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Re: most liberal license



Harald Geyer wrote:
>Joachim Breitner wrote:
>>Harald Geyer wrote:
>>>Is there some other "as free as public domain" license? I don't like
>>>to reinvent the wheel, but I haven't found one yet.\
>>
>>I ususally recommend and use the MIT-Licence for that, it essentially 
>>says the same stuff as yours, is the shortest of all on opensource.org, 
>>and is well known and widely used.
> 
> Yes, I know the MIT-License and it is the option if there are any
> objections against my draft.
> 
> However there are some things I dislike about the MIT-License:
> * You are forced to include the original copyright notice, in
>   whatever "substantial portions of the Software" are.

True.

> * Even worse, you are required to include the permission notice, thus
>   it is half way towards copyleft. (I.e. it doesn't affect other
>   software, but still you can't sell it in a proprietary way.)

You must include it; that does not mean it must actually be the license
used on the software.  It can simply be a note about the original.  This
requirement is primarily for reasons of credit, I believe.

> * It is an enumerate style license, which means that 
>   - you might forget something
>   - it is water on the mills of those who write wired legal text saying
>     you might do everything, but afterwards try to define what everything is.
>   - it is based upon US copyright law and the rights enumerated therein,
>     but there might exist other juristdictions with additional/other rights.
> 
> Ideally I would put my software in the public domain, but I've been told,
> that this isn't possible in all jurisdictions (I don't even know about
> my own), so I thought to circumwent this by licensing it to give the
> same rights *as* public domain.

First of all, I believe your impression of the MIT license is not
accurate.  Nevertheless, if you really want to release public domain
software, while still dealing with strange jurisdictions in which such a
thing does not exist, then I suggest reading
http://lists.debian.org/debian-x/2004/05/msg00235.html , in particular
the part starting with "I refuse to assert copyright in this modification.".

- Josh Triplett

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