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The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

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Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#151

Post by Jach »

chayleaf wrote: post #4

0BSD is nice as well. As a bonus, it's the only PD-equivalent license allowed in Google.

Google uses Sqlite, which is simply public domain. Did someone at Google actually purchase one of their pseudo-license 'warranty of title' documents they offer for companies (supposedly mostly in other countries that officially don't recognize PD grants) with more legal budget than sense? Google also uses SBCL, which is mostly public domain "in jurisdictions where this is possible, or under the FreeBSD licence where not." Does the entry for it in the list of third party software say Google is using it under the FreeBSD license or PD? (They also employ at least one developer who is a core maintainer on the side.)

The legal department's default answer is "no" to anything they haven't already said "yes" to, so it wouldn't surprise me if your default options are limited. But presumably with useful enough software under other PD-equivalent things they could be forced to say "yes". As an aside I'd be very interested to know the extent of internal audits Google does on its code for legal risks in un-cleared-by-legal dependencies, dependencies-of-dependencies, and presence of code derived from stack overflow/popular books/random places on the internet indexed by google.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#152

Post by michaelmrose »

hutzlibu wrote: post #76
zinekeller wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems insane that any system can't accept "this is public domain" as all you need. Except that's exactly (legally, anyways) sane in Europe ( not EU, it predates EU). Read about moral rights, and you will learn the complexities of what the US squishes into a single copyright regime. Note: moral rights was translated from French legal term droits moraux , there's no religious meaning in moral here.

"Except that's exactly sane in Europe" This is up to debate. I am a european resident and I think it is insane, that the reason I am not free to donate my work into the public domain is supposed to be "moral rights".

It's not that anyone is denying you your right. You aren't "free" to donate your work to flutbark bargleboff either not because its forbidden but because its undefined.

Contract your lawmaker and have them define it legally. Its undefined because there isn't money to be gained by giving stuff away and for practical purposes current solutions seem to be work good enough for practical purposes for those who want to do so robs any such movement of much momentum thus far.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#153

Post by michaelmrose »

zokier wrote: post #29
netr0ute wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about LGPL? It seems to tick all of the 4 boxes you have.

LGPL is not public domain alike

It's undesired by people who want to exploit other people's work commercially or fantasize that they somehow they might want to do so in the future. Kind of like poor people who don't want to tax the rich because they fantasize that they may someday be rich.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#154

Post by michaelmrose »

683686285 wrote: post #13
tokai wrote: post #10

Why do people want public domain software licenses? Just use a proper licence and die at some point. End result is the same without the uncertainty.

The problem with most licenses is that they require that the license be distributed with the content that is licensed. I don't want to force people to do anything. I want it to be as if copyright doesn't exist.

Then you need to lobby your government for copyright not to exist.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#155

Post by freemint »

jhardy54 wrote: post #113
freemint wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you post the FPL text? I am wondering whether it was literally the same license.

It’s the same text, which is just the ISC license sans the “ provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies” clause. The only differences: - I didn’t use the “Copyright Boaty McBoatface 2022” line, but that’s not a big enough change to justify having two licenses. - The license was approved as the FPL-1.0.0, which I believe was the first OSI-approved license that user semanti…

> The 0BSD doesn’t actually inherit from any other BSD license, the “BSD” bit is more of a spiritual nod that I found more confusing than helpful.

Don't tell Rob Landley that (the creator of the license). He is quite adamant that he used a BSD license as the basis.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#156

Post by withinboredom »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #147
withinboredom wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you can’t speak for other people and your inheritors can do whatever they want.

You can usually exclude things from being inherited.

I’m not sure it works like that in every jurisdiction.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#157

Post by rwmj »

hsn915 wrote: post #112
rwmj wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trouble is no such sentence exists. There are countries (eg. France) where moral rights are inalienable. There are countries where you cannot put something into the public domain (Germany). Even countries where there isn't such a thing as the public domain. You end up needing to write something which is clearly a license, yet acts like the work is in the public domain, and make it watertight (nearly) worldwide. So yo…

> no such sentence exists What's wrong with 0BSD? https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD "Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted."

Well you missed out the second paragraph is the first problem.

Not being a lawyer I can only speculate on other problems. It doesn't get around the problem of moral rights, so probably doesn't work in France.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#158

Post by hutzlibu »

michaelmrose wrote: post #152
hutzlibu wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Except that's exactly sane in Europe" This is up to debate. I am a european resident and I think it is insane, that the reason I am not free to donate my work into the public domain is supposed to be "moral rights".

It's not that anyone is denying you your right. You aren't "free" to donate your work to flutbark bargleboff either not because its forbidden but because its undefined. Contract your lawmaker and have them define it legally. Its undefined because there isn't money to be gained by giving stuff away and for practical purposes current solutions seem to be work good enough for practical purposes for those who want to do…

"It's not that anyone is denying you your right"

Of course they are. I am not free do do with my IP as I want. (gifting it to everyone). I have to keep ownership. (even though I reject the concept of IP alltogether)

But you are right with your explanation why it is like this. There is no money in it to change it for good and current solutions work "good enough" for practical purposes (giving everyone the right to use my IP).

So I will likely also just go on use the existing solutions, instead of running against walls and trying to change the laws.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#159

Post by 683686285 »

goodpoint wrote: post #134
Pet_Ant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By default copyright exists so by doing nothing you are copyrighting your work and preventing people who want to be in the legal clear from being able to use it (OSS games for example). The best you can do is watermark your art with CC0 and/or include the license or a link to it in the file metadata. But pretending we are living in a post-copyright utopia severely limits the reach of your work.

> pretending we are living in a post-copyright utopia severely limits the reach of your work And severely limits the freedom of end users! GPLv3 protects around tivoization and proprietarization. Other licenses do not. The net effect is that end users are unable to benefit from the openness.

Freedom to me is whatever exists in the absence of coercion. GPL licenses depends on coercion, so they cannot produce freedom as I see it.

To illustrate this, imagine an alternative universe where violence is impossible. In this universe IP as we know it including copyleft licenses couldn't exist as violence or credible threats of violence by a state (or similar entity) is required for enforcement. I want to get as close to this hypothetical universe as possible by avoiding everything that depends on violence and coercion as far as possible.

Re: The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

#160

Post by 683686285 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #154
683686285 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with most licenses is that they require that the license be distributed with the content that is licensed. I don't want to force people to do anything. I want it to be as if copyright doesn't exist.

Then you need to lobby your government for copyright not to exist.

I would if I could, but I don't have any power over any government.
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