Lesser Kantian Public License (LKPL) Version 1.0 PREAMBLE This License embodies a single principle: act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law. Software is action at scale, but not every act of touching software is a moral act. Merging a fix into a date parser is not a deed that needs a maxim; pointing a system at people is. This License therefore distinguishes the two. It asks almost nothing of those who merely build and pass along components, and it asks the central thing — a stated, universalizable maxim — only of those who deploy a system so that it bears upon persons. This License does not restrict WHAT you may do. It requires that, where your software bears upon people, you be able to say publicly what you are doing, and affirm that you could will everyone in your position to do the same. The licensor does not approve, rank, or veto your maxim. The test is internal: a maxim that contradicts itself when made universal fails on its own terms, and the public record exists so that others — including the persons you affect — may judge. The condition that you declare a maxim is itself meant to be universalizable: unlike a restriction on content, a duty to state one's principle can be willed for all without contradiction. This License is a free-software license but is NOT certified as Open Source by the OSI, and likely could not be: its obligations extend to a Larger Work and are triggered by run-time use. This is a deliberate choice, not an oversight. This is the LESSER form of the Kantian Public License. It is identical to the Kantian Public License (KPL) except that it adds a compatibility valve: where a Covered Work is combined with code under a license that forbids further conditions or grants recipients the right to strike them — such as the GNU GPL or AGPL — this License steps back, so that the combination remains lawful to distribute. In that zone of combination the Categorical Condition survives as a public call rather than as an enforceable term. Use the LKPL when you need your work to interoperate with strong copyleft; use the KPL when you do not, and want the Categorical Condition to keep its full force. DEFINITIONS "The Work" means the software or other material licensed under this License. "You" means any natural or legal person exercising rights under this License. "Covered Work" means the Work and any library, module, or component licensed under this License. "Larger Work" means the integrated software system You build, deploy, or operate that incorporates or depends on at least one Covered Work. The dependency may be at build time or run time, and direct or transitive. The boundaries of a Larger Work are the boundaries of the system You actually ship or operate. They are not the boundaries of any single file, package, or process. "Affected Persons" means the natural persons to whom a Consequential Deployment is applied or about whom it operates: its users, the subjects of its decisions, the subjects of its data, and those whose options it constrains or enlarges. "Consequential Deployment" means operation or distribution of a Larger Work where that Larger Work, in normal use, bears upon Affected Persons: by making or materially informing decisions about them; by surveilling, identifying, scoring, or sorting them; by restricting or enabling their access, movement, speech, or resources; or by processing their personal data for any of the foregoing. Internal tooling, libraries, build systems, and software whose normal operation does not bear upon any person are NOT Consequential Deployments. "Operator" means the natural or legal person who effects a Consequential Deployment: the person who, in fact, operates the Larger Work upon Affected Persons or distributes it for that purpose. Where several persons act together, each is an Operator to the extent of their own conduct. "Maxim" means a clear, public statement of the principle on which a given Consequential Deployment is undertaken — the rule You are in effect acting upon, stated generally enough that another agent in the same situation could adopt it. "Universalization Statement" means a declaration by You affirming that You can, without contradiction, will that every agent in a relevantly similar situation act on the same Maxim. That is: the Maxim does not destroy itself or its own preconditions when made universal law. SECTION 1. GRANT OF RIGHTS Subject to the conditions below, You are granted a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, and create derivative works of the Work, and to do the same with any Larger Work in which it is incorporated. SECTION 2. PROVENANCE (the light obligation) 2.1. Whenever You distribute or operate a Larger Work, You must (a) preserve this License and the notices attached to each Covered Work, and (b) make it reasonably discoverable that the Larger Work contains a Covered Work. 2.2. No Maxim is required by this Section. A library is conveyed as a library. A contributor who builds or passes along a Covered Work, and who does not themselves effect a Consequential Deployment, owes nothing beyond this Section. SECTION 3. THE CATEGORICAL CONDITION (the weighty obligation) 3.1. Trigger. Upon Consequential Deployment of a Larger Work, and upon each material change in how it bears upon Affected Persons, the Operator must publish a Maxim. 3.2. Scope. The Maxim is the Maxim of the Consequential Deployment taken as a whole — the principle on which You operate this system as it bears upon these persons. It is not the maxim of any Covered Work within it, and a Covered Work buried deep in Your dependency graph does not lessen the obligation: the duty attaches to the deed, not to the depth of the dependency. The date parser requires no maxim; the system You point at people does. 3.3. Content. The published declaration must state, in plain language: (a) the Maxim of the Consequential Deployment; (b) Your Universalization Statement for that Maxim; (c) Your affirmation that the Deployment does not treat Affected Persons merely as means, but always also as ends; and (d) any superseded Maxim together with the date of its revision, so that the record is not erased. 3.4. Publicity and Honesty. The declaration must be public, discoverable, and must state the ACTUAL principle of the Deployment, not a flattering substitute. A maxim You are unwilling to state publicly fails this condition. A maxim that misrepresents what You actually do is a breach of this License. 3.5. The Three Tests. Beyond the content required above, the published declaration must include, each stated in plain language and in good faith: (a) SELF-EXCEPTION. A statement whether the benefit You derive from the Deployment depends on others in Your position refraining from the same practice — and, if it does, an account of why the practice survives its own generalization; (b) ROLE INVERSION. A statement whether You would accept the Deployment, on the terms You have declared, if You stood among the Affected Persons — subject to the system rather than operating it — and, if You would not, what You conclude from that refusal; and (c) THE ABLEST OPPONENT. The strongest objection to Your Maxim that You can formulate, stated as its ablest opponent would state it, together with Your answer — or Your acknowledgment that You have none. SECTION 4. PROPAGATION 4.1. The Larger Work, when distributed or operated, remains governed by this License. You may license Your own original portions under additional terms of Your choosing. This is permitted provided the obligations of Sections 2 and 3 are preserved — not removed, sublicensed away, or otherwise restricted — EXCEPT to the extent that Section 4.3 permits. You may impose no further restriction on a recipient's exercise of the rights granted here. 4.2. The Section 3 obligation attaches to the Operator, and not to every upstream contributor. Upstream contributors and redistributors who do not themselves effect a Consequential Deployment owe only Section 2. 4.3. Compatibility valve for strong copyleft. If a Covered Work is combined into a single work with material licensed under a license that (a) prohibits the imposition of conditions beyond its own terms, or (b) grants recipients the right to remove additional terms — including the GNU General Public License (versions 2 and 3) and the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 — then, with respect to that combined work and to the extent required for its lawful distribution and use: (i) Section 3 applies as a REQUEST, not as an enforceable requirement: the Operator is asked, but not legally bound under this License, to publish a Maxim; and (ii) Section 4.1 does not prevent a recipient from exercising any right that the other license confers, including the right to remove the obligations of this License from the combined work. This valve is the narrowest step-back needed to make distribution lawful. It does not reach Covered Works distributed on their own, or Larger Works that do not incorporate such strong-copyleft material; as to those, Sections 3 and 4.1 retain their full force. SECTION 5. TERMINATION 5.1. Your rights under Section 3 terminate automatically upon a Consequential Deployment made without the published declaration that Section 3 requires, or upon a knowing misrepresentation in that declaration. 5.2. Rights are reinstated upon publication of a truthful and complete declaration and cure of the breach, unless the licensor has terminated in writing for repeated or willful violation. 5.3. Termination of Your rights does not terminate the rights of those downstream who remain in compliance. SECTION 6. NO MAXIM POLICING BY THE LICENSOR The licensor does not approve, rank, or veto Your Maxim. The condition is that You state one and affirm its universalizability — not that the licensor agree with it. The test is internal to the Maxim and to Your own will; the public record exists so that others may judge. SECTION 7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY THE WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. SECTION 8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS 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 WORK OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE WORK. - - - Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. Derivative licenses must use a different name and must not imply endorsement by, or compatibility with, the Lesser Kantian Public License. APPENDIX: HOW TO APPLY THIS LICENSE TO YOUR WORK To apply the Lesser Kantian Public License to your software, attach the following notice. Replace the bracketed fields with your own information, and place the notice where a recipient can readily see it (for example, at the top of each source file, or in a NOTICE file alongside the LICENSE file). Copyright (C) [year] [name of copyright holder] This work is licensed under the Lesser Kantian Public License, Version 1.0. You may use, modify, and distribute it under the terms of that License. If you effect a Consequential Deployment of this work or of a Larger Work containing it, you must publish a Maxim as required by Section 3. This work is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. See the License for the full terms, including the disclaimer of warranty and limitation of liability. Include a complete copy of the License text (this document) in a file named LICENSE, or at a stable, publicly accessible location referenced by the notice above.