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WTFPL

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Re: WTFPL

#31

Post by viraptor »

eru wrote: post #30
tedunangst wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob is not the copyright owner. He can't re-licence it to anything. What he can do is re-license a right to use the program, under terms specified by the copyright owner. I've attached extra meaning to c vs s in the word licence, but the definition you used is not the same as parent.

Yes. And if the new copyright owner Eve declares the original license invalid, Bob won't be able to re-licence (or even use the program any longer). Also Alice and Eve could be the same person who just changed her mind.

I don't think that's true. Eve can change the licence on her work. That doesn't affect any copy that Bob obtained beforehand. You cannot change the licence in a way that affects things already released - otherwise you'd be able to release something under BSD and after a year say "I'm changing the terms, new licence requires everyone to pay me X, even if you obtained the software on BSD terms".

Referring to the WTFPL author (http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/):

    Can’t you change the wording? It’s inappropriate / childish /
    not corporate-compliant.
    
    What the fuck is not clear in “DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU
    WANT TO”? If you do not like the license terms, just
    relicense the work under another license.

Re: WTFPL

#32

Post by eru »

viraptor wrote: post #31
eru wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And if the new copyright owner Eve declares the original license invalid, Bob won't be able to re-licence (or even use the program any longer). Also Alice and Eve could be the same person who just changed her mind.

I don't think that's true. Eve can change the licence on her work. That doesn't affect any copy that Bob obtained beforehand. You cannot change the licence in a way that affects things already released - otherwise you'd be able to release something under BSD and after a year say "I'm changing the terms, new licence requires everyone to pay me X, even if you obtained the software on BSD terms". Referring to the WTFPL…

Yes, you can't normally do this --- as long as the license is valid. That's why you may need to defend it in court. (Eve may want the court to decide that the license never gave the right in the first place.)

Re: WTFPL

#33

Post by eru »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #21

I released some code under a similar license, but I just made it up on the spot: http://trailbehind.com/comment_widget/ "CommentWidget isn't released under a particular open source license. You can do whatever you like with the code, anything at all."

Isn't this a particular license in itself?

Re: WTFPL

#34

Post by TallGuyShort »

ajross wrote: post #11
TallGuyShort wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken, the GPL has had to be defended in court several times. It's a situation where someone tries to charge money for a product, but a GPL'd source code was used in the product. That particular situation doesn't apply to this license however, since you can, apparently, do whatever you want.

The GPL has nothing to do with "charging money", so no, that's never been tested in court. And in any case, in a suit regarding any distribution license, it is the copyright owner who would bring the suit, forcing the alleged infringer to "defend" the case.

Sorry - I was indeed mistaken about the "charging money" aspect of it. However, the GPL has been successfully defended in court:

http://gpl-violations.org/news/20060922-dlink-judgement_fran...

Re: WTFPL

#35

Post by cdibona »

aeosynth wrote: post #28
cdibona wrote: post #26

These kinds of licenses are cute, but you shouldn't use one as it just makes life harder on those that might adopt and patch back into your software. Additionally, in this case, the lack of a disclaimer of warranty in this particular cute license is ill advised.

http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ Why is there no “no warranty” clause? The WTFPL is an all-purpose license and does not cover only computer programs; it can be used for artwork, documentation and so on. As such, it only covers copying, distribution and modification. If you want to add a no warranty clause for a program, you may use the following wording in your source code: /* This program is free software. It comes without…

Watch: I choose to ignore the warranty clause per clause 0. Also, since that clause exists, I can choose to apply it to other code I combine it with (unlikely, but its a dumb license that way)

Past that, I'm not convinced that due to clause 0 that it can be combined with other code, and I am of the opinion that more licenses are not good for open source development in general.

A responsible coder, given the desire in the wtfpl, would adopt a richard hipp style posture, or choose mit,bsd or apache.

Re: WTFPL

#36

Post by eli »

steveklabnik wrote: post #24
eli wrote: post #22

I would worry that this is not actually legally binding.

Why would it not be?

If your license won't hold up in court, then you might as well not bother with one. You really can't be cavalier about the langauge in your contracts.

Take the recent landmark case of Jacobsen v. Katzer -- Jacobsen nearly lost because he was using a slightly oddball open source license (the Artistic License) that was not written by a lawyer, had some ambiguous passages, and didn't quite say what he intended.

Sure, it's less of an issue with an extremely permissive license like this one, but let's imagine you aren't around any more and some company wants to use your code... but they can't because their legal department doesn't trust the license.

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