> What communication other than the license could reasonably be provided?
Nobody encodes everything in text. No law can be fully represented in text. The law is a combination of many things including norms and customs at a moment in time. The law as written is a framework. This can be demonstrated pretty obviously in just how some laws are written intentionally vague because we have human beings to parse them for meaning and context. A legal/justice machine does not and will never exist as long as these are frameworks for human interaction. This is not a computable problem and attempting it to frame it as one is deeply harmful.
I have met a lot of EECS folks who think that the law is just a set of rules to be applied and that a consistent and fair decision will just “happen”. This is ridiculous and anyone who thinks this should be smacked with a copy of the Bluebook.
There is also kind of a spirit vs. letter of the law issue here. The intention and spirit in which this software is given out should and must inform how the law is interpreted. Arguing this isn't how the law works is just wrong. I stress this because it shows just how fuzzy the law really is. I think people want bright lines where they don't exist. I don't know what the obsession with this is, but it is unproductive.
I certainly understand that this desire to return to a more nuanced and more empathetic view of all of this has gradients, but I think I am just deeply saddened how any attempt to suggest that there were and should still be some implied cultural norms regarding expectations and the response from some folks really sounds like an angry Ayn Rand instead of a discussion about what that means. It’s just a blanket rejection for a lot of people here. Software is for people. The consumers are ultimately people. People are the only things that matter.
Like, you start a business and society—through the government and law has said—hey, you can’t refuse to serve people based on certain reasons. This is actively being attacked by some people with the same pathetic argument of, “You can’t tell me what to do. I hate X and it’s my free speech right to tell them to go pound sand. I never agreed to the civil rights acts!” It’s like the stupidest version of Ron Swanson.
