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The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name

chrismorgan.info

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

#51

Post by chrismorgan »

samatman wrote: post #22

A bit off topic, but commenting on footnotes is fair play: I don't believe that 'let' is in fact autoantonymic. A let is more-or-less lost, as a noun in English, but in the form inlet and outlet it remains ubiquitous. In "let or hindrance" we might observe that a right of travel (a let) might well be a hindrance to other uses of the property. A let in tennis is so-called because you 'let' the server try again. The se…

Your objection interests me, because these are both cases that I figured out myself with much contemplation and was quite content with many years ago and have never subsequently looked up in any reference (and I doubt your alternatives ever occurred to me). But after a spot of investigation now, I don’t believe you’re right on either count and stick to what I have written, at least for now.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=let+tennis+hinder: the consensus among the first few results, which are reputable-looking sources, seems to be that the hinder sense is probably correct, though some suggest as an alternative the French filet meaning net.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=etymology+of+let+and+hindrance: not much obviously canonical, but https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/without-let-or-hindrance... at least sounds reasonable, and agrees with me, including a citation in the last paragraph from 1799 which is unequivocally being used in the sense I nominated.

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

#52

Post by m0llusk »

The way people and organizations stand in the way of public domain releases is beyond rude to the point of genuine evil. My code is just code. It should be possible to let all others read it without obligation. There must be some way to restrain this relentless desire to cocoon everything in layers of legal entanglement. It is just code and I as the author desire others to be able to read it. This is not a crazy plot or rocket science.

There might be technical problems with the name itself, but the license text explains the intent and refers to the https://unlicense.org/ site which has additional clarification. Proper use as recommended on the site has zero legal ambiguity.

The idea that "BSD0" or "CC0" are better names makes no sense whatsoever. Public domain releases are made by those who do not want the baggage of a BSD or Creative Commons license. Maybe someone in these organizations should talk to someone familiar with marketing and namespaces to come up with a real solution?

The CC0 suggestion is especially ironic since that has not approved. It doesn't actually exist as a legal standard which makes it unappealing.

The OSI, FSF, FANG and other such companies, and the European Union need to get over the idea that they can and even must dictate all aspects of intellectual property ownership as they see fit. My code is not theirs and this is the core issue. My code is mine and thus mine to give away completely free without being encumbered by licensing schemes intended to yield control or profit. That their schemes for control and profit are so out of control that there is no agreed upon or even consistently imagined escape is a sign that they are operating beyond rational limits.

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

#54

Post by thomascgalvin »

hannob wrote: post #19

I wish people would get together to agree upon a public domain alike software license that everyone finds acceptable. That'd mean: * OSI approves it * FSF approves it * Google and other companies with large stakes in FOSS find it acceptable * Github + Gitlab support it in their templates Can we have that?

Is `This work is public domain.` insufficient?

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

#55

Post by gnud »

m0llusk wrote: post #52

The way people and organizations stand in the way of public domain releases is beyond rude to the point of genuine evil. My code is just code. It should be possible to let all others read it without obligation. There must be some way to restrain this relentless desire to cocoon everything in layers of legal entanglement. It is just code and I as the author desire others to be able to read it. This is not a crazy plot…

> My code is not theirs and this is the core issue.

This is _exactly_ why a lot of jurisdictions assign/assume copyright by default, and make it hard to 'remove'. Otherwise authors would see their work ripped off in a lot of inventive ways.

When the default state is that every work is copyrighted, that removes a lot of possible confusion, and possible excuses.

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

#56

Post by freemint »

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.

Because software licenses are a mess Linux and Samba implement the same protocol UT can't share code as one is under GPLv3 and one is under GPLv2. In the past GPLv2 was the universal receptor license for open source licenses (is that license GPLv2 compatible and my code is then I can release the result as GPLv2). GPLv3 changed that. Now there is only the universal donor. There is turns The public domain. However that one has been utterly FUDed by boomer lawyers being compared to littering by the highway. So now we need a rubber stampable (so people can use it until copyright gets killed ... Uhhm ... fixed) public domain equivalent license. OBSD does that without "any uncertainty" and it being a "proper license".

> End result is the same without the uncertainty.

You fell for the boomer FUD.

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

#57

Post by faho »

ahelwer wrote: post #44
hannob wrote: post #19

I wish people would get together to agree upon a public domain alike software license that everyone finds acceptable. That'd mean: * OSI approves it * FSF approves it * Google and other companies with large stakes in FOSS find it acceptable * Github + Gitlab support it in their templates Can we have that?

Google et. al (and OSI for that matter) will find no such alike-license acceptable until a platform using that license becomes too valuable to ignore, like Linux with GPLv2. So the calculus has to tilt such that giving their work away for free is worth it because they get so, so much work for free. And even then they will try to work around it like with Fuschia. Plus since everything is served over the internet these…

The parent was asking for a license "akin to Public Domain", not a "share-alike" license.

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

#58

Post by ketzu »

thomascgalvin wrote: post #54
hannob wrote: post #19

I wish people would get together to agree upon a public domain alike software license that everyone finds acceptable. That'd mean: * OSI approves it * FSF approves it * Google and other companies with large stakes in FOSS find it acceptable * Github + Gitlab support it in their templates Can we have that?

Is `This work is public domain.` insufficient?

Yes, because in some jurisdictions it is not possible to discard your rights.

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

#60

Post by Bishop_ »

m0llusk wrote: post #52

The way people and organizations stand in the way of public domain releases is beyond rude to the point of genuine evil. My code is just code. It should be possible to let all others read it without obligation. There must be some way to restrain this relentless desire to cocoon everything in layers of legal entanglement. It is just code and I as the author desire others to be able to read it. This is not a crazy plot…

I am largely ignorant to license law so forgive this probably basic question

If the idea of public domain is clearly established in law should it not be enough to have a license file that simply reads.

Everything in this repository is public domain, all contributions to this repository are public domain.

Obviously if someone were to submit code stolen from a project under another license it would create an issue. But the same could be said for any project.

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