by Oxblood Ruffin and Eric Grimm

“ In other words, unlike many programmers, we are not just in the business of developing and distributing open-standards technologies. We're also trying to empower end-users (including end-users in totalitarian regimes) with software tools that promote fundamental freedoms while also seeking as best we can to protect these end-users from being arrested, beaten, or worse. Our objective of promoting end-user freedoms, including the freedoms of people in politically repressive countries, is precisely the factor that has led Hacktivismo to develop this License Agreement instead of using another. ”

“ Ultimately, however, after reviewing the field of possibilities among previously-existing "open source" and "free" licenses, Hacktivismo has concluded that none of them fully meets our requirements. Writing our own License Agreement enables us to pursue our human rights objectives more effectively. This licensing endeavor represents a first step toward achieving our objectives, and no doubt informed feedback, scholarship, and learned commentary will enable us to pursue our objectives even more effectively in the future. ”

“ The arbitrary use of technological censorship measures to block or prevent access to broad categories of speech and expression including the work of critics, intellectuals, artists, journalists, and religious figures is seldom, if ever, justified by any legitimate governmental objective. ”

“ But, while we are concerned with the entire field of human rights rather than a subset, we want to make it perfectly clear that we also embrace, share, and seek to promote, the goals we share with the Free Software movement. ”

“ Every copy of the Program distributed by Hacktivismo (but not necessarily every other Author) consists of the Source Code accompanied, in some instances, by an ancillary distribution of compiled Object Code, but the continued availability of the Source Code from the Author addresses the possibility that You might have (for any reason) not received from someone else a complete, current, copy of the Source Code (lack of which would, for example, prevent You from exporting copies to others without violating this license, see Section 8) . ”

“ Hacktivismo is more than happy to consult with any software developer about the license terms that should apply to any Software that is derivative of any Program of which Hacktivismo is Author. If another Author has released code under the HESSLA, then that Author has primary decision-making authority about the manner in which his her or its software is licensed, but Hacktivismo is happy to field any questions hat may be posed by such an Author or by any developer who is building on another Author's HESSLAed code. ”

“ Respect for the Rule of Law means that no governmental entity is above the law, and that no governmental entity should be permitted to use its status as a mechanism for circumventing the requirements of this License Agreement.
Any use, copying or modification of this software by any governmental official or governmental entity anywhere in the world is a voluntary act, which act the governmental official or entity is free to forego if it does not wish to be bound by this License Agreement. ”

“ Of course, if the U.S. federal law enforcement community were to announce, several months later, that it had commissioned the development of "classified" quasi-viral computer-intrusion and surveillance software called "Magic Candle" the capabilities of which law enforcement does not plan to disclose to the public, and the source code for which will remain a closely-guarded secret then inquiring minds might become curious as to whether "Magic Candle" contains any of the GPLed code that was written for "GE3K" (or any other free or open-source software, for that matter) . ”

“ In the context of software tools that enable people to reclaim their freedoms, all end-users have and should have the right to secure and use tools that are free from the surreptitious insertion into their software of "backdoors," "spy-ware," escrow mechanisms, or other code or techniques that might promote surveillance, or subvert security (including cryptographic security) , confidentiality, anonymity, authenticity and/or trust. ”

“ To be sure, Hacktivismo enthusiastically endorses and supports the goals and objectives of the Free Software movement and those of the open source community. In particular, we owe a special debt of gratitude to the Free Software Foundation, to the Open Source Initiative, and to many exceedingly talented people who have contributed to Free Software and open source projects and endeavors over the years. ”

“ Software Patents: Software patents constantly threaten any project such as this one. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a HESSLA-licensed program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have included terms by which any Author must, if it has patented (or licensed a patent covering) any technology embodied in any Program or Software released under this License Agreement, grant all HESSLA Licensees of the Program or Software a royalty-free license of that technology. ”

“ With respect to an action brought against the United States or any United States Governmental Entity, in the courts of any country, the U.S. Governmental Entity shall be understood to have voluntarily agreed to a corresponding waiver of immunity from actions in the courts of any other sovereign. ”

“ Every person, regardless of sex or sexual preference, and with reciprocal respect for the corresponding rights of all others, has and should have the right to determine and choose, freely and without coercion, whether, how and with whom he or she shall fully enjoy the most private and personal aspects of human life, including individual sexuality, reproduction, and fertility. ”

“ No patent license is granted to make, use, sell or offer to sell embodiments of any patent claims other than the Licensed Claims defined in Section 7. No right is granted to the trademarks of Author even if such marks are included in the Program. Nothing in this License Agreement shall be interpreted to prohibit Author from licensing under additional or different terms from this License Agreement any Original Work, Program, or Derivative Work that Author otherwise would have a right to License. ”

“ The example of GSM telephones, in which 16 of 56 bits in each encryption key were set at "0," thereby reducing the security of the system by a factor of 65,536, is particularly salient. Such artificial techniques to reduce the security of a cryptosystem by selecting keys from only a less-secure or suboptimal subset of possible keys, is prohibited and will violate this License Agreement if any such technique is employed in any Software. ”

“ So long as the source of "Magic Candle" remains secret, detection of a GPL violation becomes dramatically more difficult (particularly so if, additionally, nobody outside law enforcement has access to the compiled executables) , which means the worldwide community of Internet users and software developers has only the United States government's solemn assurance that no GE3K code was used cold comfort at best. ”

“ The licenses for most computer software programs are designed to take away Your freedom to share software or change source code. This kind of software is designated as proprietary or "closed." The Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement — like other license agreements that have served as inspiration for our work — is intended to promote both Your freedom to share our software with others, and Your freedom to change and improve the software. ”

“ Punitive damages may be awarded in such a third-party action against a Governmental Entity or Governmental Person, and each and every such Governmental Entity or Person conclusively waives all restrictions on the amount of punitive damages, and all defenses to the award of punitive damages to the extend such limitations or defenses depend upon or are a function of such person or entity's status as a Governmental Person or Governmental Entity. ”

“ Your right under this License Agreement to look at the source not only enables You to contribute Your own efforts to Hacktivismo's human rights projects, but also serves as an additional level of assurance to You as an end-user that unwelcome, hidden surprises have not been inserted into the software, that could compromise Your rights and freedoms when You use the software. ”

“ Licensing: Developing a new software license is never a trivial task and this License Agreement has presented special challenges for Hacktivismo. Because of our human rights objectives, this License Agreement includes some specific terms and conditions that, as a technical matter, depart from the previously-recognized and established definitions of "free" [fn11] software and "open source" [fn12] software. ”

“ Such an export distribution of compiled executable code must in all cases be ancillary to a distribution of the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed on a medium, or by a method, customarily used for software interchange.
12. EXPORT LAWS: THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT ADDS NO RESTRICTIONS TO THE EXPORT LAWS OF YOUR JURISDICTION. It is Your responsibility to comply with any export regulations applicable in Your jurisdiction. ”

“ Such an arrangement maximizes the potential benefit to both the developer community and to end-users worldwide. Software released under a BSD-style license, as a general matter, can be used to produce a hybrid program, mixing HESSLA-licensed code with code that was previously subject to a BSD license. ”

“ This License Agreement enhances the benefits of published source code by backing up our human rights projects with appropriate remedies enforceable in court.
The Freedoms We Promote: When we speak of the freedom of end-users, we are talking about basic freedoms recognized in the Hacktivismo Declaration, [fn2] the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, [fn3] the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, [fn4] and other documents that recognize and promote freedom and human dignity. ”

“ Any Licensees who release derivative works, as permitted by this License Agreement, are required to grant a royalty-free patent license of any patented technology.
Anyone Can Release Original Software Under The HESSLA: Although this License Agreement is drafted with Hacktivismo's objectives in mind, perhaps it will meet other authors' needs as well. ”