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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

#71

Post by samhw »

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'm struggling to see what your point is here.

> There must be some way to restrain this relentless desire to cocoon everything in layers of legal entanglement.

It's very simple. We, in most countries, live in a legal system where creations default to maximum IP protection rather than minimum IP protection.

Everyone has their own opinion about that - and it's fascinating to read all of them - but this is the world we live in. Some people seem to have trouble understanding that and have retreated to the imaginary land of Shouldistan.

> Proper use as recommended on the site has zero legal ambiguity.

See above: we are not in Shouldistan.

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

They are words. They have meaning. The licence text doesn't need to 'exist' in whatever ontology you've dreamed up. You can write your very own licence and it will have legal effect by dint of the fact that words have meaning.

> 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.

The European Union can dictate all aspects of intellectual property ownership as it sees fit[0]. The others don't, nor do they think they can, because that would be stupid, and none of those groups are (that) stupid. I don't know what you're referring to in suggesting that they believe that. I'm not altogether sure that you do either.

Again, you (very likely) do not personally dictate the law of the land where you live, so you'll have to suck it up and write a licence that conveys the legal restrictions (or lack thereof) that you intend to apply to your code.

I'm sorry that we don't live in a land where the law is exactly as you want it to be. You can stay in Shouldistan, raging against the fact that the world isn't exactly as you would like it to be, or you can get smart, grit your teeth, accept that the world is imperfect, and negotiate it as best you can to achieve your goals.

[0] ...more or less, in most member states, for the purposes of this conversation.

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

#72

Post by freemint »

jhardy54 wrote: post #49
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?

That’s the 0BSD. I called it the Free Public License when submitting to OSI, but we changed it to 0BSD because Landley had apparently come up with the same license a few years before me.

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

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

#73

Post by withinboredom »

683686285 wrote: post #38
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.

I'm not pretending copyright doesn't exist, but I want other people to be able to interact with my work as if copyright and other forms of IP didn't exist. There doesn't seem to be a perfect way to achieve this. The problem with CC0 (and I believe the reason OSI doesn't approve of it) is that it says: > No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected b…

So what do you do if a company contacts you for a commercial license? If the rights are permanently waived, how do you offer a different license?

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

#74

Post by hannob »

knowledge-clay wrote: post #36
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?

0BSD? https://opensource.org/licenses/0BSD

Fails on criterion 4, and I think that's a real issue.

Github is the de-facto default sourcecode plattform. If it isn't a standard option on Github then it doesn't feel like a standard license.

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

#75

Post by hannob »

_ZeD_ wrote: post #40
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?

isn't it cc0?

Not OSI approved.

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

#76

Post by hutzlibu »

zinekeller wrote: post #70
ravenstine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious... if Creative Commons can't even create a public domain license that applies to both US and Europe, then what would it actually take to do so? Seems insane that any system can't accept "this is public domain" as all you need.

> 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".

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

#77

Post by hutzlibu »

Taywee wrote: post #68
ravenstine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious... if Creative Commons can't even create a public domain license that applies to both US and Europe, then what would it actually take to do so? Seems insane that any system can't accept "this is public domain" as all you need.

Some places, like Germany, don't recognize a public domain at all.

In a way we do, called Gemeinfrei. But the only way to transfer something to it, is dying and waiting 70 years.

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

#78

Post by zinekeller »

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".

Fair, I should put "legally sane", I lost the nuance there.

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

#79

Post by ShamelessC »

smoldesu wrote: post #47
mojzu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally it's a mix of principle and practicality. On principle I'd like to be able to put code up on Github, tell people they can use it however they like and to credit me if it suits them, but otherwise I don't want the copyright or any other associated responsibilities on it. And practically I have no ability to enforce the terms of any licence once the code is in public anyway, so why should I spend time engagi…

// Oops, I misunderstood the context of this discussion. Disregard this :p

What?

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

#80

Post by kayodelycaon »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #34

Personally, I think the fact that we even have to talk about the suitability of Unlicense vs CC0 is evidence of how terribly stupid copyright law is. I wrote code, it isn't fancy or interesting and I make no money from it nor do I intend to, and I just want to let everyone know that I truly do not care at all what they do with it. Why is it so hard to let people know that they can use information in the natural way t…

If you're in the US, you can release works into public domain by writing "This is public domain".

In other countries, public domain doesn't exist and in order for someone to use a work, there needs to be legal proof that you have the right to use it. Hence the requirement for licenses.

In a lot of ways, I prefer the latter approach because it puts the burden of proof on the copier, not the creator.

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