
Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License - frostnovazzz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL
======
iso8859-1
It's a bad license for two reasons: One, it does not cover the case where it's
not possible to place stuff in the public domain (CC0 does). Two, it's
alienating some users unnecessarily. Licenses are practical, there's no reason
to invent a new term for concepts that already have well-known identifiers.
Put your jokes outside the license section.

~~~
SamHocevar
(disclaimer: I wrote WTFPL v2)

I fart on your recommendation of the CC0.

Your first “reason” is totally bogus. There is no need to cover cases where
it’s not possible to place stuff in the public domain, because there is no
need to place stuff in the public domain. That’s a fabrication of the CC0
license and one of the reasons why the OSI does not recommend it. A license
shouldn’t even mention public domain since it’s not a widely accepted concept.

Your second “reason” sounds like a matter of taste to me, especially since the
CC0 goes to great lengths defining new terms such as “Commons” and “Affirmer”.
If there’s a joke here, it’s the CC0, in needing more than a thousand words to
basically say “do what the fuck you want”.

Moreover, here is a quote from the OSI about the CC0: “the Committee felt that
approving such a license would set a dangerous precedent, and possibly even
weaken patent infringement defenses available to users of software released
under CC0”.

It’s also worth noting that the WTFPL predates the CC0 by nine years. Nine
years to fill a non-existing void, and they couldn’t even do it properly.

------
carterschonwald
There are many other licenses that are similarly permissive, but that lawyers
actually have vetted.

If you ever want interesting commercial adoption of software, you need to make
sure the associated ip / software licenses are solid

~~~
burntsushi
Well, the FSF has approved the WTFPL as compatible with the GPL. [1] Certainly
that doesn't mean it's been as vetted as the other licenses, but it counts for
something IMO.

[1] - <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#WTFPL>

~~~
tekacs
You could always just dual license. ;)

------
otikik
I use MIT for this. Already well known, stablished, and has the same effect.

It is also less offensive to people who get offended by words.

That can be an advantage or a detriment; it depends on you.

~~~
sergiotapia
Exactly, the MIT license is my favorite out of all of theme. Apache, BSD, CC,
etc - needlessly complicated and full of lawyer-lingo. MIT speaks to me and my
priorities.

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octatone2
This may be nitpicking, but it seems rather restrictive to force renaming of
the license in the case of its modification. That is not very "do what the
fuck you want to" ...

------
nefreat
This sounds like a more care-free way to do the same thing as
<http://unlicense.org>

Personally I'd choose unlicense instead of WTFPL.

~~~
ernesth
First, unlicense is a bad name for a license that is so different from no
license.

Second, the first sentence and the third paragraphs do not work in most of the
world: you cannot put a work in the public domain, even in countries that
"recognize copyright laws".

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tunnuz
How is this different from an impolite MIT license?

Edit: also, for the interested, there is a free e-book from O'Reilly
explaining the major free software licenses
<http://oreilly.com/openbook/osfreesoft/book/index.html>

~~~
dkuntz2
the main difference is that this essentially places the work in the public
domain, where the MIT license means it's freely available, but the copyright
is still the creator's. Also, thou have to retain the MIT license and
distribute it with all subsequent works.

~~~
aprescott
I don't think this is true. MIT explicitly allows sublicensing, meaning you
can essentially just change the license on any derivative. The copyright
notice needs to remain, though.

------
charlesjshort
OMWFL

Obey my will forever license. Copying or creating derivative works shall
irrevocably enslave you to my will forever.

~~~
brokenparser
BeerPL

I'd like a beer.

------
dpcan
So, if I can just do what the Fuck I want to, then can I download your code
and then re-license it as proprietary and charge royalties to everyone else
who is just doing what the fuck they want to with it? I mean - I'm doing what
the fuck I want to soooooo......

This is probably a stretch or something, but really, my point is that this
license is so incredibly open to interpretation that I get worried about using
code licensed with it every time.

~~~
ricardobeat
Of course you can. Companies use MIT/BSD/Apache/etc licensed work in
proprietary systems all the time, that's what they are for. You're better off
using one of those since they leave no room for confusion.

------
dnautics
I tend to do things with less legalism, with the copyheart (which is not a
licence)

<http://copyheart.org/>

~~~
rwmj
So no one can safely use your code, and you can be sued because you don't
disclaim liability properly. Great idea!

~~~
dnautics
why should I have to 'disclaim liability'? Because our litigious society would
like to take advantage me and sue my pants off for no real reason? Then the
flaw is not in my code, is it?

~~~
janardanyri
Because those few lines of boilerplate you would have to add exist in order to
make explicit your stance on issues you probably don't even know exist, and
their inclusion would come at basically zero cost.

Programmers of all people should appreciate that the "plain English"
explanation of something is often sorely lacking in comparison to a full and
complete implementation.

~~~
dnautics
well, I guess my answer is that copyheart is not for the faint of heart, but
if you feel like standing up to our lawyerocracy, then you should do it. And
you shouldn't have to worry about 'issues you didn't know exist'. There is
this concept of 'mens rea', you can't be criminally guilty if you shouldn't
have known it was a crime. As for civilly, anyone who sues you for something
silly is a jerkface. Don't negotiate with terrorists.

------
pygy_
See also it romantic counterpart: <https://github.com/pygy/The-Romantic-WTF-
Public-License>

/shameless plug

------
hkmurakami
wow didn't know this was fsf approved.

the in-your-face-ness of the name makes it a great tool for talking about
copyright with someone and making a point.

------
Kiro
Hackers care too much about licenses...

~~~
dkuntz2
Not really. I mean, yes, more than the average person, but that's because code
licensing helps make the world go 'round, and means we don't have to reinvent
the wheel every time we want to do something.

It's mostly because modern copyright law really doesn't want knowledge to be
shared easily, or until the author has had a good, long profit run. Or until
Disney has a good long profit run with the author's work.

------
angersock
My gamedev bros use this for our libraries, and I'd love to see wider adoption
of it--mostly due to the spirit of the thing.

However, the number of people who come out and bawww about not picking a more
widely recognized license (generally, LGPL or BSD) is disappointing; folks, if
you want good licenses, you have to set an example.

I implore my fellow developers to use this wherever feasible--show some guts.

~~~
DannyBee
Sorry, but please don't. The license has serious problems for developers. To
start simple, first, while yeah, a judge is probably going to find you can do
whatever you want, because it's not very explicit, there will be arguments
over what you were allowed to do. It is entirely possible a judge will decide
what is really meant is that you can do whatever _reasonable_ thing you want
to.

Worse, it does not effectively disclaim liability for the software developer.
He claims he doesn't want "obnoxious things", such as "reproducing a huge
disclaimer that is written in all caps".

The reason that all caps language is used is because of a history of court
decisions and laws around what is required to effectively disclaim implied
warranties. Right now, the license does not properly disclaim _any_ implied
warranties, which puts the developer at risk.

Worse than this, the text block he suggests putting in text if you want to
disclaim warranty (<http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/>) would likely be ineffective in
a lot of places.

I know everyone likes to think they won't get sued. But it does happen. It
will wipe you out. It isn't worth taking a moral stand against a few lines of
text in a source file.

To answer your other point, if you want good licenses, you have to actually
know what the hell you are doing.

I really do understand that people want to not have to give a shit about this
stuff, and have simple and clear licensing. Really. But this is not the path
to accomplishing that.

The legal and political world takes a long time to adapt. Things like like
free and open source software will eventually be sanely handled in the law.
WTFPL is not going to be anywhere in that history.

~~~
angersock
_I really do understand that people want to not have to give a shit about this
stuff, and have simple and clear licensing. Really. But this is not the path
to accomplishing that._

You've hit it on the head--unfortunately, what else are we to do?

I don't trust the general legal intuitions of ourselves and our peers, since
we seem to be so rubbish at creating a useful legal and political climate for
our industry (based on ~30 years of case law).

So, in the meantime, let's instead live in our ideal world, pull no punches,
and cross the legal bridges when (and if) they come up. Perhaps a proper
rallying will be tenable then, instead of us all being chickens.

As for licenses, I think Apache currently is best for "serious grown-up
usage", no, what with the patent indemnification and all, or am I misinformed?

~~~
DannyBee
"I don't trust the general legal intuitions of ourselves and our peers, since
we seem to be so rubbish at creating a useful legal and political climate for
our industry (based on ~30 years of case law)."

This is _entirely_ because of the penchant for the average software/etc
engineer to stick their head as far in the sand as it can go, and then
complain that this is ineffective. It is only in the past few years that this
has changed, and headway has already started to be made behind the scenes.

"As for licenses, I think Apache currently is best for "serious grown-up
usage", no, what with the patent indemnification and all, or am I
misinformed?"

This is, IMHO, correct. The only downside to apache is that the defensive
patent termination clause only terminates patent rights. If there were no
patents on the software, and they sue you over patents, they can go right on
using it. Sadly, it's not possible to make a license that does terminate both
copyrights and patents on being sued, and still hae such a license be GPL
compatible.

~~~
chimeracoder
> The only downside to apache is that the defensive patent termination clause
> only terminates patent rights. If there were no patents on the software, and
> they sue you over patents, they can go right on using it.

IANAL - could you explain what you mean by this?

~~~
DannyBee
Sure: Apache grants a patent license and a copyright license. The _patent_
license (but not the copyright one) terminates if i sue you. So right now the
situation is:

You license your stuff under apache.

It has no patents on it.

I sue you for patent infringement.

I can still use your stuff, since the only thing that got terminated was the
patent license I had received. There are no patent rights, so nothing was
really terminated. So in effect, I can sue you without worrying about how it
impacts my ability to use your software.

This is true of most current open source licenses, btw. Suing does not
terminate anything.

A better situation would be: Apache grants a patent license and a copyright
license. Both patent _and copyright license grants_ terminate if i sue you for
patent infringement.

Then it would be

You license your stuff under apache.

It has no patents on it.

I sue you for patent infringement.

I can't use your software anymore.

The problem is such termination clauses are at the very least GPLv2
incompatible (They have been tried). Because everyone wants license
compatibility, and people like GPLv2, nobody can really make this situation.
In fact, it makes the situation worse.

Worse than this, what ends up happening, often, is that Apache 2 projects
(which provide _some_ protection at least if you own patents, since you can
countersue) get pressured by GPL projects to move to a less protective
licenses. See, e.g., <https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap/issues/2054>

This was, IMHO, a bad move for the Bootstrap project (full disclosure - the
company I work for refused to let Bootstrap relicense the code we contributed
because we viewed this as harmful to the open source ecosystem. This is/was
drupal's problem, not Bootstrap's, and you shouldn't make a bad licensing
decision to make up for another)

~~~
chimeracoder
Ah, I see the distinction that you're making, though I would disagree with the
statement that the latter situation is "better".

If I'm release software with that clause, I'm in a position to take advantage
of anybody who uses the software, because they would have to cease using it
before they could sue me, even on legitimate grounds.

That said, I'm not surprised that you (as a lawyer) would prefer the latter;
it exposes your client to less liability, and lawyers tend to be very risk-
averse, for obvious reasons.

~~~
DannyBee
You gave them software for free, it's not clear what legitimate grounds you
want to accept liability for, but that's up to you :)

Given the "get sued by people over patents for releasing popular open source
software" occurs very often for companies that deal with open source software
and have money, ...

As for risk aversion, I am probably one of the least risk averse lawyers you
will meet.

My goal in this case is not to protect my clients, my goal is to see the open
source ecosystem stop being destroyed for dumb reasons.

~~~
chimeracoder
Nevermind, I just re-read the text of v2, and it seems more limited in scope
that what I previously thought.

> If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-
> claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution
> incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent
> infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for
> that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed.

I was also trying to thing of some pathalogical edge case in which I release
something under an Apache license in order to preempt a lawsuit that I've
infringed on someone else's patent... but I guess that doesn't make sense,
since that would require that they accept the terms of the license to begin
with.

So, I guess that's not really as much of a problem as I thought.

