# TL;DR

# How Do You Plan To Achieve All This?

Good question, we plan to do so through a combination of policy & technology. We don’t want to get too specific yet, as we plan to put our specifics into proposals that will be available once our system is up. Roughly, however, based on what we have in mind for now (with no future commitment):

# Do We Really Need All This?

Unfortunately we do; many engineers, developers, researchers, and scientists do not wish to contribute to war/killing or the development of weapons, but simply feel they have no other choice but to work within such a system that uses their work to kill (even if that just means putting their work out in the open). Alternatively those same developers/scientists/engineers/researchers may not feel they have much opportunity for work within their chosen field other than to directly contribute to military/weapons research/work/development be that directly or indirectly.

In fact during the process of getting code-bloom started, the U.S department of defense/war actively started to contradict what we stand for, the ability of developers to be uninvolved in unethical/lethal use, we did even not know that would happen when we got started!

However it does not need to be this way, if we wish to avoid contributing to killing with our work (and many people do) or build a more life-affirming & ethical world: we need to establish purpose-built alternative institutions and get going! In the case of Code Bloom, this is how we give people the chance to divest (or propose an alternative way of hosting company projects) while also providing the opportunity to work on more life-affirming projects.

Simply do a search for “open source military” or “free software military” and you will see formal evaluations that various agencies have made about the use of FLOSS in the military

We will be posting more information which will make the need for our cause more clear with future blog posts (…perhaps or subscribe to our RSS feed?), but for now you can simply look at the list of Other Organizations below for further information. However in summery, funding for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics has long been tied and entangled with the military industrial complex.

With our work, we hope to push other organizations and companies that host source code towards similar standards. By investing in Code Bloom your investing in making the peaceful future happen today!

# Are You Going To Track or Surveil People?

No. We have ideas about how to implement anonymity and privacy preserving accountability measures but nothing concrete yet though we have “canidate” ideas on how to implement this:

None of this is concrete, finalized, or perfect and we likely will implement several mechanisms, we would love to hear your feedback or proposal when our proposals page is ready! In the mean time drop us a line or get involved

# What is “Ethical Source”?

Ethical Source is similar to Open Source or Free/Libre software but with limitations or obligations put on the terms of use or rights granted for ethical reasons or intended to uphold certain values. We like to think of it like pairing each right to a responsibility. This modification could also be made to Open Core, Shared Source/Source Available, or Proprietary software. Here at Code Bloom we focus on the “FLOSS” variant and have an affinity for the ethical thought behind Free/Libre Software: helping one’s neighbor, preventing the exercise of unjust power over a user, etc.

# What is the “Consistent Life Ethic”?

The Consistent Life Ethic (CLE), can be described a life-affirming ethic for the preservation of life, a duty of basic care, and concern for human dignity while being in opposition to killing, aggressive violence (compatible with the Non Aggression Principle), and deprivation of basic needs. It incorporates elements of the Ethic of Non-Killing (ENK), Non-Violence or Pacifism which extended beyond concern about war. While the CLE has its roots in Catholic thought, the CLE is a universally accessible philosophy that does not depend on any particular religious, political, or ideological background about something that is common to all of us: life. Code Bloom aims to be an institution that upholds it and creates the conditions for anyone who upholds any part of it to have a safe place to share their work and collaborate! To learn more please visit:

# Consistent Life Ethic

# Do I Have To Agree With The Whole Consistent Life Ethic to use Code Bloom

# Effectively: No

Code Bloom mostly exists to protect against military use of code, We intend to include explicit disclaimers in all our licenses/terms of use that the use of our services, licensing a work under our licenses, or using a work licensed in such a way is an endorsement of the Consistent Life Ethic.

It will also always be possible to distribute your work under a different license through a different channel

# Thinking of Others

You don’t have to agree with all people and parts of the CLE to respect the wishes of others and empathize with their view, especially when they consider it - literally - to be a matter of life or death (via an empirically verifiable phenomena), all are welcome

# Will You Make a License That Makes X Part of the Consistent Life Ethic Optional or Add an Exception?

No, we will not exclude any group of person from being protected intentionally

# Why Not Just Be Pacifist Only?

Its not who we are 🙂

We don’t want our work to be used to kill anyone in any way, nor do we wish to distribute the work of others to do so. Code Bloom is a safe harbor not a long term solution; you could make another “safe-harbor” platform that is “only pacifist” and we would consider that to be a good thing, we only ask you do not engineer in an intentional incompatibility.

# What About Open Source and Free/Libre Software

We love Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS)! However from the beginning it has always been intended that FLOSS be allowed for military use nor does it allow for discriminating against fields of endeavor (see no. 6) even when those fields of endeavor involve surveying people so they can be tortured, the death penalty, and abortion (you can look at our blog for more). In an ideal society piecemeal solutions like Code Bloom would not exist and we would have laws prohibiting all forms of killing people, In such a world, free software licenses would be unchanged and specific ethical source licenses either would not exist, or would only exist for the purpose of vigilance, we plan to defer to local law when such a law sufficiently covers a certain area of concern.

# With Code Bloom FLOSS Developers Will Have Options:

# What About Existing Ethical Source Licenses

Existing Ethical Source licenses such as the Do No Harm License, the Hippocratic License, or the Licenses offered by The Organization for Ethical Source are great, however, they are a but broad in scope or are somewhat unrealistic given social constraints. We value these licenses, however, we take the approach of being specific, minimal, and “narrow”(-ish) as to what our licenses entail/allow.

# I Also Care About [X] And Want My License To Address It!

Great! We are glad you’re a conscientious person who is passionate about something. We need more people like you! We plan to create modules for additional specific social justice causes that can be added on to our licenses, and the ability to customize our licenses so long as the Consistent Life Ethic is upheld. Some of these additional areas of concern will be Environmentalism, Privacy, anonymity, Civil Rights, AI, Ethical Supply Chains, and ethical Content Moderation & Anti-Censorship. Wealso plan to have a way to submit additional proposals.

# You Can’t Not Use All Technology The Military Has Touched

You’re right! Our objective is to build ethical and life affirming technologies while not contributing to lethal technologies. We consume the system but do not contribute back to the outside system.

# But The Military Does Some Good Things!

The military is often is associated with humanitarian work (though this sometimes comes with a strategic objective), search and rescue efforts, and other “good things”. Many people would also say that proportionate defensive wars as a last resort are justified. While pacifists and consistent-life people may land in different places on this issue we stipulate the following

  1. It is not necessary for all software to support the military or the development of weapons. Even if you support these efforts in some way, we are allowed to have a safe space to develop it free from these concerns
  2. The vast majority of cases where weapons are used do not meet the criteria most of pacifists or CLE supporters. Our community will help them insulate their work from unjust use in lethal weapons
  3. Most militaries have committed some sort of atrocity that any sober, rational person who agrees that ends do not justify means would find abhorrent
  4. You do not have to be a pacifist to object to certain practices or to use our services, you may simply see a potentially harmful use for your technology and do not want it used in a context where a person could be killed (see the Stop Killer Robot’s website for an example)
  5. Industry and research are replete and saturated with military use and constantly: asking/pressuring/demanding/requiring people to compromise on, assist with, or ignore dual-use or military use; hardly any spaces exist that are explicitly just for peaceful technologies without fear that they will be used to harm or kill
  6. Our licenses will make allowances for the military to use technology for some of these “good things” or will allow conditional approval. Additionally you will always have the ability to distribute your own copyrighted works under a different license to whomever you choose.

# Do You Hate Soldiers?

No. We don’t hate anyone. In fact our licenses will not blanket prevent members of the military or military organizations from using licensed works (as stated above). We maintain the virtue of self-sacrifice for others is an undeniable good and act of love. We simply object to the means by which our country is protected or the choices our leaders make. We also think that what our laws, systems, and leaders require of our soldiers is unjust.

# Do You Think There Should Be No Standing Army/Military?

Code Bloom is not an organization that is intended to be a direct outlet for the philosophy of pacifism or the Consistent Life Ethic, nor any particular political cause (perhaps beyond not using our code/work to kill), but we will provide a brief “survey of the field”:

# Any Other Long-Term Plans?

# Other Organizations

# Consistent Life Ethic & Non Killing

# Pacifism & War Resistance

# Science, Technology, and Peace

# Ethical Supply Chain Initiatives