Ask HN: Why not publish into the Public Domain, instead of OSS licence?
I am about to publish my long year project and have not yet choosen a licence. Anyone should be free to use it, for any purpose. (So definitely no copyleft licence)
But why should I use any licence at all and not skip all this alltogether and choose the public domain?
I mean, I still want the credit (and donations) directed towards me. But in my understanding there is not really a difference? Fraud happens with proper licensed projects, too (when some shady website repackages vlc for example and sells it as theirs or redirect donations) and claiming ownership of something you do not own is fraud either way? So what is the advantage of a common OSS licence, except the overhead of long license text (with maybe my name and email) to be included everywhere?
Am I missing something important?
45 comments
[ 1178 ms ] story [ 1491 ms ] threadThe “Ultimate Liberty” License, STM’s infectious proprietary license:
> 5. No use, reproduction or redistribution of this software partially or totally may be done in any manner that would subject this software to any Open Source Terms. “Open Source Terms” shall mean any open source license which requires as part of distribution of software that the source code of such software is distributed therewith or otherwise made available, or open source license that substantially complies with the Open Source definition specified at www.opensource.org and any other comparable open source license such as for example GNU General Public License (GPL), Eclipse Public License (EPL), Apache Software License, BSD license or MIT license.
https://www.st.com/content/ccc/resource/legal/legal_agreemen...
https://enterprise.dejacode.com/licenses/public/careware/#es...
https://enterprise.dejacode.com/licenses/public/careware/#li...
Just because fraud happens doesn't mean you should throw your hands up in the air and give up. If you choose ISC you can monitor GitHub and other services to see who's copying your code without giving credit and then set them straight.
It should also be noted that public domain is sometimes treated as suspect, because there's been instances where people have chosen public domain because they didn't actually invent the code or the math or the algorithms, and felt that stamping their name on it and demanding credit would actually put them at risk of being sued by the actual copyright or patent holders, which effectively punts the burden of tracing down the works provenance to the user.
But I do not want give up concerning fraud, I just do not see how a common licence will protect me more. And due to the nature of my project, I am not worried about people using code of mine, but repackaging and selling the whole thing as theirs and maybe even legally doing so, if I make a mistake there.
What is your project? If it's possible for people to "steal" the whole thing and sell it then why do you intend to put it into the public domain? The open source code I write has less than zero economic value. If someone ever found a way to sell my work I'd be thrilled because then I could copy their tactic and convince their customers to become my customers.
It is a visual programming language bundled with an IDE.
And since code is just information, anyone can copy it and claim as theirs - like with everything immaterial. Licensed or not.
I would be just concerned, if people could legally claim ownership of it, whith public domain.
With public domain, the public owns it. So even though it would be kind of slimy, they would be well within their rights to claim ownership over your work, because you gave it to them. The fact that you feel this way, would make me not believe a public domain accreditation coming from you btw. In fact, maybe it isn't slimy at all. Consider classical musicians. They own their performances of Mozart. If someone takes what you've built and pull through on the execution to turn it into a profitable product, then they're basically doing the same thing. They earned the income.
So the biggest concern with using someone's work, on the path to success, is making sure that it's being used in accordance with their intentions. Since otherwise the moment you start pulling in money those people will turn around and sue or generate bad press or gossip. Licenses protect your users rights. That's why you need one. Since otherwise no one's going to use your work.
"Consider classical musicians. They own their performances of Mozart."
But they do not own the composition. I do not think the compiling can be viewed as performing, but I am not a lawer.
And I do want to publish the code.
And what do I hope to gain by publishing it and not keeping it proprietary? Well, a better world obviously. So idealistic reasons.
What is your language doing for executables? I've been intending to offer an IDE of some sort for Actually Portable Executable for some time.
And more details about my project I will share, once it is released. I just have to make up my mind about the licence and do a screencast.
2) I'm not entirely sure why you're against copyleft. There's no legitimate reason not to distribute source code and this keeps the things you write from being used to hurt people. If you're concerned about people repackaging and selling your stuff then the GPLv2/3 is probably a good idea.
2) that would be a longer, different discussion, but as far as I know, there is GPL code used in military applications that do hurt people.
Edit:
"The public domain under French copyright
A work enters the public domain (domaine public) once the proprietary rights over it have expired. It may then be used without charge, so long as the moral rights of the author are respected.[17] Notably, the name of the author and the original title of the work must be cited."
So france sounds good to me.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
Also wouldn't that mean, those countries could not listen to Beethoven in a legal way? So I doubt that.
Therefore in most countries, ancient work like Beethoven is allowed to be in public domain explicitly by their law; either due to the fact that the work was created before copyright laws existed or due to the fact that it has been more than 100 years since the death of the author.
However, you probably want others to be able to use your work while you are alive. So the circumstances for your work are quite different from that of Beethoven's work.
I don't know if there is any country that does not recognize public domain but see https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc... for more insights on this matter. If we were to trust what is written on this page, it does seem that dedicating your work to public domain is not a simple matter. The CC0 license helps with explicitly waiving as many rights as possible while still protecting you as much as possible with an explicit disclaimer.
Disclaimer: I am not a laywer. This is not legal advice.
So you think it is impossible to give up my proprietary rights in france? That sounds stupid and would be a major obstacle. I would suspect it is possible, just not common.
I am very sure it would be possible to do, with proper legal advice or going to a court, but that would kind of defeat my point of avoiding licence headache.
"More challenging yet, many legal systems effectively prohibit any attempt by these owners to surrender rights automatically conferred by law, particularly moral rights, even when the author wishing to do so is well informed and resolute about doing so and contributing their work to the public domain."
I am not saying it is impossible to give up your proprietary rights in France. I don't even know what the laws of France are. But it definitely does not seem like a simple process. For example, almost every license has a separate section dedicated to disclaimer emphasized in either all caps or italics. Those disclaimers are necessary for various reasons or you might be held accountable if your software does not work correctly or, worse, if it causes damage to users. So even if you were to share your work in public domain, what do you do about the disclaimer?
Are you willing to take the risk of omitting a well-written disclaimer drafted by laywers and open yourself to the possibility of being sued by someone because your software did not work the way it was supposed to? If you are going to add a disclaimer there anyway, then you no longer have the benefit of avoiding the overhead you wanted to avoid. In that case, you might as well go with CC0 or a minimal license like ISC, MIT, etc.
The various open source and creative common licenses were made exactly to help creative people like us who are not trained in law but who understand our domain of creativity well. These licenses allow us to be creative and share our creativity with the world without having to worry about whether public domain is applicable in a certain country or not, what the legal framework for it looks like, whether we need to add an additional disclaimer or not, what the precise wording of the disclaimer should be, whether the disclaimer would be valid in other countries or not, and so on.
By the way, I believe I understand quite well where you are coming from. About 15 years ago, when I began releasing some of my hobby projects as open source software, I too wondered if I couldn't just publish everything into public domain. After a lot of discussion on IRC channels, learning from the experts, and reading about open source licenses, I realized it is just simpler to take a well established open source license and use that for my projects.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.
"After a lot of discussion on IRC channels, learning from the experts, and reading about open source licenses, I realized it is just simpler to take a well established open source license and use that for my projects."
And I know it is easier, to just use a established licence.
But if I would have wanted the easy way, I would have never started my project in the first place. It is kind of big. Maybe big enough, that I can risk some stupid laws in some countries getting in the way. But I do not like to adopt to stupid laws. I would like it the other way around. The laws should change that try to force making proprietary standard. That might not change if everyone all the time adopts to it.
So I am leaning towards making my stand here. My country (germany) allows it, so I do not think I am in danger of being sued. There might be problems regarding collaboration later on, but this can be worked out, I hope.
edit:
apparently no, in germany you also cannot just release into the public domain. Great.
Beethoven has been dead for far longer than 70 years, so his work is in the public domain.
Suicide would be impractical, just to have your software be free after several decades. ;-)
A license isn't how you restrict something that is by default unrestricted: a license is how you selectively unrestrict something that is by default restricted... it is a contract between you and someone else to grant them rights they don't normally have.
The reason, for me, is almost entirely pragmatic. Copyright and licensing are protections, but in today's world, receiving the benefit of that protection requires a budget, a lawyer, and a willingness to undertake legal proceedings which could take years to resolve.
If I am willing to invest in (1) registering my copyrights, which in the US is the only way to receive damages, (2) ongoing and perpetual searches to make sure no-one has violated my copyrights or licensing, (3) the costs to have one or more lawyers write letters, sue, and defend the suit in court against a likely large corporation who will spend millions to delay the case and bankrupt me, then I absolutely should put a license on my work and actively engage with my copyright.
If I'm not, regardless of whether I cannot afford to or do not desire to make a lawsuit my life's work, then I should opt out of the entire system. That is usually my choice.
( As a further note, Yale Law professor Stephen Carter argues that there's a fourth condition there: (4) if I'm willing to kill someone to enforce a legal verdict in my favor. See the quote in https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/enforci... )
Say for example there is a untraceable doping substance that gives an unfair advantage. Should it be put on the banned substance list even if we can't ever prove usage?
"CC0 helps solve this problem by giving creators a way to waive all their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law"
But the common criticism of CC0 is:
"No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document."
Which sounds very contradictory to me. I am not "waiving all my copyright and related rights to my works to the fullest extent allowed by law" if I would reserve my right to patent it. I mean, in the EU where I reside software patents are not possible in theory anyway, but I would be allowed to file a patent in the US with the CC0.
If you mean to also disclaim trademarks or patent rights, you will need additional waivers for each of those, as they're different aspects of rights and law.
because the various legal systems regarding copyright are a abomination, that simply do not allow me legally to waive my rights.
CC0 claims to waive my rights to the fullest extend, but reserves my right to file a patent. Not what I want.
The closest seems the unlicence:
https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:Unlicense
(but it seems not recommended by GNU, for whatever reason - they recommend the CC0 instead)
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#Unlicense
This is annoying because I just want to make it clear and simple for anyone without doubt, that my project shall be free for any use, any time. A layperson cannot divide between all the various GPL, LGPL, MIT, etc.
So unlicence is my current favorite, until I find the caveat.
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
http://www.wtfpl.net/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
We've had countless software license audits and any sign of WTFPL is always a red flag in the audits' reports.
CC0, on the other hand, passes with flying colors.
To be honest, I don't know why WTFPL fails, whether by its scarcity or tone. I'd love someone to share a knowledgeable hint on this.
Remind that it's just a data point though. #notALawyer
The Unlicense also does not include a patent grant, so is no different than CC0 here, and as the FSF says, CC0 is generally recommended over it.
It doesn't really reserve your right to file a patent (because that's basically gone once you publish something in most cases), but it doesn't imply a license to patents you do hold when publishing.
This is also how I thought it works.
" but it doesn't imply a license to patents you do hold when publishing."
So since I do not hold any patents, stating just this, could be enough? That stuff gives you a headache
Discussion: https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/rationale-of-apache-dual-l...
However, using CC0 probably won't do much harm either.
I wouldn't be nearly so scared from just using the MIT licence. It's simple, nearly everyone knows it (because a huge amount of projects already use it) and it's easy to google for whoever doesn't. Don't do something exotic if you actually don't have specific needs.
He told me he regrets it. Not releasing it for free but putting it into the public domain. He had zero control over it and that would come back to bite him. His biggest problem was that a number of people would produce their own versions. Sometimes they were improving it but sometimes they were just inserting malware. He could do nothing.
To make matters worse, his name was still all over the code. (As it should be.) So he continued to get support requests and he often had trouble answering them because he had no clue about the proliferation of versions. The malware just made things worse.
He came away feeling that maintaining a fully-licensed tree on GitHub (or elsewhere) is kind of the right mix.