4 ms·

What is it that you think I intend to do? I am fully aware that public domain doesn't exist in all jurisdictions; by the looks of it, it may not exist for long

by gw 13y ago

What is it that you think I intend to do? I am fully aware that public domain doesn't exist in all jurisdictions; by the looks of it, it may not exist for long in my own legal jurisdiction! Whether it is legally recognized or not is irrelevant to me.

steveklabnik 13y ago
I meant 'you' in a slightly broader sense; people who want to put things in the public domain intend their use to be free for anyone to use for any purpose. You hint at this with suggesting that you're doing MIT but without the last bit of covering your ass. But depending on where in the world you are, you're being significantly _more_ restricted than the MIT, all because of (your words) some 'internet bravado.' Yes, licenses suck. I'm -1 on most forms of property, and "intellectual property" most of all. But ignoring reality harms more than it helps. Just MIT/BSD and be done with it, or, if you want to be silly, WTFPL.
- gw 13y ago
  Let's not equivocate on the term "restricted". My software is more restricted by your government if it doesn't recognize the public domain, but that is entirely different from (for example) saying that the GPL is more restricted than the MIT license. I understand this distinction won't matter to someone in such a country who wants to use my code while remaining legally compliant. My own feeling is that in such a country, I would carry on writing software and stop worrying about legal compliance.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Yeah egoism/illegalism is fun and all, but until you can get a significant mass to participate, you're actively harming those who may be sympathetic, yet don't want to violate their own country's laws. This harms the organizing you'd need to do in order to bring about meaningful change. I am all about direct action, but you have to pick your battles. This one seems to me to be all downside with very, very little upside. Especially, as my sibling states, when you just say 'public domain' without mentioning your politics.
    - arto 13y ago
      I must wonder just how large and self-evident must the mass or movement be before you'd deem it worth joining? Have a little peek at how much public domain software is already being produced daily on GitHub: https://github.com/search?q=%22public+domain%22&type=Code&s=indexed https://github.com/search?q=%22public+domain%22&type=Code&s=... Consider also that the majority of repositories on GitHub contain no license declaration at all, which should be a clear enough indicator of where these trends are going: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/18/github_licensing_study/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/18/github_licensing_stu... Further, as explained in another comment, when even the most prominent and harshest former critics of public domain software (cf. Larry Rosen) have recently changed their mind and, if not exactly pushing the public domain as yet, at least see no problem with it, how much more could you want?
      - steveklabnik 13y ago
        First of all, obviously, this is personal choice. Secondly, a mass of people _creating_ public domain software isn't the issue: the mass would be of people _breaking the laws of the jurisdiction in which they live by using public domain software as public domain even though it's not recognized_. Personally, I currently BSD/MIT all of my code, but am considering AGPLing it all from now on. I don't think that the negligible difference between BSD/MIT and public domain is worth _any_ headache at all; they're effectively the same from my viewpoint.
    - gw 13y ago
      I'm not under any illusion that I am going to make any "meaningful change", and I'm not "organizing" anything. I'm a dude writing obscure software on the internet. Acts of principle, by definition, are ends in themselves, not pragmatic attempts to achieve some other goal. I lost this battle before I was even born.
      - steveklabnik 13y ago
        If you write a blog post titled "Why your next project should be public domain" and submit it to one of the largest programming message board son the internet, you are attempting to organize some kind of political change, unintentional or not. I don't care what you do. Writing obscure software is great! Have fun! Even put it in the public domain, you obviously know exactly what you're doing, and I think your principles are fine. I don't think that advocating that others should follow along with what your doing is the most responsible of choices, especially if you don't care about achieving some sort of goal.
lmm 13y ago
So what did you intend to do? If you're trying to make it as easy as possible for other people to use your code? CC0 (or, from a practical point of view of your audience being likely to know what the license means, 2-term BSD-style, Apache or MIT) does that better than your public domain declaration. If you're trying to make a political point, it would be more effective to make an explicit statement to that effect - if people just see a public domain declaration they're unlikely to even consider the idea that you meant to convey something political by this.
- gw 13y ago
  No, my intention is not to make it as easy as possible for someone to legally use my code. I definitely consider it a matter of principle, and I think it's a shame when programmers choose a permissive license instead, purely out of expedience. I do not agree that the merits of a principled act depends on how effectively it is conveyed to others.
  - lmm 13y ago
    Surely an act that doesn't affect others can't have any moral side, positive or negative.

by gw 13y ago

steveklabnik 13y ago

I meant 'you' in a slightly broader sense; people who want to put things in the public domain intend their use to be free for anyone to use for any purpose. You hint at this with suggesting that you're doing MIT but without the last bit of covering your ass. But depending on where in the world you are, you're being significantly _more_ restricted than the MIT, all because of (your words) some 'internet bravado.' Yes, licenses suck. I'm -1 on most forms of property, and "intellectual property" most of all. But ignoring reality harms more than it helps. Just MIT/BSD and be done with it, or, if you want to be silly, WTFPL.

gw 13y ago
Let's not equivocate on the term "restricted". My software is more restricted by your government if it doesn't recognize the public domain, but that is entirely different from (for example) saying that the GPL is more restricted than the MIT license. I understand this distinction won't matter to someone in such a country who wants to use my code while remaining legally compliant. My own feeling is that in such a country, I would carry on writing software and stop worrying about legal compliance.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  Yeah egoism/illegalism is fun and all, but until you can get a significant mass to participate, you're actively harming those who may be sympathetic, yet don't want to violate their own country's laws. This harms the organizing you'd need to do in order to bring about meaningful change. I am all about direct action, but you have to pick your battles. This one seems to me to be all downside with very, very little upside. Especially, as my sibling states, when you just say 'public domain' without mentioning your politics.
  - arto 13y ago
    I must wonder just how large and self-evident must the mass or movement be before you'd deem it worth joining? Have a little peek at how much public domain software is already being produced daily on GitHub: https://github.com/search?q=%22public+domain%22&type=Code&s=indexed https://github.com/search?q=%22public+domain%22&type=Code&s=... Consider also that the majority of repositories on GitHub contain no license declaration at all, which should be a clear enough indicator of where these trends are going: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/18/github_licensing_study/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/18/github_licensing_stu... Further, as explained in another comment, when even the most prominent and harshest former critics of public domain software (cf. Larry Rosen) have recently changed their mind and, if not exactly pushing the public domain as yet, at least see no problem with it, how much more could you want?
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      First of all, obviously, this is personal choice. Secondly, a mass of people _creating_ public domain software isn't the issue: the mass would be of people _breaking the laws of the jurisdiction in which they live by using public domain software as public domain even though it's not recognized_. Personally, I currently BSD/MIT all of my code, but am considering AGPLing it all from now on. I don't think that the negligible difference between BSD/MIT and public domain is worth _any_ headache at all; they're effectively the same from my viewpoint.
  - gw 13y ago
    I'm not under any illusion that I am going to make any "meaningful change", and I'm not "organizing" anything. I'm a dude writing obscure software on the internet. Acts of principle, by definition, are ends in themselves, not pragmatic attempts to achieve some other goal. I lost this battle before I was even born.
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      If you write a blog post titled "Why your next project should be public domain" and submit it to one of the largest programming message board son the internet, you are attempting to organize some kind of political change, unintentional or not. I don't care what you do. Writing obscure software is great! Have fun! Even put it in the public domain, you obviously know exactly what you're doing, and I think your principles are fine. I don't think that advocating that others should follow along with what your doing is the most responsible of choices, especially if you don't care about achieving some sort of goal.

lmm 13y ago

So what did you intend to do? If you're trying to make it as easy as possible for other people to use your code? CC0 (or, from a practical point of view of your audience being likely to know what the license means, 2-term BSD-style, Apache or MIT) does that better than your public domain declaration. If you're trying to make a political point, it would be more effective to make an explicit statement to that effect - if people just see a public domain declaration they're unlikely to even consider the idea that you meant to convey something political by this.

gw 13y ago
No, my intention is not to make it as easy as possible for someone to legally use my code. I definitely consider it a matter of principle, and I think it's a shame when programmers choose a permissive license instead, purely out of expedience. I do not agree that the merits of a principled act depends on how effectively it is conveyed to others.
- lmm 13y ago
  Surely an act that doesn't affect others can't have any moral side, positive or negative.