BOLA not advisable

[Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@gwolf.org>]

Charles Plessy dijo [Tue, Jan 25, 2011 at 02:59:04PM +0900]:
> (...)
> licenses of the family of the MIT or the BSD require to to reproduce copyright
> statements on derivatives, and I think that it would cause headaches to many to
> attempt to seriously comply with them. We are blessed that a lot of data is
> truly in the U.S. public domain and therefore we can use it completely freely.
> 
> In case deposition in the public domain is not permitted by the law, I would
> recommend to use very permissive terms. Some people keep it short, with the
> WTFPL or the politically correcter BOLA, and some people prefer longer terms to
> hammer the fact that by giving their data, they can not be responsible for
> disappointments, errors or misuses made by third parties. The Creative Commons
> Zero was invented for that case.
> 
> http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
> http://blitiri.com.ar/p/bola/
> http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/

Hmm, I did not know about BOLA. However, I must recommend everybody
_not_ to use it, despite its nice intentions. 

• The preamble assumes anybody adopting the BOLA (which attempts to do
  public domain under copyright) is doing so for the reason of not
  liking thinking about licenses. That is often not true - But yes,
  this is not yet a real reason. After all, it's just the preamble

• I find a contradiction between «this work is to be considered Public
  Domain» and the first requirement, «Not take credit for it, and give
  proper recognition to the authors».

• What does "should" mean? Am I required to perform the mentioned
  tasks? ANDed or ORed together? Yes, they are only if I want to be
  "buena onda" - But, does using material under the "Buena Onda"
  License Agreement require me (i.e. assume I want) to be Buena Onda?

It is a statement of good intentions. But it is not a license. Nor a
public domain-like license.