Your License Is Your Interface 356
dp619 writes "License-free software has become a thing. Only 14.9% of repositories on GitHub have a license, according to recent Software Freedom Law Center research. Red Monk has observed that this trend is occurring principally among younger software developers. Outercurve Foundation technical evangelist Eric Schultz has offered up his opinion, saying, 'As an active developer I want to add a slightly different perspective on the dangers of releasing unlicensed software. My perspective is based on a simple phrase: "Your License Is Your Interface."' He adds, 'A license similarly defines the interaction between the software, or more precisely the creators of the software, and users. Just like an interface, a license defines intended behavior of users of the software, such as the four essential freedoms or the ten pillars of the Open Source Definition. Just like an interface, a license prevents unintended behavior of users of the software, which depending on the open source license, may disclaim the original author of liability for use of the software, prohibit redistribution without recognizing the original author or prohibit distribution of derivatives under a more restrictive license. When it comes to legal use and distribution of your software, your license IS your interface.'"
and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:3)
Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that posts like this always get modded down by OSS-fanatics, but it is true. If I was to write a small piece of software and wanted people to actually use it, I would never release as GPL. Every company I've worked for refuses to use GPL code, at least for some kinds of applications.
Release as BSD or similar with a warranty disclaimer and be done with it. That way it might actually be widely useful. Pretty much every industry-standard de-facto library I can think of is BSD licensed, such as openSSL. if openSSL was GPL, no one would use it.
Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that posts like this always get modded down by OSS-fanatics, but it is true. If I was to write a small piece of software and wanted people to actually use it, I would never release as GPL. [.. blah blah..] Release as BSD or similar with a warranty disclaimer and be done with it. [..blah blah..]
Or perhaps they're modded down because anyone outside the GPL vs. BSD zealotry sees them for what they are- the tedious and inevitable tendency of fanatics on either side to steer any vaguely license-related discussion into being yet another tedious identikit rehash of the GPL vs. BSD holy war.
As I already said [slashdot.org]
Never mind that we've had this discussion countless times before and every possible debating point and issue has been raised and discussed exhaustively a million times. Never mind that the chances of any new insight coming out of the billionth tedious discussion of this long-established subject is next to nothing. Never mind that those involved on both sides feel the need to repeat the same entrenched positions- which mostly come down to personal philosophy and not an incomplete understanding of the issues (which everyone knows full well by now) and will therefore be unlikely to change in the face of the discussion... not that this was the point anyway.
No, the point is that those involved in every one of these pointless rehashes of the exact same to-ing and fro-ing and restatements of the same old facts and arguments on both sides know this damn well, but can't reign in their desire to indulge in the argument yet again.
Re: and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
A better example is that "no man dies without a will". If YOU don't make one OTHER PEOPLE's Lawyers will.
The same applies to software licenses. If you are not using LAWYERS to write a license before publishing, then your ignorant not to pick an OSI-approved license. The list is long enough to be useful, and the OSI approved licenses have enough establishment legally as "reasonable and customary" "industry standards" that there is LOTS of stuff written about the technicalities and interactions that real layers have done lots of work on.
Otherwise, you are just waiting to be a victim of some corporate lawyer hijacking your stuff.
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Bwahahahahaha! Funny how that is so wrong. In the case of copyright, no license means "All rights reserved". There no amount of hijacking your stuff with "All rights reserved".
Re: and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
In this specific case, there's -already- a default licence that says who can do what wit software in the absence of specific permission from you. It's called copyright. It spells out clearly and unambigously what one can do, and what one needs the permission of the author to do.
The only possible source of confusion is if publishing something openly on the web constitutes implicit permission to do something more than what copyright already allows.
Please do. Do not however release with no license. (Score:3)
If you release it with no license at all, I don't know what the hell to do with the code. Can I have it for my program? Does your copyright trump everything. Absolutely no license is pretty much all rights reserved by default I'd suppose. No license is as bad as GPL. I don't really know what my obligations or permissions are, so I actually forego using the code. If I don't have legal right to use your code, I do not have legal right to use the code. If you don't expressly say I can, I may not be allowed to.
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It should be quite possible to have a simple license "filtering" mechanism with just a few carefully selected choices.
IMHO, Open Source licenses tend to fall into just a few broad categories with further distinction only in minor details and choice of words.
i.e. (based on very little data)
[ ] May other people use your code in their own projects? (filter open source licenses)
[ ] May your code be distributed in closed source applications? (filter GPL)
[ ] Do applications that distribute your code need to menti
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First, let me say that I agree with you completely. You're not the first person to come up with the idea, I recall that being hashed out a while back and found this site that references it:
http://www.sitepoint.com/open-source-licensing/ [sitepoint.com]
*** Update from the bottom of this post ***
It is probably worth reading all of this and clicking the many links. After spending over an hour and a half on this silly quest I have managed to find some suitable tools that will help you (and others) as well as a variety of resou
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The problem with posts like this is always equivocating on the word "use".
It happens so much it's hard not to see it as deliberate.
Using GPL software is of course free for everyone.
It's redistribution and derivative works that have restrictions--far relaxed from those imposed by copyright law.
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That's the reason why so many don't want to base their work on something that uses GPL, because one day you may want to redistribute your work and find that you might be prevented to do so under the terms you choose. A no-GPL policy prevents such uncomfortable realizations.
Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone picks GNU GPL because they think it sounds cool, but it is toxic for people not making software they want to provide source code to.
That is 100% why I release my source code under the GPL. I'm willing to take payments in money too, but you should give back some how. No free lunch.
Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obscurity is a perfectly valid layer of security as long as the security mechanism's integrity is not based solely on that obscurity. Just because certain information can be made public about a security system without damaging its integrity as a whole does not mean you necessarily should make that information public. Bruce Schneier even says so himself:
Kerckhoffs' Principle is just one half of the decision process. Just because security does not require that something be kept secret, it doesn't mean that it is automatically smart to publicize it.
From: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#1 [schneier.com]
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Oh and to add further he even states later in the article:
Missile guidance algorithms is another example. Would the government be better off publishing their algorithms for guiding missiles? I believe the answer is no, because the system lacks the second characteristic above. There isn't a large community of people who can benefit from the information, but there are potential enemies that could benefit from the information. Therefore, it is better for the government to keep the information classified and only disclose it to those it believes should know.
Basically, yes, you should have the least amount of secrets possible for a security system, but this does not mean that you publicize every single secret about the system.
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Obscurity is a perfectly valid layer of security as long as the security mechanism's integrity is not based solely on that obscurity.
You do realize that EVERY means of security IS based solely on obscurity. Its just some stuff is more obscure than others.
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But if it depends on the mechanism rather than just the token to be secret, there will be tears.
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So then Bruce Schneier has no place in security? [schneier.com]
Kerckhoffs' Principle is just one half of the decision process. Just because security does not require that something be kept secret, it doesn't mean that it is automatically smart to publicize it. There are two characteristics that make publication so powerful in cryptography. One, there is a large group of people who are capable and willing to evaluate cryptographic systems, and publishing is a way to harness the expertise of those people. And two, there are others who need to build cryptographic systems and are on the same side, so everyone can learn from the mistakes of others. If cryptography did not have these characteristics, there would be no benefit in publishing.
Missile guidance algorithms is another example. Would the government be better off publishing their algorithms for guiding missiles? I believe the answer is no, because the system lacks the second characteristic above. There isn't a large community of people who can benefit from the information, but there are potential enemies that could benefit from the information. Therefore, it is better for the government to keep the information classified and only disclose it to those it believes should know.
Oh and:
Because the secrecy requirements for security are rarely black and white, publishing now becomes a security trade-off. Does the security benefit of secrecy outweigh the benefits of publication? It might not be easy to make the decision, but the decision is straightforward. Historically, the NSA did not publish its cryptographic details -- not because their secrecy improved security, but because they did not want to give their Cold-War-world enemies the benefit of their expertise.
Basically you have no place lecturing about security practices.
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Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Interesting)
I make the observation quite frequently that people who complain about the GPL never seems to realize that you can just contact the original developer and negotiate with him a different license. For a big project like the Linux kernel there is of course the problem to contact every contributor, but most projects are rather small or the copyrights are belonging to a company or organization.
So if you see a GPL code out there just think of it as a demo version, that is fully functional. If you want to take the code for your proprietary project, you can contact the developer and negotiate a different license.
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Obfuscation pretty much never has a place in security.
Pretty much by definite security IS obfuscation. The question is, how obscure is it.
That pirates gold is pretty safe if you don't have a map...
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How now! Don't bring facts to the conversation and ruin his parroted misunderstanding of what "security through obscurity" means.
Re:and if license picking were mandatory... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think what the GP meant is that any crypto system in which the security of the data depends on the secrecy of the mechanism itself is fundamentally flawed. For example, keeping crypto keys secret is critical to security, which is why DRM doesn't work; the only thing protecting those keys from the user is the way in which the DRM code hides those keys, so as soon as that hiding mechanism is exposed, the entire scheme breaks down.
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Unless it's rolling code remote technology, which is based entirely on the algorithm being secret. It remained unbroken for 30 or so years and is used on millions of cars and garage doors around the world.
Name one other "non-obfuscation-based" crypto method that widely used that has remained so secure.
obfuscation != secrets (Score:5, Informative)
The definition of obfuscation is to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy, or to make obscure or unclear.
In security, the normal rule is that the algorithm chosen should still be secure _even if the attacker knows what it is_.
On the other hand, passwords, crypto keys, etc. are all pieces of data that are secrets. This is a very different thing from obscure.
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Crypto == obfuscation.
A good crypto algorithm is about 30 orders of magnitude harder to crack than decompiling a binary executable.
Can you even begin to comprehend the difference?
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Unless "pretty much never has a place in security" actually means "has a critical place in security", please tell me your usernames, passwords, crypto keys, host addresses, VPN token parameters, etc. Also your bank account numbers as well as your bank routing number.
Secrets == obfuscation. Crypto == obfuscation.
I think he's talking about the source code, and security by obscurity, NOT keeping his passwords secret.
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Obfuscation always has a place in security. Do you tell everyone your passwords? Do you give away your private signing key?
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That's not what obfuscation means, so those examples have nothing to do with obfuscation and are completely irrelevant.
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Those sons o' bitches where here just last Thursday! I fooled them though, I uploaded it to SourceForge, it'll never be seen again.
Eric Schultz (Score:4, Insightful)
Eric Schultz appears to underestimate the ability of programmers to not give shit about licensing.
Lawyers want to wheedle their ways into all our lives. Ignore them, they won't go away, but it will simplify your life.
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Public Domain (Score:2)
Yes, but the implicit license is no license (copyright law). If you want to freak out the lawyers call it Public Domain and be done with it. Sure way to short-circuit a lawyer's brain.
It's a way to short-circuit your lawyers brain, since then you are not held harmless from damages arising from the use, misuse, or abuse of the software.
To the people who might want to use the code, their lawyers see it as a nifty scapegoat, should damages arise from use, misuse, or abuse of their product which incorporates your software. When apportioning damages to the plaintiff, should they win their case, it'd be up to your lawyers and their lawyers to argue about it, only their layers get to see your
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No, it makes it more difficult. No license means you can't use the code.
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But what happens when some troll comes around, saying you used their code without permission, and violated his rights as an author?
I mean, troll like that are bound to start appearing, that's why we should specify licenses in the first place. To make others certain we're not that sort of troll.
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Some companies have called me to ask if they can use the crypto code on my website. I said yes because it's just a bit of code.
People make too big a deal about bits of code. Working systems are hard. Bits of code are trivial.
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In that case you should license it under a permissive license or explicitly release it into the public domain. If you do neither then you're preventing anyone from legally reusing your code for at least a century unless they first contact you for a license. All creative works receive maximum copyright protection by default, it's up to *you* to explicitly grant greater permissions.
Re:Eric Schultz (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree that that is a just and honorable way to act in accordance with the original author's probable intent. But it also amounts to you publicly announcing that you are committing copyright infringement. Without an explicit license you have absolutely ZERO legal right to do *anything* with anyone else's code. As such I hope you're not using such code for anything important.
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Probably. What jurisdiction are you in? In the US that might fall under fair use, but probably not since you did use 100% of the original text. And I believe most of Europe though has no fair use provision at all, under which rule you most certainly have infringed.
Default: public domain (Score:2)
Nobody wants your software. So you might as well release it totally unencumbered.
Re:Default: public domain (Score:5, Informative)
Default: public domain
not in any jurisdictions that are party to the Berne Convention.
Re:Default: public domain (Score:5, Informative)
Legally the default is all rights reserved, so putting no license means that nobody can legally distribute or derive from your code
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No. Its github, where hosting those repos like that requires you concede to freeing the code.
Yeah, but there's no list of accepted licenses, so I could just wait for someone to reuse my code, and then sue them "yeah, that was released under MCFSL (My Crappy Free Software License), which requires you to [insert really annoying requirement that you want to avoid here]".
Danger (Score:5, Insightful)
"different perspective on the dangers of releasing unlicensed software. "
Technically, you cannot release unlicensed software. Sure, go ahead and post it to a public repository, but without an explicit license, copyright law forbids anyone else to make use of it. So you haven't really released it, just posted it out there to tease people.
If you don't want to pick one and you don't care, at least say something like "released to the public domain" to make it explicit. (This option isn't available in all countries, though.)
Real danger (Score:3)
Speaking of danger, when someone sues you because your software crashed their airplane into a nuclear reactor, you're going to be wishing you'd picked a more restrictive license.
Specifically, one with a "no warranty" provision.
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If you didn't provide a license to download it, they're going to sue because their pirated source code crashed the airplane? Can anyone find even one actual court case like that, not just hyperbole?
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If you didn't provide a license to download it, they're going to sue because their pirated source code crashed the airplane? Can anyone find even one actual court case like that, not just hyperbole?
Wasn't there a case in the US where a burglar successfully sued the owner of the house he broke into, because he locked himself in and couldn't get out for a whole weekend? It's a different law, but the basic idea is the same.
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In response to that, I have exactly 7 characters for you:
DO-178B
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[According to Common Law]
The people who are most likely to sue you for damages are probably the people who had no fscking idea that some obscure component used your software, let alone have seen your license.
Despite the claims of pseudo-lawyers, most software licenses do create contractual obligations on the licensor and licensee. Let's say the aircraft company hires a contractor to write a component for their plane controller. The contractor uses your OSS to do it. That disclaimer is valid against the cont
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Technically, you cannot release unlicensed software. Sure, go ahead and post it to a public repository, but without an explicit license, copyright law forbids anyone else to make use of it. So you haven't really released it, just posted it out there to tease people.
In the United States, that's not at all true.
Software can be released without any license at all (there is no obligation that it be licensed), and can be used by anyone who uses a lawfully made copy. This use includes modifying it for compatibility purposes, making copies necessary for running it (eg copying it into RAM), and making backups. Check out 17 USC 106, 109, and in particular 117 on this.
Additionally, it's entirely possible and extremely commonplace for copyright holders to create implicit license
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Technically, you cannot release unlicensed software. Sure, go ahead and post it to a public repository, but without an explicit license, copyright law forbids anyone else to make use of it.
That is the thing, EVERY repository in github has a license. Perhaps only 14.9% are explicit. And perhaps it is because the younger generation doesn't know better, not because they care or don't care. Even if you release it to public domain, that is a license.
The way I read the summary was "blah blah blah" 85% of github falls under copyright, meaning you can't copy it without permission.
Re:Danger (Score:4, Informative)
Under the Berne Convention, copyright must be automatic.165 countries are parties to it.
There are about 200 countries in the world.
Maybe you have a private definition of "most"?
Then you're stuck with GitHub's terms. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's what GitHub says in their terms of service [github.com]:
We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. However, by setting your pages to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view your Content. By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.
That creates some interesting issues. When someone "forks" something, what rights do they have?
I suspect that many people not specifying a license for what they put on GitHub just assume GitHub owns everything.
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Not every web site out there is like Facebook.
"fork" means copy. So you can interpret "view and fork" as "view and copy" which implies that you give permission to copy your code unrestricted.
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Anon because I have mod points.
"Fork" in git means copy AND MODIFY, potentially as a new project.
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My personal interpretation is that any project on GitHub that has no explicit license is covered under a very permissive BSD-style license (without any attribution requirements).
Typically a license grants you rights and informs you of your restrictions if you choose to exercise those rights. In this case, with no explicit attribution or GPL-like openness stated, but with forking a right implicit to public code on GitHub, I am led to believe I can take everything, then make closed modification to the softwa
GitHub's default "terms" are nonsensical (Score:4, Insightful)
If GitHub made your personal interpretation a requirement for using its site at no charge, that might work. But GitHub's terms don't really make sense for what people are trying to do on it. GitHub only allows you to "view" and "fork".
Are users allowed to run the code? The answer appears to be "no". That's because under most countries' law, including the US, by default users have NO rights unless they are granted somehow. Heck, as far, as I can tell, users aren't even allowed to modify it, because you can make a fork without modifying it, and only "forks" are allowed. Now we have to dance on what a "fork" means, and the LAWYERS, not the programmers get to decide.
If you want to release software, and collaborate, great! Posting stuff without a license is not a release, it's a legal minefield.
If don't include a license, the LAWYERS decide what is allowed... not the programmers. You probably won't like what the lawyers decide.
My licenses are: (Score:3)
3-clause BSD for small utilities, library function or scripts that are pretty much feature complete. It has the disclaimers and lets others used the code as they see fit without worrying about disclosing their source code.
GPL v.3 for code that are meant for open-source projects. It keeps the source code available and encourages others to contribute. I find that people are less likely to contribute if there is even a slight chance that someone else could make a commercial product out of it and keep the modifications to themselves.
The overwhelming bulk of my code is public-domain due to work requirements.
No license == sending poison to your users (Score:5, Insightful)
Software without a license is like a poison for everyone else. There's typically no legal risk to a developer in releasing their software, since it's likely he has the copyright. But it creates a legal minefield for anyone else who uses or modifies the software, either directly or by using software that stupidly embeds such things. At any time the developer, or his employer, could sue, and there's nothing the user could do.
Ignoring lawyers does not simplify your life. Sure, it'll simplify your life today, but only by creating potential disasters in the future. You need to think about other people, and whole lifetimes, not just think about yourself today.
If you think that copyright should only apply to software if it's marked, then work to get the law changed. It used to be that way before 1976. But it's not 1976. I suspect that the law won't get changed, really. But intentionally creating dangers for other people is a terrible, nasty thing to do.
WTFPL is a license (Score:2)
Maybe they don't care? (Score:2)
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Except that without a license, no one can do anything with it!
At least slap a CC0 on it, or a WTFPL.
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Yeah, you need a lawyer to understand something like the BSD license:
Copyright (c) ,
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Personally, I prefer the WTFPL (Score:5, Funny)
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There is nothing to get - that's the point. Stop overthinking it.
1) Whatever accompanied the license has no terms, including nothing about stripping the copyright notice.
2) The license itself has a license, which only asks that if you modify the license terms you have to change the name
It's not even public domain - it has no legal definition, and is not restricted in any way, including a lack of restrictions on re-copyrighting.
It's also obviously tongue in cheek, since no professional is going to release a
Stupid (Score:2)
So you post your project on github without a license. Anybody using it can now sue your for whatever damages the project does to his machine. You know what I'm talking about; I know that at least once in your life you have put "rm -rf" in your Makefile, typed "make clean" and cleaned out your entire home directory because some shell variable was set to something you did not expect. Those of you with lower intelligence might have ran that on a production server and erased the company website. Now imagine som
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On what law could anyone be able to sue me for damage on his machine if he uses my (licensed or unlicensed) code?
And no, in the last 30 years I never id a wrong "rm -rf".
And no again, even if I did, I would not be directly liable for damage caused in case I had made that mistake.
You are full of bullshit, sorry.
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The tort law, under the standard of strict liability [wikipedia.org], applied to product liability [wikipedia.org]. By deleting the customer's files you would be guilty of negligence. This negligence is proven first by showing that you had a duty to care for the customer's files, because you were aware that makefile commands could delete them and thus would have such a duty under the precedent of MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co. [wikipedia.org].
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Who said that the person who downloaded my code (whether licensed without a disclaimer of warranty clause, or unlicensed) is a customer of mine anyway?
Give me any case law where liability could be assumed where software is the specific cause of the issue.
I see people like you argue that I have assumed liability for publishing software without a disclaimer of warranty. But then I go and read those Wikipedia articles, and it appears to not matter for physical items. So why would it matter for software?
I.e. I
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Mortenson vs Timberline [internetlibrary.com] is the most well-known case pertaining to EULA liability disclaimers. In the case the Mortenson company failed to win a construction contract due to a "bug" in the Timberline software it was using, and sued for damages. The court ruled that the liability disclaimer in the EULA shielded Timberline from liability for these damages. Because of this case and because most software is lic
So sole authors really need to choose? (Score:2)
The simple fact is that the majority of accounts are just single people; sole authors. The vast majority of whose hello world programs will never gain any traction. It the least they want to know if anyone even looks at their code and said person will ask about the license if they have any intention of using it. Seems reasonable to me.
It also defers the question of which license until there are at least a couple other people willing to invest their time in the code. By choosing early you are creating more f
Github needs to specify a "default license" (Score:2)
Github needs to specify a "default license". If no license is specified, then XXX license applies (for example: BSD/MIT).
That may sound like imposing something on users, but remember that github give you a free account for public repositories for FLOSS stuff. If you specify no license, it's not legally propietary, so, it would make sense for them to do so.
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_This_ is an excellent idea. I'd prefer GPLv3, myself, for maximum programmer protection.
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That's an interesting take but I don't understand how that will protect the programmer. You can still be sued for patent infringement no matter what license your code uses, right? Seams unlikely that you can protect yourself from being sued by releasing your code under a particular license.
Re:I license mine with creative commons (Score:4, Insightful)
Most creative commons requires attribution. If you really "don't care", you should explicitly state that your software is CC0 [creativecommons.org]
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What? Creative Commons *is* a license, including the near-public domain flavor that they seem to be refering to. If it weren't a license then permissions would fall back to the default behaviour of copyright, you have no permission to do *anything* with it, which would completely defeat the idea.
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Doesn't licensing also restrict (or define) how the software may be redistributed?
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More accurately a license *grants* premissions - the default in all Berne signatory countries is automatic copyright with all rights reserved (= no rights granted). Without an explicit license you have no right to even possess a copy of the code, much less redistribute it or make derivative works.
Your confusion probaby stems from things like EULAs, which often require you to contractually surrender rights you would otherwise have as a condition to receiving a usage license.
Re:"define" (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the other thing: without a license I can't use a copy. All software is copyrighted by default, unless there's an explicit dedication to the public domain. Absent a license, only the author of the software may make and distribute copies of it. So with no license on the software I'm OK looking at it on Github of the like, but making a copy of it onto my machine to build, use and redistribute as part of my own software is right out. I have no license from the copyright holder to make and distribute those copies. So if your software doesn't include a license? I can't safely touch it nor can I use it.
If you want to put no restrictions on reuse of your code, put it under something like the BSD or Apache license. But if you don't put it under some license, it's automatically under a license that says "You may not copy or redistribute this work, nor may you make and distribute works based on or derived from this work.".
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If they're amenable to that, then there should be a rough listing of the terms they're willing to license the software on. There's simply a lot of software out there for any given application, more than I can reasonably sort through honestly, and one of my first filters is "Does it tell me what terms I can use it on?". Anything that doesn't, I can skip. If I don't find anything I can use that gives clear terms, then I may go back through the most promising of the rest and dig further into getting it.
As far
Re:"define" (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. And in fact you indirectly raise another issue - if the "original" author is so ignorant of copyright law that they "share" their code without any licensing information, then there's a fair chance that they have themselves incorporated other people's code into their work without regard to copyright restrictions, so you may be opening yourself up to legal liability for having GPLed, "shared source", or other restrictively licensed code incorporated into your software without realising it.
Re:Advantages (Score:4, Interesting)
Nope, not legally. Code is automatically copyrighted in any Berne signatory country. You can not relicense a work that you do not hold the copyright to.
Re: (Score:2)
I really hope not (Score:2)
If this isn't a troll, you're giving actual software developers a bad name.
Re: (Score:2)
So, you're a criminal. (Score:2)
Okay, so you are knowingly breaking the law. You are risking getting sued for everything you own and more. You're putting yourself, your family, your company, and your customers at risk.
No, I do not just copy, paste, compile, test, deliver, done. If it's small then fair use applies, so no problem there, but if it's larger it'd better have a license, or I'm not using it.
Why are you bringing up the WTFPL? That's a license. If you want to use that license, copy that into the LICENSE file and "git add LI
Re: (Score:2)
The Java implementation for BigInteger doesn't qualify as small? Or that 20-line algorithm from the paper? He was explicitly talking about copying little snippets of code, not full projects.
BTW, here's the definition of "a criminal" from the Collins English Dictionary:
criminal
n
1. (Law) a person charged with and convicted of crime
2. a person who commits crimes for a living
Re: (Score:2)
If anyone tried that where I work they'd be out so fast their head spun. Copying code for your own pet project at home is one thing (I still wouldn't do it, but at least the fall out is limited), but leaving your employer open to lawsuits is generally considered a bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
From personal experience: patent law is international, as is a great deal of copyright law, and by ignoring licenses you leave yourself and any compuany you work for open to patent trolls for expensive lawsuits. I've had to defend my work against copyright trolls, and was very glad I'd left a clean paper trail of the licenses I worked with. It's why I strongly prefer open source software: because the source is open, so are the changes and usually the records of who contributed what.
There's plenty of good ma
Re: (Score:3)
And we all do this.
No, no we don't. Just because you do, doesn't mean everyone else does as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He hasn't open sourced anything (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ignorance of the law is no excuse (Score:2)
You can give away whatever you want. But posting it to GitHub without a license is not giving it away, it's creating legal trap for anyone who might use it.
Part of the problem is that younger people think they're immortal. Imagine this: You write software for 4 years, posted on GitHub, with no license. Then you die in some car accident. Your estate then sues everyone who uses the software, because they have no right to use the software. They could just rewrite the software, but they're still liable f