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I develop code review tool which analyzes the code and gives it passed grade and output details of code review.

I want to prohibit to use this software for recruiting/hiring purposes. I don't want to be responsible for someone doesn't going to be hired because of my software. I don't want to prohibit for development usage, but I do want to prohibit it for hiring purpose only.

Is there any free existing licenses that prohibit usage of project for hiring purposes? If no, can I modify MIT license for this purpose?

Thank you for attention!

volter9
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    FYI such a license would not be an open source license (discrimination against fields of endeavor). –  Nov 29 '14 at 18:59
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    It's not the software that causes people not to be hired. It's people who consider the grade given by the software to be reason enough to reject a candidate. – toniedzwiedz Nov 29 '14 at 19:23
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    Nothing you put in the license will have any effect on how the software is used. The best you can do is put a prominent warning on startup or results screen. – grahamparks Nov 29 '14 at 19:45
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    Related: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/199055 ... and all other variants of "prohibit some particular usage." – Robert Harvey Nov 29 '14 at 20:51
  • delnan ok, I'll consider this. toniedzwiedz, grahamparks hm, that's a great idea! – volter9 Nov 29 '14 at 22:34

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There are no licenses with such restrictions in common use. Licenses with such a restriction also fall outside the definition of open source.

Fears, such as yours of being held accountable for conclusions drawn from the results given by your application, are usually dealt with by adding a disclaimer to the software that you don't guarantee that the software is suitable for any purpose. These disclaimers are included with just about all open source licenses.

If you still want to use a custom license with restrictions on how the software can be used, you need to consult with a lawyer to draft a legally enforcible license.

Bart van Ingen Schenau
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  • Also consider in your disclaimer: A prominent university provides an auto-grader for beginning programming classes. Since students can use it as much as they want, they can rely on it for *all* their testing and thus fail to develop the skills needed for testing, evaluation, and predicting what a program will do. They'd be better off if the auto-grader reported how many runs they did, or limited students to a few runs per day, or at least warned them not to use it that way. – Jerry101 Nov 30 '14 at 18:53