Hi, I'm going to distribute a C library I wrote from scratch and with
no dependencies (except for some POSIX system calls) under a new
strong copyleft, the Hacking License.
AFAIK, it conforms to the DFGL and pass the three corner-case tests,
but I'd like to know your legal opinions and criticisms, as I'm going
to package such library for Debian too.
This license and the library it will cover are part of a larger hack
that includes an operating system ( http://jehanne.io ) and an
education method for kids (successfully tested in an elementary school
but still undocumented, sorry).
As you will read, its ultimate goal is to incentivize all users to
understand and modify the software they use, turning them to hackers.
You can find the text at http://www.tesio.it/documents/HACK.txt
(SHA256: 7c3bc821d8e32f644ff0cead738e3db1888e7f029c823189a74b3dcaae2be0ed),
but it is included after this message for your convenience.
Thanks for your feedback!
Giacomo
Hacking License
===============
Our Curiosity serves Humanity through Freedom, Candor and Communion.
This license grants you the right to hack with us, to learn what we ignore
and to challenge our assumptions by teaching us what you will learn.
1. Definitions
--------------
For the purpose of this License:
- "License" refers to this License.
- "Copyright" means copyright-like laws that apply to other literary works.
- "Hack" refers to the software, the documentation and the contents
distributed under this License.
- "Hacker" refers to any Copyright holder of the Hack.
- "Human" is every live being with humans among its genetic ancestors.
- "Application" refers to a set of software exchanging data.
- "Runtime" refers to any runtime system, any operating system, any
virtual machine and/or any interpreter that is required to run the Hack.
- "Source" refers to the human-readable form of a software which is the
most convenient for people to study and modify, and that can be used
to generate a new identical copy of the software itself.
- "User" refers to any human receiving a copy of the Hack or its source
and/or performing any action permitted by this License.
- To "study" a software means to perform any activity that could help
the User to deeply understand it, to understand how to modify it or to
explain its usage and inner working to other Users.
- To "copy" means to create an new exact copy of a software, for any
purpose and on any medium, even after applying one or more lossless
transformations to the software, including, but not limited to,
compression or encryption.
- To "distribute" means any action that enable a human or organization
to perform any of the activities permitted by this License.
- To "use" a software means to generate a new copy of the software from
its source, to run it for any purpose, to install it, to interact with
it through any medium or proxy (even asynchronously), to provide data
for its input or to consume its output (or any part of it), and/or to
store and use a Derived Work in place of the software itself.
- To "wrap" a software means to integrate it into an Application.
The programs that collect, store, transform and/or transfer data
for the User or between the User and the Hack are called "Wrappers".
Wrappers do not include any program or library that Users can find in
off-the-shelf distributions of the required Runtime, but include any
modified version of such programs, libraries, Runtime that are required
to run the Application.
The license of a Wrapper is compatible with this License if it grants
to the Users access to its source and the right to study, copy, use,
wrap, modify and/or distribute the Wrapper and/or the Application
and/or any modified version of them, in any form.
- To "modify" a software means to perform any action that would require
Copyright permission, except for studying, copying, using, wrapping
and distributing the software, including, but not limited to, to adapt
all or part of the software, to translate all or part of it to a
different language or form, to create or modify its documentation,
to refactor its source, or to combine the software or parts of it with
other works. The resulting work is called a "Derived Work", whereas
"Inspiring Hack" is the original work modified to create it.
2. Grants
---------
Permission is hereby granted to any User of the Hack to study, copy,
use, wrap, modify and/or distribute the Hack, and to distribute any
Derived Work under this License but with a different name and logo.
Furthermore, if the Hack is a Derived Work, the Hackers grant to the
copyright holders of the Inspiring Hack all rights, title and interests
in any copyright the Hackers have in the Hack.
Finally, a patent License to perform any of the actions permitted above
is granted to any User under the Hackers' essential patent claims.
These grants are free of charge, non-exclusive, valid everywhere in the
Universe, irrevocable (provided the stated conditions are met),
royalty-free and can be transferred to third parties with the Hack,
its source or any Derived Work but for no charge.
This License does not grant any rights in the names, trade names,
trademarks, service marks, or logos of the Hackers, except as required
for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Hack
and reproducing the content of the copyright notice.
3. Conditions
-------------
The grants provided by this License are subject to the following conditions:
1. The Hackers' copyright notice and this License shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Hack and of any Derived Work.
2. The source of the Hack shall be made available with the Hack and/or
by other reasonable means to every User, according to this License
and without additional constraints or requirements, such as further
agreements, any royalty or other fee.
3. All Wrappers used to integrate the Hack into an Application shall be
made available (either with the Hack and/or by other reasonable means)
to every User under either this License or compatible ones, so that
Users can modify and/or run the whole Application on their own hardware.
4. The tools, dependencies and know-how required to perform any of the
activities permitted by this License shall be made available to the
User with the source of the Hack (except for those tools and
dependencies that are already available to every User either free of
charge or in off-the-shelf distributions of the Runtime) and without
additional constraints or requirements, such as further agreements, any
royalty or other fee.
5. No restriction or impediment, neither technical, legal or otherwise,
shall prevent, hinder or inhibit the fruition of the rights provided
by this License to any User of both the Hack and any Derived Work.
6. No patent infringement litigation claim (excluding counterclaims and
cross-claims) alleging that all or part of the Hack directly or
indirectly infringes a patent shall be initialized by the User.
7. The User has never violated any of the previous conditions.
8. All of these conditions shall be valid and enforceable under the
jurisdiction of the User.
4. Termination
--------------
Failing to comply to the conditions of this License shall automatically
terminate the grants provided, without affecting other parties who have
received copies or rights from the User under this License.
5. Severability
---------------
The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this License does
not affect the validity or enforceability of the remainder of this License.
Such provision is to be reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make
it valid and enforceable.
6. No Warranty and Limitation of Liability
------------------------------------------
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
7. Use and distribution of the Hacking License
----------------------------------------------
This version of the Hacking License was written on December 01, 2018.
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
document, but changing it is not allowed.
Copyright (C) 2018 Giacomo Tesio