From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Feb 22 18:31:59 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0D3410ED5 for ; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:31:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.3/8.9.2) with ESMTP id SAA61965; Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:31:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) To: Licia Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: reviewers for a free software license In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 22 Feb 1999 14:49:42 CST." Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:31:46 -0800 Message-ID: <61961.919737106@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Would anyone care to review a software license I and a friend are working on? > The goal is to present the basic ideas in a berkeley style license in a > simple text file that people can simple include with their work or refer > to by name/url the way they can with the GPL and Artistic licenses. I like the basic idea of encapsulating the sentiments of the berkeley license in a "simple text file", however I don't see one of those here. :-) My definition of a simple text file which conveyed the "basic ideas" of the BSDL would be: The Universal Simple License ---------------------------- The following materials are copyright (C) Joe Blow, 1999 and may be used, modified and redistributed in any form for any purpose provided that the following provisions are strictly adhered to: Do not remove or modify the text of this license agreement or attempt to assert authorship for unmodified portions of the code. The author is giving you the code, grant them at least due credit for it in return. The author assumes no liability whatsoever for this code. You break it, you fix it, and what you see here you use entirely at your own risk. That's 97 words, including "(C) Joe Blow, 1999", text which would obviously get longer if you covered more years or shorter if your name was something like "Prince." A license in 100 words or less is the kind of license I like to see! For a rather more extreme example of this, those of you who keep track of such things may also have noticed the "license" I very deliberately used for the ports collection mechanism itself (in bsd.port.mk): # bsd.port.mk - 940820 Jordan K. Hubbard. # This file is in the public domain. .. the intention being to try and get the other *BSDs at least to adopt it (Linux would be nice, but Berkeley make is a special hurdle for them). That whole process took a little longer than some people might have hoped for, but if there were any impediments to progress that people complained about during the process, the license was never raised as one of them and I rather liked that. Considering how much free software people love to screech in 3 different keys about this kind of thing in any pan-OS effort, you might even consider it "fucking amazing" that nobody complained. Sometimes a simple license really does have its merits. :-) Anyway, going PD might be a bit too far for some, but I think the "USL" I suggested above might find some adherents. I find the burgeoning trend towards "empty legalese which only sounds impressive" in software licenses to be rather disturbing, personally, and I think some of us are aping it only because it "seems like the safe thing to do" when you're out looking for some boilerplate text. Ugh. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message