WGPL - Copyleft Without Attribution
THE PROBLEM
I keep spinning in a tight circle, over an issue of
copyleft. I hope someone can help me get unstuck. To
begin, please read the copyleft notice in my signature
block.
The reason I carefully append a copyleft notice is as
follows. I want any person to be able to drag anything I
write through the clipboard and drop it into any copylefted
document. I typically choose the LGPL over the GPL because
I want any copyleft works that contain my words, to be able
to be affiliated with non-copyleft works. If I want to
assure copyleft purity, I use the GPL.
Here's the rub. I want people to be able to use my words
directly, edited or un-edited, in whole or in part, without
having to attribute anything to me. I don't want people to
have to paraphrase in order to avoid infringing on my
copyright. I only grant this "without attribution"
permission provided that the resulting work is copylefted.
I am honored that anyone would find my words worthy of
distributing, copying or modifying, and I want nothing
more, than to know my words will grow up, to live an
honorable life, in a copyleft world.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
I propose to create a copyleft "patch" license that defines
how the "without attribution" clause applies to copylefted
works. Please review the following Without-attribution
General Public License (WGPL) patch to see if it is 100%
correct. Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
WITHOUT-ATTRIBUTION GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
This License applies to any work (Original) which contains
a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be
copied, distributed and modified under the terms of a named
"Base" license and subject to the Without-attribution
General Public License (WGPL).
The "Base" license must be one of the following three (3)
licenses: the GNU General Public License (GPL), the GNU
Library General Public License (LGPL), or the Public
Domain.
The WGPL License may be considered as a patch license that
preserves all of the conditions of the named Base license
with the superceding condition that attribution back to the
Original work is optional.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution
and modification follow.
1. If you copy or distribute a verbatim copy, you must
either leave the Original copyright notice intact or you
must meet condition (2).
2. If you modify (or do not modify) the work, you may
remove the Original copyright notice, provided that you
also meet all of these conditions:
a) If the Original work is under the GPL, your work that
contains a portion of the Original must be properly
licensed under the GPL.
b) If the Original work is under the LGPL, your work that
contains a portion of the Original must be properly
licensed under either the GPL or the LGPL.
c) If the Original work is under the Public Domain, your
work that contains a portion of the Original must be
properly licensed under the GPL (with or without the WGPL)
or the LGPL (with or without the WGPL) or the Public Domain
(with the WGPL) or any other non-proprietary copyleft
license listed directly on "What Is Copyleft?"
<http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html> (with or
without the WGPL).
--
Copyright(c) 1998 Lyno Sullivan; this work is free and may
be copied, modified and distributed under the GNU Library
General Public License (LGPL) and it comes with absolutely
NO WARRANTY <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lgpl.html>;
mailto:lls@freedomain.org
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