Re: [way OT] Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
Re: [way OT] Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
- Subject: Re: [way OT] Re: GPL and other licenses (was ANN: XML Marshalling for Objective C on OS X)
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 16:52:11 -0700
on 03-06-21 2:39 PM, Jeff Harrell at email@hidden wrote:
>
If you're distributing source code, you simply do not need a license.
>
Period. Either distribute the source for educational purposes and
>
maintain your copyright over it, or abandon your copyright and release
>
the source into the public domain. Neither of these requires you to
>
write or distribute a license. Neither of these places any burden on
>
the recipient of your work.
It is surprisingly difficult to "release the source into the public domain"
in a useful way. You don't need a license to distribute it, of course, but
the users of your code do need a license to use it safely. That's the other
half of the reason licenses exist. The half most people think about is to
protect themselves by defining the rights they're retaining when they
distribute something. The other half is for users of your code to protect
themselves against your lawsuit in case you sue them for taking it too far.
Don't get me wrong -- if you're just posting some neat code snippet to a
mailing list, nobody is likely to get in trouble using it. But if somebody
uses some serious code you posted on a Web site you set up for the purpose,
and then makes a hundred million bucks with it, they (and their lawyers) are
going to be pretty worried about the reliability of your having just decided
to "abandon your copyright."
Letting potential users know on what terms they may safely use your code
while you maintain your copyright requires a license. That's what a license
is. It tells people what they can and cannot do with your code, in a
reliable and provable way. From your user's viewpoint, the "can" is even
more important than the "cannot." The most important reason for doing it in
a formal license is the difficulty of proving an informal "abandonment of
copyright" in a court of law should you suddenly change your mind and file
suit. A serious business won't use your code unless they see something that
looks like a valid, provable, legally binding deed of your rights -- in
other words, a license.
Professor Lessig encountered this problem when he started the Creative
Commons project, which was motivated by his desire to make it easier not
only for people to publish their ideas, but also for other people to make
fruitful use of them. He has been an avid spokesperson for free distribution
and use of creative ideas for several years now, in a world where commercial
inroads on freedom of expression have become overwhelming. If you look
around on the Creative Commons Web site, I think you'll find a form of deed
to the public domain that is simple, easy to use, and designed to work.
To bring some semblance of topicality to this thread, I will point out that
Apple includes a license at the beginning of all its sample code source
files, in part for exactly these reasons: to protect itself, and to protect
you, the user.
In case you wonder, yes, I am a lawyer, and I do have some experience with
intellectual property law.
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
The AppleScript Sourcebook -
http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes -
http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
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