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An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

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Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#21

Post by jnbiche »

sophacles wrote: post #13
Alupis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The license the author of the BrainFuck example has chosen (or made up) actually is pretty restrictive, if not immature. Software licensing is not a joke. The author's account on Github seems to have many projects were a license has been either made up, or adapted. Perhaps out of lack of understanding current licensing and available licenses. They could check this site out for some help: https://tldrlegal.com/ If the…

I'll go ahead and feed the troll: please back up your statement that the license won't hold up in court. The site you link to has an entry for the "do what the fuck you want license v2" and there is literally no warning, and the only restriction mentioned is that a change to the license text requires a change to the license name. So again: exactly what is the problem (beyond hand-wavy unevidenced claims about judges)…

Can we please refrain from calling people trying to make a bona fide argument as "trolls"? You may disagree -- that's fine. But can we please keep the discussion focused on the issues and not the person making the argument?

I agree with Alupis that WTF is an unfortunate license choice for many projects, since it introduces a lot of legal uncertainty. But I also agree with most commenters in this thread that for this particular project, it doesn't matter. Cool though it is, no one is going to use this code in a commercial project, or as the basis for another OS project.

So it really doesn't matter in this case.

On the other hand, if someone writes a TCP stack in ARM assembly and licenses it under WTF with the intention of letting other people use it in their projects, there's a potential problem. It's not just corporations who will avoid a non-standard license, it's many established open source projects as well (for the same reason: legal uncertainty).

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#22

Post by xj9 »

Alupis wrote: post #14
sophacles wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go ahead and feed the troll: please back up your statement that the license won't hold up in court. The site you link to has an entry for the "do what the fuck you want license v2" and there is literally no warning, and the only restriction mentioned is that a change to the license text requires a change to the license name. So again: exactly what is the problem (beyond hand-wavy unevidenced claims about judges)…

There are several. And no, just because a license appears on the site I linked to does not make it "solid". * The codebase in question neglected to include the "No Warranty" clause, which implicitly means his code is fit for use. So, if I run it on my machine and my machine crashes, he is liable. * Just because a license has yet to be challenged, does not make it solid. That would be rather dangerous in a corporate e…

How often are you going to use an IRC bot written in BrainFuck in a corporate environment?

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#23

Post by scott_s »

Alupis wrote: post #16
billiob wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the author of bfb. It started as a joke with coworkers. I still consider it a joke but I'm proud of it! I like to use the wtfpl for simple code I wrote (like ptyproxy, a code I wrote on a sunday afternoon that I use to debug Terminology (under 2-clause BSD)). I don't expect much contributions on these projects anyway. If you're really concerned about the license and want to use my code in one of your projects, j…

Glad to have you part of the discussion. I'm not discussing your repos, but rather the license choice. You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability). I wouldn't need you to re-license under BSD since the WTFPL allows me to do this…

You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability).

Can you point to some legal sources which agree with this claim? That is, the claim that if you put up source code but don't explicitly disclaim liability, you are liable?

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#24

Post by cyorir »

Alupis wrote: post #11
lloeki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAQ #7: >> Can’t you change the wording? It’s inappropriate / childish / not corporate-compliant. > > The WTFPL lets you relicense the work under any other license. Also, see FAQ #6 and #8. [0]: http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/

What stops me from re-licencing under my company's proprietary license, then suing the original author for copyright? (It appears this "license" allows implicit re-assignment of copyright). Not to mention, this "license" was not written by a lawyer, but rather a software developer. I'm no lawyer, and I'm confident any license I can make up would be shredded by real lawyers. Furthermore -- the codebase in question abo…

With respect to relicensing, I assume that depends on a country's specific copyright laws. Ordinarily this license is as close to the public domain as you can be while still still having a license. So the protections against re-licensing are similar to protections for works placed in the public domain. For example you can't relicense Bach's works and then sue people for playing those works. So the burden is on the relicensor to show that their license supercedes the WTFPL. Unfortunately, the specifics of how this burden is handled in a court as well as treatment of the public domain in general are per-country (and sometimes subject to international agreements). Likewise with warranty, different countries will have different treatments.

What I don't quite get is why at this point you wouldn't simply place a work into the public domain or use creative commons or whatever. Maybe that is because different countries have different interpretations of "public domain."

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#25

Post by dgl »

Alupis wrote: post #7
L8D wrote: post #4

If you think this is cool, go ahead and check out bfb, an IRC bot written in a derivative of Brainfuck. https://github.com/billiob/bfb

The license the author of the BrainFuck example has chosen (or made up) actually is pretty restrictive, if not immature. Software licensing is not a joke. The author's account on Github seems to have many projects were a license has been either made up, or adapted. Perhaps out of lack of understanding current licensing and available licenses. They could check this site out for some help: https://tldrlegal.com/ If the…

The very site the (downvoted) parent references points out that WTFPL is actually a perfectly fine licence: https://tldrlegal.com/license/do-wtf-you-want-to-public-lice...

See also GNU's site: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#WTFPL Fair enough that they don't recommend it, but they believe it is GPL compatible.

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#26

Post by Alupis »

scott_s wrote: post #23
Alupis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to have you part of the discussion. I'm not discussing your repos, but rather the license choice. You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability). I wouldn't need you to re-license under BSD since the WTFPL allows me to do this…

You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability). Can you point to some legal sources which agree with this claim? That is, the claim that if you put up source code but don't explicitly disclaim liability, you are liable?

It's actually the reverse when it comes to licensing (or contracts for the matter). If you don't explicitly state it, then it can be interpreted to be implicit. When dealing with licensing or contracts, you want as little legal wiggle room as possible. Part of the reason even the most basic of contacts/licensing are pretty verbose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#27

Post by Alupis »

xj9 wrote: post #22
Alupis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several. And no, just because a license appears on the site I linked to does not make it "solid". * The codebase in question neglected to include the "No Warranty" clause, which implicitly means his code is fit for use. So, if I run it on my machine and my machine crashes, he is liable. * Just because a license has yet to be challenged, does not make it solid. That would be rather dangerous in a corporate e…

How often are you going to use an IRC bot written in BrainFuck in a corporate environment?

I was more speaking about the license in general, not the specific codebase example.

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#28

Post by clarry »

Alupis wrote: post #11
lloeki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAQ #7: >> Can’t you change the wording? It’s inappropriate / childish / not corporate-compliant. > > The WTFPL lets you relicense the work under any other license. Also, see FAQ #6 and #8. [0]: http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/

What stops me from re-licencing under my company's proprietary license, then suing the original author for copyright? (It appears this "license" allows implicit re-assignment of copyright). Not to mention, this "license" was not written by a lawyer, but rather a software developer. I'm no lawyer, and I'm confident any license I can make up would be shredded by real lawyers. Furthermore -- the codebase in question abo…

Relicensing is a weird term and easily leads to confusion. I guess you can write your own terms and distribute copies under these new terms. But you cannot revoke the rights the original license has granted to people who have received the work under that license. Nor can you revoke the original author's exclusive rights. The license text (which is about the copying and performing of the covered work) does not grant you such powers.

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#29

Post by clarry »

Alupis wrote: post #16
billiob wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am the author of bfb. It started as a joke with coworkers. I still consider it a joke but I'm proud of it! I like to use the wtfpl for simple code I wrote (like ptyproxy, a code I wrote on a sunday afternoon that I use to debug Terminology (under 2-clause BSD)). I don't expect much contributions on these projects anyway. If you're really concerned about the license and want to use my code in one of your projects, j…

Glad to have you part of the discussion. I'm not discussing your repos, but rather the license choice. You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability). I wouldn't need you to re-license under BSD since the WTFPL allows me to do this…

The WTFPL allows me to re-assign copyright to myself

Under which jurisdiction? Can you back that claim up?

Re: An IRC Bot in Arm Assembler

#30

Post by scott_s »

Alupis wrote: post #26
scott_s wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to have forgotten to add the "No Warranty" clause to the repo's you use the WTFPL on. This implicitly means your code is fit for use, and if it crashes my system, you are liable (and, more importantly, you accept liability). Can you point to some legal sources which agree with this claim? That is, the claim that if you put up source code but don't explicitly disclaim liability, you are liable?

It's actually the reverse when it comes to licensing (or contracts for the matter). If you don't explicitly state it, then it can be interpreted to be implicit. When dealing with licensing or contracts, you want as little legal wiggle room as possible. Part of the reason even the most basic of contacts/licensing are pretty verbose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implied_warranty

There is no sale here. Do you have an example of someone being held liable for code they gave way, or some analysis by a lawyer or judge saying someone in such a situation could be held liable?
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