The QYBL
If you are a software maker who releases creative work to the world, you will probably, at some time, require an End User License Agreement. The vast, swamp-like cesspools of existing EULAs are mentally numbing and, honestly, thoroughly disgusting. The fine print in many an EULA will make you squirm as you realize you have sold your significant other to the flesh-brokers, your firstborn into menial servitude and delivered, on a platter, your very soul to megacorporate powers and their armies of undead solicitors… all by clicking through a single button.
The Question Your Beliefs License is designed to provoke a thoughtful response to this ridiculous state of affairs. Our legal systems are part and parcel of our cultures. The only way to change them is to change culture itself. Cultural change occurs within each constituent individual, and this is where the QYBL is focused. Tearing down this house of cards requires a remaking of its foundation: our minds and the ideas living inside them.
The QYBL comes in two flavors: Noncommercial and Commercial. Both flavors protect your rights as a maker of the work and are quite standard, serving to indemnify and limit, covering and protecting your ass. The QYBL-Noncommercial is basically compatible with the Creative Commons ethos, and seeks to aid the creation and distribution of works and knowledge, both individual and shared. The QYBL-Commercial also protects you, but says your software will perform substantially in accordance with your claims or you must refund the customer.
Both flavors of the QYBL achieve their greater cultural goals through somewhat nonstandard Conditions Of Use. Perhaps “flagrantly provocative” is a better description.
The Question Your Beliefs License Conditions Of Use Clause:
You must agree to Question Your Beliefs whenever you use THE LICENSED WORK. While engaged in direct use of THE LICENSED WORK, you are not to question the beliefs of others, only your own.
If you need starting points, the following are some suggestions for initial questioning.
Question Your Beliefs about:
- religion
- politics
- natural resource use in a closed system
- the differences between humans and other animals
- your self-worth
- monogamy/polyamory
- the definition of family
- capitalism
- socialism
- self-governance
- good and evil
- your own creative abilities
- the difficulty of change
- money, security and happiness
- the power of a single human being to transform the world
- reality itself
While Questioning Your Beliefs in accordance with this license, you may generate many points of internal confusion, find logical contradictions you hold and uncover cognitive dissonance within yourself. You must regularly discuss these thorny issues and your questions about your beliefs with a partner or group in clear, honest conversation.
To bind this agreement, you must promise to yourself the following on first installation of THE LICENSED WORK:
“I agree to Question My Beliefs as described in the QYBL, and will continue to do so as a condition of continued use of THE LICENSED WORK. Should I ever stop Questioning My Beliefs, I will discontinue my use of THE LICENSED WORK.”
If you choose to release your work under the Question Your Beliefs License, please notify if you would like to be mentioned on this site.