4 ms·

I observe some confused comments on this page that seem to argue that the MIT license doesn't come with a requirement to keep the copyright line intact (which i

I observe some confused comments on this page that seem to argue that the MIT license doesn't come with a requirement to keep the copyright line intact (which is demonstrably false, you don't get two paragraphs into the license without finding the attribution requirement). The part that caught my interest is: How many people consciously picked the MIT license when they actually meant a non-attribution license?

throwaway2037 5y ago
I like your last question. Can you give an example of a "non-attribution license"?
- rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
  If you're attached to your copyright: 0-clause BSD is a thing that exists[0]. Toybox uses it. If you want to throw your copyright out the window: The commonly accepted solution seems to be CC-0[1], which tries very hard to disclaim rights and limit liability in as many jurisdictions as possible, complete with a fallback license grant for failed public domain dedications. Because CC-0 makes some people uncomfortable despite the lengths it goes to reach its goals, some projects work with dual-licensing to cover the other side, such as Monocypher. Neither of them address patents. If patents are something you want to/need to address, you could perhaps paste the patent clause from BSD-2-Clause-Patent onto 0-clause BSD. See also the discussion on [2,3]. [0] https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html [1] https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain-equivalent_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain-equivalent_licen... [3] http://landley.net/toybox/license.html http://landley.net/toybox/license.html
  - redthrow 5y ago
    I wondered why more FOSS projects aren't using CC0 instead of "permissive" licenses like MIT, considering a lot of folks who work in FOSS are against copyright/software patents system in general, and most of them don't really seem to care about attribution. People who release code under MIT not only won't/can't take legal action but they probably won't even bother writing an email to the person who they believe violated the attribution part.
    - numpad0 5y ago
      Because permissive licenses promote proprietary use cases and that's not what FOSS movement aims to achieve.
      - redthrow 5y ago
        MIT doesn't promote proprietary use cases any more than CC0. I do (somewhat but not really) get why people use GPL but that's another story. Here we are only talking about people who use MIT instead of CC0.
TrueDuality 5y ago
I think most people explicitly choose MIT for this. It's a very very free license, allowing you to do pretty much anything you want with the code. Among the opensource developers I know the one thing they consistently care about is attribution for the work they've done for free.

throwaway2037 5y ago

I like your last question. Can you give an example of a "non-attribution license"?

rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
If you're attached to your copyright: 0-clause BSD is a thing that exists[0]. Toybox uses it. If you want to throw your copyright out the window: The commonly accepted solution seems to be CC-0[1], which tries very hard to disclaim rights and limit liability in as many jurisdictions as possible, complete with a fallback license grant for failed public domain dedications. Because CC-0 makes some people uncomfortable despite the lengths it goes to reach its goals, some projects work with dual-licensing to cover the other side, such as Monocypher. Neither of them address patents. If patents are something you want to/need to address, you could perhaps paste the patent clause from BSD-2-Clause-Patent onto 0-clause BSD. See also the discussion on [2,3]. [0] https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html [1] https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html https://spdx.org/licenses/CC0-1.0.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain-equivalent_license https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain-equivalent_licen... [3] http://landley.net/toybox/license.html http://landley.net/toybox/license.html
- redthrow 5y ago
  I wondered why more FOSS projects aren't using CC0 instead of "permissive" licenses like MIT, considering a lot of folks who work in FOSS are against copyright/software patents system in general, and most of them don't really seem to care about attribution. People who release code under MIT not only won't/can't take legal action but they probably won't even bother writing an email to the person who they believe violated the attribution part.
  - numpad0 5y ago
    Because permissive licenses promote proprietary use cases and that's not what FOSS movement aims to achieve.
    - redthrow 5y ago
      MIT doesn't promote proprietary use cases any more than CC0. I do (somewhat but not really) get why people use GPL but that's another story. Here we are only talking about people who use MIT instead of CC0.

TrueDuality 5y ago

I think most people explicitly choose MIT for this. It's a very very free license, allowing you to do pretty much anything you want with the code. Among the opensource developers I know the one thing they consistently care about is attribution for the work they've done for free.