We interact with software in our daily life, and software has dramatically facilitated how the world runs and how we live. Such accomplishments wouldn't have been possible without the support from open-source software.
However, we still see ill-intended software being developed and employed to facilitate manslaughtering [1][2], to enable mass surveillance and privacy stealing [3][4][5], to oppress workers [6][7][8], to waste resources and pollute the earth [9][10], and to empower various other unethical practices [11][12]. And unsurprisingly, such "accomplishments" wouldn't have been possible without the direct or indirect support from open-source software.
We believe the problem does not lie in the software license. After all, it is the permissive software license that allows developers to stand on the shoulders of the giants without concerns of lawsuits. While a restrictive license might reduce certain misuse of the software, license-related concerns will also inevitably limit the distribution of the software and hamper well-intended use.
Therefore, we license our software under a permissive license, but we humbly request you to consider refrain from using the software for projects that cause harm to the world. Specifically, if your project falls in the categories described above, we humbly invite you to rethink whether your talent could be contributed to somewhere else that makes the world better.
While this statement is not part of the license, if you agree with our values, we encourage you to include this statement with your distribution.