3 ms·
The license is "CC0 1.0 Universal" In light of this post outlining a bug in early CC licenses: https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-lice
by jvanderbot 3y ago
The license is "CC0 1.0 Universal"
In light of this post outlining a bug in early CC licenses: https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299 https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-...
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39610509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39610509
Does this need updating?
EDIT: based on some discussion, it does need updating, but not for the reason I thought. I filed a suggestion here: https://github.com/janmojzis/tinyssh/issues/85 https://github.com/janmojzis/tinyssh/issues/85
- gkbrk 3y agoIs that necessarily a bug? If you use Disney content without a license they won't give you a 30-day period to keep mis-using it. Same with using Oracle software. Why should people who create CC content provide such a grace period?
- jvanderbot 3y agoValidity of the post aside, there are real-world examples of this license being abused by third parties. Given the cost is very low to just change the license, I think it might be worth considering.
- skissane 3y agoTo be clear, the issue we are talking about here does not exist for the CC0 license TinySSH is using. CC0 lacks a termination clause, it wouldn't make sense for it to have one. It only exists for other CC licenses, like the (earlier versions of) CC-BY(-NC/-SA). CC0 has other issues – some people (e.g. Red Hat Legal) are concerned about its language explicitly excluding patent and trademark rights, and think that is legally inferior to other public domain declarations (such as The Unlicense) which don't mention that topic at all. In a declaration/license in which patents and trademarks go unmentioned, if the original author sues you on those grounds, you can try to argue that by releasing the software they gave you an implied patent/trademark license – that argument may or may not win in Court, but at least it has a chance. With language in the declaration/license explicitly excluding patents and trademarks (like CC0 has), that argument is likely dead-on-arrival.
- saagarjha 3y agoBecause people who create CC content typically do so because they want it to be available to good-faith uses, which may not always follow the exact requirements of the license by accident
- jasomill 3y agoFor the reason given by Doctorow in the linked article: If you put a CC license on your work, its explicit message is, “I want you to re-use this.” Not “I am a pedantic asshole with a fetish for well-formed attribution strings.” The point of CC is not to teach the world to write attribution strings: it is to facilitate sharing and re-use. If you are a good-faith user of CC licenses, then your response to an incorrect attribution string should be a request to correct it, not a threat to sue for $150,000 in statutory damages.
- fanf2 3y agoNot for that reason. The copyleft trolls that Doctorow wrote about are using a termination clause in attribution-required CC licences. (Remember, there are lots of different CC licences with varying requirements on licensees.) CC0 doesn’t impose requirements on licensees nor does it have a termination clause, so it isn’t affected by these trolls. However, CC0 is not good as a software license. It is explicitly restricted to being a copyright license. If there are patents covering the software, CC0 does not give you permission to exercise the patented invention. It’s better to use 0BSD or MIT-0 instead, which grant permission to use the software without weird exceptions.
- jvanderbot 3y agoI copied your comment to https://github.com/janmojzis/tinyssh/issues/85 https://github.com/janmojzis/tinyssh/issues/85 If author/maintainer doesn't frequent HN, perhaps discussion there might get some action.
- fanf2 3y agoYou can find a more authoritative but longer explanation in an OSI FAQ about CC0 https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero and the related discussion http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2012-February/thread.html http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.o...
- makeworld 3y ago0BSD and MIT-0 don't mention patents explicitly though, few licenses do. I only know of two: https://blueoakcouncil.org/list https://blueoakcouncil.org/list
- fanf2 3y agoThey don’t mention copyright explicitly either.
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