On Mon, 29 Aug 2022, Bret Johnson wrote:
I'll try to search for an appropriate license and e-mail it to you.
I've been searching though a little bit of licensing info and really
didn't know that even declaring that something is "public domain"
doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means. I suspect it may
ultimately have something to do with the lawyers needing SOMEBODY to go
after when something goes wrong -- declaring it to be public domain
doesn't necessarily get you completely "off the hook". I know Jim has a
significant concern over these kinds of things since he is the "face" of
FreeDOS.
We could end up having a long discussion about this (and it might even
be worthwhile, or at least entertaining), but it seems to me as though
legally they try to classify software as simply another "branch" of
writing, with the other major branches being books and music. While
they all certainly have "creative" aspects to them and can be
"plagiarized" in some sense, they really are different animals and
pretending they are the same (even if only in a legal sense) really
doesn't seem very logical. Of course, legality and logic don't
necessarily need to have anything to do with each other.
For example, I know it's a big deal these days for musicians to claim
that somebody who disagrees with their politics can't play their songs
(at things like political rallies). Basically, they're declaring who
can and can't listen to their music. This would be equivalent to
book-banning by an author -- the author of a book saying who can and
can't read it, or a programmer declaring who can't and can't use their
software (even if they pay for it).
We're living in a funny world.
This is why I use UIUC (for a longer license) or MIT/MIT0 (for a shorter
one).
Something like this (basically a "MIT0") is just 3 sentences and grants
effectively the same rights that would be intended by a "public domain"
dedication. This is the UIUC license with the three conditions removed:
"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so.
"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 CONTRIBUTORS 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 WITH THE SOFTWARE."
There's other ways to word it that would also work.
-uso.
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