There are really only three licenses you should ever consider when making a new project in earnest: GPL if you want it to stay free forever, MIT if you don’t care. Put an L in front of GPL if your project is a library. The end.
Any CC license including CC0 looks fine on paper, and they are court-tested, but anyone with a legal department won’t risk dealing with one in the context of software, because CC licenses are for creative works and scientific research, not software. The main thing they’re missing is a warranty release.
The Unlicense feels like an earnest attempt to fill the void that CC0 fails to fill, but it isn’t a tested license. Everyone with a lawyer won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole because they don’t want to be the ones to find out how enforceable it really is. Besides, the only thing it gains you over the MIT is the ability to go uncredited. Which is nice feature; if people didn’t want this we wouldn’t have so many attempts to make a license that has it. But I feel like of all the features of a free software license one should be concerned about, explicit lack of credit is a pretty low-rung one.
Direct public domain insertion is good and effective, but is not global. Many places in the world have no formal legal system to do this (Germany is a famous example). PD dedication without a permissive fallback license makes your code completely unusable in these places. It’s exactly why the CC0 and Unlicense exist in the first place.
Every single other license is either a meme license not worth the toilet paper it’s written on, a weaker version of the GPL/MIT, or the GPL/MIT with extra steps.
The point of the CLEVER LICENSE is that there is no “enforcement.” It grants ultimate freedom. The recipient of a product under this license can do whatever they wish with it. Enforcement is the polar opposite of the grant of freedom.
Read the language _carefully_. I wrote it with clever care.
“Do whatever is clever. Do as you wish with this product.”
The phrase, “whatever is clever” means, “whatever you find suitable for your purpose.”
The phrase, “do as you WISH” is a phrase of personal sovereignty, of one’s own private law, giving unbridled lawful freedom.
“Do whatever is clever shall be the whole of the law.”
The phrase, “SHALL be the whole of the law” specifies that the terms of the license are private law. Coupled with the prior phrase, the grantee’s wish is the only restraint and only enforcement necessary.
When a monarch says, “I wish to receive porterhouse steak for dinner,” he or she _will_ receive it. In law for a sovereign to “wish” is to _command_.
This meaning is similar to the phrase, “Your wish is my command.”
Cleaver, in programmer land, has a specific jargon meaning though. Something cleaver is something obfuscated and, while generally technically correct, absolutely something that should not be merged into the codebase. Cleaver is a pretty terrible term to use.
Also, we’ve already got the BSD/MIT licenses that are essentially carte blanche passes.
Then I’d have to ask: what is the benefit of choosing it over CC0 if by law, there won’t be any enforcement (not even attribution)? At least CC0 is well known.
Creative Common license are well accepted. It requires attribution for derivative works. Due to its clear legal wording, you can enforce it.
Why I want to be able to sue? Exactly so that people won’t take others’ freedom, just like why the law exist in free world. Haven’t you read about the many cases companies violating GPL got sued?
Clever License gives real freedom, individual freedom that is absent from the popular ideological licenses. Clever License doesn’t need an “enforcement” mechanism because it is a real gift with no strings attached. A gift with strings attached is a snare.
No strings, no snare. “Do whatever is clever. Do as you wish with this product.”
I think it’s the other way around, however… You need to word it so your users can enforce it against you even if you yourself become malicious. Otherwise you’re not really allowing them anything. And for that you’d need to word it so it doesn’t depend on your interpretation, but on theirs. And it’d need to hold up in court for them. So the language needs to be specific and with well-defined words. Every bit of vagueness it the user’s problem and limits/restricts them.
Hehe. Yeah I meant per default, everything is copyrighted. So it’d fall back to being restricted and thus “not allowing anything”… If the wording doesn’t hold up… I’m not really in the position to judge this. Could be very well the case that once somebody touches it, it’s not “this” product anymore and it’s no longer covered. Or taking just parts of it is also not “this product”. Or a copy. I can imagine that something like that is the reason why other licenses go on and on talking about modified versions and copies etc… But I’m really not a lawyer and you’re right with being creative with things. I did not intend to be too negative 🤗
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Jokes aside, I wonder if any of the license mentioned in this thread is enforceable at all. Otherwise, might as well have CC0/PD
There are really only three licenses you should ever consider when making a new project in earnest: GPL if you want it to stay free forever, MIT if you don’t care. Put an L in front of GPL if your project is a library. The end.
Any CC license including CC0 looks fine on paper, and they are court-tested, but anyone with a legal department won’t risk dealing with one in the context of software, because CC licenses are for creative works and scientific research, not software. The main thing they’re missing is a warranty release.
The Unlicense feels like an earnest attempt to fill the void that CC0 fails to fill, but it isn’t a tested license. Everyone with a lawyer won’t touch it with a 10 foot pole because they don’t want to be the ones to find out how enforceable it really is. Besides, the only thing it gains you over the MIT is the ability to go uncredited. Which is nice feature; if people didn’t want this we wouldn’t have so many attempts to make a license that has it. But I feel like of all the features of a free software license one should be concerned about, explicit lack of credit is a pretty low-rung one.
Direct public domain insertion is good and effective, but is not global. Many places in the world have no formal legal system to do this (Germany is a famous example). PD dedication without a permissive fallback license makes your code completely unusable in these places. It’s exactly why the CC0 and Unlicense exist in the first place.
Every single other license is either a meme license not worth the toilet paper it’s written on, a weaker version of the GPL/MIT, or the GPL/MIT with extra steps.
@pastermil@sh.itjust.works
And lawyers have to justify their existence above all other considerations.
The point of the CLEVER LICENSE is that there is no “enforcement.” It grants ultimate freedom. The recipient of a product under this license can do whatever they wish with it. Enforcement is the polar opposite of the grant of freedom.
Read the language _carefully_. I wrote it with clever care.
“Do whatever is clever. Do as you wish with this product.”
The phrase, “whatever is clever” means, “whatever you find suitable for your purpose.”
The phrase, “do as you WISH” is a phrase of personal sovereignty, of one’s own private law, giving unbridled lawful freedom.
“Do whatever is clever shall be the whole of the law.”
The phrase, “SHALL be the whole of the law” specifies that the terms of the license are private law. Coupled with the prior phrase, the grantee’s wish is the only restraint and only enforcement necessary.
When a monarch says, “I wish to receive porterhouse steak for dinner,” he or she _will_ receive it. In law for a sovereign to “wish” is to _command_.
This meaning is similar to the phrase, “Your wish is my command.”
Cleaver, in programmer land, has a specific jargon meaning though. Something cleaver is something obfuscated and, while generally technically correct, absolutely something that should not be merged into the codebase. Cleaver is a pretty terrible term to use.
Also, we’ve already got the BSD/MIT licenses that are essentially carte blanche passes.
Then I’d have to ask: what is the benefit of choosing it over CC0 if by law, there won’t be any enforcement (not even attribution)? At least CC0 is well known.
Well this is /c/programminghumor, I would assume mostly it’s meant as a joke.
@pastermil@sh.itjust.works
When you assume you make a donkey out of ewe. Don’t be a sheep.
Things like “enforcement” and “attribution” are restrictions, the opposite of freedom.
Why do you want a license that allows you to sue the users of your supposedly free software?
Creative Common license are well accepted. It requires attribution for derivative works. Due to its clear legal wording, you can enforce it.
Why I want to be able to sue? Exactly so that people won’t take others’ freedom, just like why the law exist in free world. Haven’t you read about the many cases companies violating GPL got sued?
Clever License gives real freedom, individual freedom that is absent from the popular ideological licenses. Clever License doesn’t need an “enforcement” mechanism because it is a real gift with no strings attached. A gift with strings attached is a snare.
No strings, no snare. “Do whatever is clever. Do as you wish with this product.”
There seems to be a more robust solution already. It’s called Public Domain.
I think it’s the other way around, however… You need to word it so your users can enforce it against you even if you yourself become malicious. Otherwise you’re not really allowing them anything. And for that you’d need to word it so it doesn’t depend on your interpretation, but on theirs. And it’d need to hold up in court for them. So the language needs to be specific and with well-defined words. Every bit of vagueness it the user’s problem and limits/restricts them.
“Do whatever you wish with this product.”
That is allowing them anything and everything they wish.
Hehe. Yeah I meant per default, everything is copyrighted. So it’d fall back to being restricted and thus “not allowing anything”… If the wording doesn’t hold up… I’m not really in the position to judge this. Could be very well the case that once somebody touches it, it’s not “this” product anymore and it’s no longer covered. Or taking just parts of it is also not “this product”. Or a copy. I can imagine that something like that is the reason why other licenses go on and on talking about modified versions and copies etc… But I’m really not a lawyer and you’re right with being creative with things. I did not intend to be too negative 🤗
you are trying too hard to be clever