OK, so in the movement away from proprietary source software models, you’ve had “free software” and “open source software” as a duo of thrilling buzzwords, with the accompanying licenses and license approval/endorsement non-profits, for the last decade or so, often meaning the same thing (also known as “FOSS”) more times than when they don’t. In recent years, Microsoft wanted to move in this direction with their term “shared source”, with the most liberal and mutual “shared source” licenses not being fully accepted by the OSI as being in the same spirit as other “open source” licenses.

However, who’d have known that there was a software license that contained more “free sauce” than what even the FSF and Debian-legal could stomach?

The HESSLA (Hacktivismo Enchanced-Source Software License Agreement), published by the Hacktivismo collective, intends to go further “left” of the common definitions of “free software” (as pursued by the FSF/GNU, BSDs, and Apache) by not only ensuring the mutual, sharing and openness of the software for all those who may download it, use it, modify it or sell it, but also placing restrictions on the usage of the software for the violation of human rights or making modifications to it that would be constituted in legal terms as “spyware”.

Of course, such clauses place the HESSLA outside of the DFSG and FSF’s fields of endorsement, as such clauses are seen as unnecessary and unrealistic in their enforcement.

But what if the HESSLA’s terms, notable for the idea of “enhanced source”, could be reapplied to a more popular (and enforceable?) realm of public acceptance as an “enhanced content” license?

As has the focus of software development shifted to a more volunteer/hobbyist/non-profit stance, the last few years have seen the growth in publishing and usage of “free content”, which grant mutual legal rights of access to recipients and developers in the same or similar spirit as “free software”; the same has happened with “open content” and “shared content”, which, like their software equivalents, allow for private and public viewing and usage of the content under increasingly restrictive terms in like order.

So what would an “enhanced content” (no, not the type that you see and hear on CDs and DVDs) license read like?

Well, like a few of the less-popular free content licenses out there, like the Against DRM 2.0 license, it would grant use of “related rights” in opposition to “reserved rights” and it would expressly prohibit the implementation of DRM controls in the modification of the content.

Also, like HESSLA, it would prohibit stuff like embedding spyware binaries inside image files, and that the file wouldn’t be used for communication that would be utilized by institutions with the purpose of violating human rights.

Such a license, I assume, would be popular for those who may frequent websites like Wikileaks, since information that is prohibited from usage or modification in the purpose of forcefully disrupting the freedom of information of any one individual would, theoretically, be useful in the resistance against such impending disruption.

At least, theoretically.