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I really like WTFPL as a permissive licence in these cases. Small developers and companies without layers of lawyers will read the licence, see that it says "d

I really like WTFPL as a permissive licence in these cases. Small developers and companies without layers of lawyers will read the licence, see that it says "do what the ---- you want", and use your code accordingly. Big companies with layers of lawyers will read the licence, blanch in terror, and either refuse to use the software, or contact you for alternative terms. Case in point: Google forbids use of the WTFPL. https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfpl-not-allowed https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfp...

DannyBee 8y ago
So i'm the one who forbid WTFPL at Google, and we forbid it mainly because it's bad for developers, believe it or not. We go over it in new googler training (and our reasoning is on the Google open source policy site we publish: https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfpl-not-allowed https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfp...) You are welcome to not (but if you go and look, it's completely consistent with my viewpoints and history in OSS so ...). I would love to live in a world where WTFPL is a good license, but we don't live in that world, and wanting it to be so will not change that. I can also tell you stories of companies we've acquired who had bad experiences, FWIW. So the "small companies" you think are being served, aren't.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- redwood 8y ago
  It's in small companies' interest to have their creations used and monetized by Google without anything being given back? I'm glad you're transparent about your own context here--it's appreciated, but I hope you can see that outside the walls of Google there's another world.
  - DannyBee 8y ago
    I'm not at all sure where you got any of that, it seems like you have an axe to grind. You clearly didn't read the link i said which says our issue with WTFPL is with the lack of warranty disclaimer and with the rights grant (which is not likely to be valid in a number of countries). You will find nothing, nor have i stated anything about the ability for google to use the code for "monetization" reasons. It doesn't even enter the equation It is very hard to take your comment in good faith as a result. Our policy pages are clear on why we ban licenses, even things like AGPL. You'll note they are not economic concerns (IE google won't be able to monetize), but compliance ones. (Of course, you should view these in good faith, they were originally written for an internal audience) I can definitively state I have never banned a license at Google due to Google's ability to "monetize" the code, or even indirect versions of that (IE that if it became popular, it would hurt google's ability to do that). All concerns are compliance ones. Additionally, the pages i linked you to very clearly encourage people to contribute back as much as they can.
    - jhasse 8y ago
      > Our policy pages are clear on why we ban licenses, even things like AGPL. You'll note they are not economic concerns (IE google won't be able to monetize), but compliance ones. AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns.
      - DannyBee 8y ago
        > AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns. This is simply false (on both points), and you haven't given any reason it would be true past "i feel this way". Even with direct support from our build system, AGPL compliance is incredibly difficult relative to GPL and other licenses[1] This argument also amounts to "I know more about your job than you do", which, if you do, awesome!, please feel free to do it :) I'm actually happy to go do something else. But i don't see evidence that this is true. [1] For starters, we have to distinguish between what things , what are user facing, what kinds of users have access to them (IE internal services accessible only to FTE googlers are different from those accessible to TVC for AGPL purposes) , etc. This is an incredibly difficult set of problems on the technical side.
- lstodd 8y ago
  > I can also tell you stories of companies we've acquired who had bad experiences, FWIW. Please do, to the extent their experiences relate to informal licenses.
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  I do understand your viewpoints. I just disagree that they're significant enough in practice to outweigh the value I see in WTFPL. The lack of a warranty disclaimer isn't an issue in practice; my readme just says "WTFPL, no warranty". The vague rights grant isn't something I've seen as an issue in analogous situations in case law. More important, to me, is what WTFPL says about my code: I'm not precious about it, I give it to you, I trust you to go do amazing things with it. It is a very humble licence. It says life is too short to get precious about licence wankery. Plus there's the side-effect that small companies and artisan developers can use it, while behemoths like Google won't. These, in my view, are all to the good. I don't expect you to share that view, but for these reasons, WTFPL is a "good licence" for me. OpenStreetMap thrived for years with a WTFPL-licensed editor (I wrote/maintained it). No-one died, no-one got sued, and OSM became one of only four worldwide geodatabases. The main reason the current editing software isn't WTFPL (I started it but handed over to more talented developers pretty quickly) is that Intel wanted to use it, went "WTF WTFPL", and asked the new maintainer to change it. He did, but tagged the next release idiot-intel-lawyers. I laughed. (IANAL, though I have spent way too much time over the past 15 years studying licenses and their applicability across different jurisdictions, again principally in connection with OSM and with its - very successful - licence change.)
  - putlake 8y ago
    Why not just release it into the public domain then?
    - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
      Many countries don't have the US concept of public domain, including the one where I live ("in the public domain" actually means something quite different in British English). But the WTFPL also makes a statement and one of which I approve.
      - wongarsu 8y ago
        public domain is indeed a bad idea, but CC0 is a great equivalent that works worldwide
- tracker1 8y ago
  Can you explain in what ways WTFPL is significantly different than MIT or ISC licenses? Or how it would be harmful by comparison?
derekp7 8y ago
So similar to a clause in the license that says "don't use it for evil". Many companies will want a license that doesn't have that clause in it, because it is so ill defined.
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  I find it funny that Crockford gave Microsoft the rights to use his software for evil, requesting nothing in return. The clause really was just a joke.
  - mishac 8y ago
    Minor correction: it was IBM, not Microsoft

DannyBee 8y ago

So i'm the one who forbid WTFPL at Google, and we forbid it mainly because it's bad for developers, believe it or not. We go over it in new googler training (and our reasoning is on the Google open source policy site we publish: https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfpl-not-allowed https://opensource.google.com/docs/thirdparty/licenses/#wtfp...) You are welcome to not (but if you go and look, it's completely consistent with my viewpoints and history in OSS so ...). I would love to live in a world where WTFPL is a good license, but we don't live in that world, and wanting it to be so will not change that. I can also tell you stories of companies we've acquired who had bad experiences, FWIW. So the "small companies" you think are being served, aren't.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
redwood 8y ago
It's in small companies' interest to have their creations used and monetized by Google without anything being given back? I'm glad you're transparent about your own context here--it's appreciated, but I hope you can see that outside the walls of Google there's another world.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  I'm not at all sure where you got any of that, it seems like you have an axe to grind. You clearly didn't read the link i said which says our issue with WTFPL is with the lack of warranty disclaimer and with the rights grant (which is not likely to be valid in a number of countries). You will find nothing, nor have i stated anything about the ability for google to use the code for "monetization" reasons. It doesn't even enter the equation It is very hard to take your comment in good faith as a result. Our policy pages are clear on why we ban licenses, even things like AGPL. You'll note they are not economic concerns (IE google won't be able to monetize), but compliance ones. (Of course, you should view these in good faith, they were originally written for an internal audience) I can definitively state I have never banned a license at Google due to Google's ability to "monetize" the code, or even indirect versions of that (IE that if it became popular, it would hurt google's ability to do that). All concerns are compliance ones. Additionally, the pages i linked you to very clearly encourage people to contribute back as much as they can.
  - jhasse 8y ago
    > Our policy pages are clear on why we ban licenses, even things like AGPL. You'll note they are not economic concerns (IE google won't be able to monetize), but compliance ones. AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns.
    - DannyBee 8y ago
      > AGPL compliance wouldn't be that difficult if you remove making money from the equation. So indirectly your compliance concerns are based on economic concerns. This is simply false (on both points), and you haven't given any reason it would be true past "i feel this way". Even with direct support from our build system, AGPL compliance is incredibly difficult relative to GPL and other licenses[1] This argument also amounts to "I know more about your job than you do", which, if you do, awesome!, please feel free to do it :) I'm actually happy to go do something else. But i don't see evidence that this is true. [1] For starters, we have to distinguish between what things , what are user facing, what kinds of users have access to them (IE internal services accessible only to FTE googlers are different from those accessible to TVC for AGPL purposes) , etc. This is an incredibly difficult set of problems on the technical side.
lstodd 8y ago
> I can also tell you stories of companies we've acquired who had bad experiences, FWIW. Please do, to the extent their experiences relate to informal licenses.
Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
I do understand your viewpoints. I just disagree that they're significant enough in practice to outweigh the value I see in WTFPL. The lack of a warranty disclaimer isn't an issue in practice; my readme just says "WTFPL, no warranty". The vague rights grant isn't something I've seen as an issue in analogous situations in case law. More important, to me, is what WTFPL says about my code: I'm not precious about it, I give it to you, I trust you to go do amazing things with it. It is a very humble licence. It says life is too short to get precious about licence wankery. Plus there's the side-effect that small companies and artisan developers can use it, while behemoths like Google won't. These, in my view, are all to the good. I don't expect you to share that view, but for these reasons, WTFPL is a "good licence" for me. OpenStreetMap thrived for years with a WTFPL-licensed editor (I wrote/maintained it). No-one died, no-one got sued, and OSM became one of only four worldwide geodatabases. The main reason the current editing software isn't WTFPL (I started it but handed over to more talented developers pretty quickly) is that Intel wanted to use it, went "WTF WTFPL", and asked the new maintainer to change it. He did, but tagged the next release idiot-intel-lawyers. I laughed. (IANAL, though I have spent way too much time over the past 15 years studying licenses and their applicability across different jurisdictions, again principally in connection with OSM and with its - very successful - licence change.)
- putlake 8y ago
  Why not just release it into the public domain then?
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    Many countries don't have the US concept of public domain, including the one where I live ("in the public domain" actually means something quite different in British English). But the WTFPL also makes a statement and one of which I approve.
    - wongarsu 8y ago
      public domain is indeed a bad idea, but CC0 is a great equivalent that works worldwide
tracker1 8y ago
Can you explain in what ways WTFPL is significantly different than MIT or ISC licenses? Or how it would be harmful by comparison?

derekp7 8y ago

So similar to a clause in the license that says "don't use it for evil". Many companies will want a license that doesn't have that clause in it, because it is so ill defined.

blotter_paper 8y ago
I find it funny that Crockford gave Microsoft the rights to use his software for evil, requesting nothing in return. The clause really was just a joke.
- mishac 8y ago
  Minor correction: it was IBM, not Microsoft