[svlug] Fedora or Ubuntu for novis

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alan DuBoff (aland at softorchestra.com):
> On Sun, 21 Sep 2008, Rick Moen wrote:
> 
> >I'm curious:  Isn't the text "Copyright (C) 2008 Owner Name. Do whatever
> >you want with this work" roughly an order of magnitude shorter and
> >simpler still?
> 
> The problem I have with that is that we have an implicit 
> ownership, that in itself is something I don't want.

OK, I can respect (and foresaw) that fine point of ideology, but:

> I truly want my code to be open and free, that anyone could take, use,
> modify, redistribute, profit from, or include in other works they
> would do the same.

How does "Do whatever you want with this work" fail to achieve that
goal?  That's a rhetorical question, in case you're in any doubt:  In
fact, it achieves exactly what you've mentioned, above.  It's precisely
what you say you want.

Nonetheless, it sounds like you -- like many advocates of the concept of
"public domain dedications" -- want to be able to unmake copyright
titles (concerning your own copyright-encumbered works) completely,
through personal acts of will.  That's a laudable goal, I suppose.  But
wishing does not make it so (at least, not with any reasonable degree of
certainty of result).


> But the difference is that YES, I want to give it away! I want 
> it to be free. To date, the BSD license seems to get me pretty 
> close, but it has a copyright on the code.

Here's the sad news:  Unless your name is Uncle Sam, every bit of code
you create has a copyright on it -- automatically, at the moment you 
create that work "in fixed form".  As I explained in my page on "public
domain" law, that's just the way the law works, period, ever since the
USA ratified the Berne Convention.  That copyright title -- the work's 
quality of being ownable -- persists until expiration (Disney
permitting) of the full copyright term.

As Thomas Sowell says:  "Reality is not optional."  ;->

You can attach a "public domain dedication" to one of your works
_asking_ future judges to please honour your wish that legal normality
be set aside and your piece of property be considered not only ownerless
but also no longer ownable.  But you cannot with any degree of certainly
predict whether they'll honour your request, or, failing that, predict
in which of several alternative ways they will decline to honour your
request.

(The one exception known to me is that a judge in any UK court will
predictably ignore your declaration as against public policy, and will
find either that you still own your property or that you've abandoned it
and someone else now owns it.)



> I'm willing to take full responsibility for any liability and/or 
> infringement it may cause, so I'm not looking to evade anything 
> in regards to such, I just want the code to be open and free.

Me, I'm not that generous, by half:  If I'm going to make something I
create available to all users for all purposes without receiving one red
cent for my troubles, I am _not_ willing to risk getting sued for
product liability or warranty claims over it.  Thus, I personally would 
insist on, bare minimum, a two-line licence.   Like:

  "Copyright 2008 (C) Rick Moen.  Do whatever you want with this work,
   provided you agree that there is no warranty of any kind."