Software licenses are a reflection of our values. How you choose to license a piece of software says a lot about what you want to achieve with it. Do you want to reach the maximum amount of users? Do you want to ensure future versions remain free and open source? Do you want to preserve your opportunity to make a profit?

They can also be used to reflect other values. For example, there is the infamous JSON license written by Doug Crockford. It's essentially the MIT license with this additional clause:

The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

This has caused quite some consternation. It is a legally dubious addition, because "Good" and "Evil" are not defined here. Many people disagree on what these are. This is really not enforceable, and it's going to make many corporate lawyers wary of using software under this license¹.

I don't think that enforcing this clause was the point. The point is more signaling values and just having fun with it. I don't think anyone seriously believes that this license will be enforceable, or that it will truly curb the amount of evil in the world. But will it start conversations?

There are a lot of other small, playful licenses. None of these are going to change the world, but they inject a little joy and play into an area of software that is usually serious and somber.

When I had to pick a license for my exceptional language (Hurl), I went down that serious spiral at first. What license will give the project the best adoption, or help it achieve its goals? What are its goals?

Well, one its goals was definitely to be funny. Another was to make sure that people can use the software for educational purposes. If I make a language as a joke, I do want people to be able to learn from it and do their own related projects!

This is where we enter one of the sheerly joyous parts of licensing: the ability to apply multiple licenses to software so that the user can decide which one to use the software under. You see a lot of Rust projects dual-licensed under Apache and MIT licenses, because the core language is dual-licensed for very good reasons. We can apply similar rationale to Hurl's license, and we end up with triple-licensing.

It's currently available under three licenses, each for a separate purpose. Licensing it under the AGPL enables users to create derivative works for their own purposes (probably to learn) as long as it remains licensed the same way. And then we have a commercial license option, which is there so that if you want to commercialize it, I can get a cut of that². The final option is to license it under the Gay Agenda License, which was created originally for this project. This option basically requires you to not be a bigot, and then you can use the software under the MIT license terms. It seems fair to me.

When I got through that license slide at SIGBOVIK 2024, I knew that the mission was accomplished: bigotry was defeated the audience laughed.

The Gay Agenda License is a modified MIT license which requires you do a few things:

• You must provide attribution (typical MIT manner)
• You have to stand up for LGBTQ rights
• You have to say "be gay, do crime" during use of the software

Oh, and if you support restricting LGBTQ rights, then you lose that license right away. No bigots allowed here. This is all, of course, written in more complete sentences in the license itself.

The best thing is that you can use this license today! There is a website for the Gay Agenda License, the very fitting gal.gay³. The website has all the features you'd expect, like showing the license text, using appropriate flags, and copying the text to the clipboard for ease of putting this in your project.

Frequently Anticipated Questions

Inspired by Hannah's brilliant post's FAQ, here are answers to your questions that you must have by now.

Is this enforceable? We don't really know until it's tested in court, but if that happens, everyone has already lost. So, who knows, I hope we don't find out!

Isn't it somewhat ambiguous? What defines what is standing up for LGBTQ rights? Ah, yes, good catch. This is a big problem for this totally serious license. Definitely a problem.

Can I use it in my project? Yeah! Let me know if you do so I can add it into a showcase on the website. But keep in mind, this is a joke totally serious license, so only use it on silly things highly serious commercial projects!

How do I get a commercial license of Hurl? This is supposed to be about the Gay Agenda License, not Hurl. But since you asked, contact me for pricing.

When exactly do I have to say "be gay, do crime"? To be safe, it's probably best that you mutter it continuously while using all software. You never know when it's going to be licensed under the Gay Agenda License, so repeat the mantra to ensure compliance.

Thank you to Anya for the feedback on a draft of this post. Thank you to Chris for building the first version of gal.gay for me.