the Referer header [0]) or lots of other things. But we all use them to maximize interoperability. For the same reason, you should almost certainly be using the MIT, Apache, or GPL license to maximize the chance that your open source software can actually be used by others. If you don't use a well known license, very few will invest in the lawyer's time necessary to evaluate your custom license. (See the problems caused by the tongue-in-cheek JSON license: http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license ) Use the dominant license for your project (e.g., MIT for Ruby Gems). For new projects, I recommend http://choosealicense.com to pick a license. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer

You can add any clause to a license. JSON's license is famous for adding "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." It probably makes it non-open source and non-free according to OSD and FSF https://opensource.org/docs/osd "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research." https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

Something along the lines of "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil"? ;) https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

Not only FAT. https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article93/usb-udf

> It's 2017, and the ONLY filesystem that will seamlessly work with macOS, Windows and Linux at the same time is FAT, a filesystem which is almost 40 years old. Universal Disk Format? [1] ExFAT can also be used on all currently supported versions of Windows & macOS and added to Linux very easily via a package manager. You could argue there isn't any need for a cross-platform filesystem these days. It's often easier to simply transfer files over Ethernet, Wi-Fi or even the Internet. [1] https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article93/usb-udf

Well, deliverability and being self-hosted might not go well together these days. There is a LOT you need to go in terms of setting up the relevant infrastructure; the newsletter software is just a tiny fragment of it. And even if your carefully crafted infrastructure works now, it can suddenly stop, just because some big e-mail hosting service decides they implement a major change (see e.g.: http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article109/google-ipv6-smtp-restrictions)…

While major operating systems support UDF, they can all be a little picky about how it's used on a usb or harddrive. And windows has a tendency of not mounting something you didn't unmount properly (plugging it into a linux machine fixes this, from my experience). The main problem you have is that there is no udf partition id, so I've never had it mount on OSX systems I've had access to (I have none myself, and it seems to respect the partition id, unlike windows and linux). This post seems like a good summary, http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article93/usb-udf. Though be warned that (from a quick read) some of the comments contain some misinformation.

In response to Tomte's criticism, this all boils down to the certification level http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article9/pgp-signature-infos 1) A fingerprint on a possibly compromised business card == 0 2) A fingerprint verified by phoning someone == 1 etc, And associated with that independently is of course the level of trust. Sorry Tomte for not replying immediately to your message, but I've posted too much on this apparently.

Such software would be non-free - an example of software which does this can be found with the JSON License[0]. The IBM team infamously sought (and received) a special exemption to do evil with that license. The story is amusing, but the reasoning is simple: ideological restrictions are difficult to pin down legally, because they're murky to define. From a practical standpoint, this means that any company with a legal team that knows what it's doing will avoid using the software, even if their ideologies are in accordance with yours - the restrictions simply expose them to more liability than they're willing to take on. [0] http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

And that clause is (widely considered) a bad idea, because "evil" is relative (e.g. some people think abortions are evil, others don't). http://www.sonatype.com/people/2012/03/use-json-well-youd-better-not-b… http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license http://wiki.debian.org/qa.debian.org/jsonevil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford#Criticism

if the line "Don't be evil, but create what is good and fair." implies that the code should not be used for creating malicious things, than this is not a free license. See also problems with JSON license: http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license

> (The "www." subdomain is basically useless.) Tanguy Ortolo answers 'Why www?' better than me. http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article47/why-www