Show HN: Common Sense License (CSL) – civic license for a techno-feudal world (github.com)

The Common Sense License (CSL) is a new source-available, ethics-first license and governance proposal aimed at protecting common-good software from extractive corporate use. Key terms: software is free for individuals, nonprofits, and cooperatives; large corporate users must sign a Community Use Agreement (CUA) and contribute at least 5% of net revenue or equivalent labor to a democratically managed Commons Fund; ethical-use bans bar oppressive, surveillance, military, or extractive applications; all copies/derivatives must retain the license and attribution. Documentation includes LICENSE.md, NOTICE.md (maintainers and fund info), and COMMUNITY_USE_AGREEMENTS.md with templates for different organization sizes. For the AI/ML community the CSL matters because it ties distribution to social-purpose incentives and governance rather than pure permissive rights—potentially steering model and tool deployment away from exploitative business models while financing sustained open development. The project ships Colab-ready notebooks for empirical exploration (npm download scraping, difference-in-differences regressions, agent-based adoption and developer simulations, parameter sweeps, and corporate cash/labor contribution modeling) so communities can simulate impacts on adoption, fund growth, and contributor activity. Practical implications include questions about legal enforceability and open-source compatibility (CSL is source-available, not OSI-permissive), corporate willingness to sign CUAs, and how ethical restrictions will be interpreted in real-world AI deployments.