🚩 The Anti-Capitalist Software License
What is the Anti-Capitalist Software License?
The Anti-Capitalist Software License (ACSL) is a software license towards a world beyond capitalism. This license exists to release software that empowers individuals, collectives, worker-owned cooperatives, and nonprofits, while denying usage to those that exploit labor for profit.
How is the Anti-Capitalist Software License different from other licenses?
Existing licenses, including free and open source licenses, generally consider qualities like source code availability, commercialization, and attribution, none of which speak directly to the conditions under which the software is written. Instead, the ACSL considers the organization licensing the software, how they operate in the world, and how the people involved relate to one another.
The Anti-Capitalist Software License is not an open source software license. It does not allow unrestricted use by any group in any field of endeavor, an allowance that further entrenches established powers. It does not release your project to the creative commons or public domain, nor does it require derived source code to be made available. The availability of source code is less important than the organization of software labor.
Commerce and capitalism are not the same thing, and the commercialization of ACSL software is allowed, provided the organizations that do so are not organized along capitalist lines. The ACSL is explicitly intended to provide such organizations and individuals with a competitive advantage so that they may survive under capitalism, and outlive it.
Why would I want to use this license?
The ACSL is right for you if you want your code to empower students, artists, hobbyists, collectives, cooperatives and nonprofits to survive under capitalism while not contributing free labor to corporations.
The ACSL is right for you if you reject the status quo, believe better things are possible, and want to act on your beliefs.
The ACSL is right for you if you carry a new world in your heart, and in your code.
Copyright © [year] [copyright holders]
This is anti-capitalist software, released for free use by individuals and organizations that do not operate by capitalist principles.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization (the "User") obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
1. The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies of the Software.
2. The User is one of the following:
a. An individual person
b. An organization of people that does not seek profit
c. An organization of people that seeks shared profit for all its members
3. If the User is an organization with owners, then all owners are workers and all workers are owners.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.