
WTFPL - superberliner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_What_The_Fuck_You_Want_To_Public_License
======
pygy_
See also : The Romantic WTF Public License

[http://danslalune.posterous.com/the-romantic-wtf-public-
lice...](http://danslalune.posterous.com/the-romantic-wtf-public-license)

It's even more free than the original since the license is released under
itself. Released on Valentine's day by yours truly :-)

~~~
CoreDumpling
I would say that the postscript of that license is the one thing that I
consider missing from the original WTFPL. If I'm giving away my software for
free without restrictions, I sure as hell don't want to get sued over it.

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kevingadd
I find it funny that this apparently meets the Wikipedia notability standards.

Anyway, I always found it strange that anyone would choose to use this
license. The concept behind it is great, but why include unnecessary profanity
in the license terms? It seems like it would only make it more difficult to
defend the validity of the license and any works released under the license.

~~~
scdlbx
What would you need to defend?

~~~
eru
Scenario: Alice writes a program, puts it under that licence, Bob uses the
program, Alice dies and her heir Eve wants to get money from Bob for using the
software. Eve tries to get a court to declare the licence invalid, so that Bob
has to re-licence the program under new conditions or stop using it.

~~~
viraptor
Assuming that it's possible at all to declare the WTFPL invalid (why would it
be?) - he can re-licence the program to a licence giving everyone exactly the
same rights. It is allowed by WTFPL.

~~~
tedunangst
Bob is not the copyright owner. He can't re-licence it to anything.

What he can do is re-license a right to use the program, under terms specified
by the copyright owner.

I've attached extra meaning to c vs s in the word licence, but the definition
you used is not the same as parent.

~~~
eru
Yes. And if the new copyright owner Eve declares the original license invalid,
Bob won't be able to re-licence (or even use the program any longer). Also
Alice and Eve could be the same person who just changed her mind.

~~~
viraptor
I don't think that's true. Eve can change the licence on her work. That
doesn't affect any copy that Bob obtained beforehand. You cannot change the
licence in a way that affects things already released - otherwise you'd be
able to release something under BSD and after a year say "I'm changing the
terms, new licence requires everyone to pay me X, even if you obtained the
software on BSD terms".

Referring to the WTFPL author (<http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/>):

    
    
        Can’t you change the wording? It’s inappropriate / childish /
        not corporate-compliant.
        
        What the fuck is not clear in “DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU
        WANT TO”? If you do not like the license terms, just
        relicense the work under another license.

~~~
eru
Yes, you can't normally do this --- as long as the license is valid. That's
why you may need to defend it in court. (Eve may want the court to decide that
the license never gave the right in the first place.)

------
bravura
I provide support for my code under a "pay it forward" license. i.e. if I
provide support to you and help you get my code running, then I expect you in
turn to invest the time to clearly document what I showed you. This is a
principle of least effort, insofar as I will provide support assuming I won't
need to duplicate my work for the next guy. It also means I don't need to
needlessly document things that people don't care about. This is similar to
lazy coding: "throw an exception if this tricky corner-case pops up, and only
if this exception trips will I go through the effort to think through correct
behavior for this corner case".

[http://thisscientificmethod.com/2010/02/28/this-is-an-
experi...](http://thisscientificmethod.com/2010/02/28/this-is-an-experiment-
in-scientific-methodology/#comment-37408278)

~~~
natep
I like this idea, but why do you link to a blog comment of yours that says
exactly the same thing?

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3dFlatLander
Is there any legal difference between using this license and releasing
something under public domain?

~~~
almost
In some countries there isn't a legal concept of public domain. I don't know
much more than that but I think Germany may be one of them.

~~~
vog
Yes and no.

Here in Germany (and other countries) we _do_ have a public domain
("gemeinfrei", "gemeinfreie Werke"), but it contains only works whose authors
died at least 70 years ago. It is impossible for a living person to actively
put their work into the public domain.

However, this is not as bureaucratic as it may sound. You can still sign off
any exploitation rights ("Verwertungsrechte")! But there are other rights you
cannot sign off, the _author's moral rights_ ("Urheberpersönlichkeitsrechte").

In general, there are two flavours of copyright law in the world:

1) The _copyright_ which centers around the act of copying or doing other
things with the creative work. This is found in the USA and Great Britain.

2) The _author's rights_ ("Urheberrecht", "droit d'auteur") which centers
around the creators. This is found in Germany and France.

------
andrewljohnson
I released some code under a similar license, but I just made it up on the
spot: <http://trailbehind.com/comment_widget/>

"CommentWidget isn't released under a particular open source license. You can
do whatever you like with the code, anything at all."

~~~
eru
Isn't this a particular license in itself?

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cdibona
These kinds of licenses are cute, but you shouldn't use one as it just makes
life harder on those that might adopt and patch back into your software.
Additionally, in this case, the lack of a disclaimer of warranty in this
particular cute license is ill advised.

~~~
aeosynth
<http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/> Why is there no “no warranty” clause?

The WTFPL is an all-purpose license and does not cover only computer programs;
it can be used for artwork, documentation and so on. As such, it only covers
copying, distribution and modification. If you want to add a no warranty
clause for a program, you may use the following wording in your source code:

    
    
      /* This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to
     * the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it
     * and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want
     * To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See
     * http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING for more details. */
    

How does this make life harder for hackers? Explicit permission is given to do
whatever the fuck [you] want to, which includes hacking.

~~~
cdibona
Watch: I choose to ignore the warranty clause per clause 0. Also, since that
clause exists, I can choose to apply it to other code I combine it with
(unlikely, but its a dumb license that way)

Past that, I'm not convinced that due to clause 0 that it can be combined with
other code, and I am of the opinion that more licenses are not good for open
source development in general.

A responsible coder, given the desire in the wtfpl, would adopt a richard hipp
style posture, or choose mit,bsd or apache.

------
guelo
I always thought this license was misnamed since it does have one restriction:

    
    
      "and changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed."

~~~
kqr2
_Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim or modified copies of
this license document, and changing it is allowed as long as the name is
changed._

Doesn't that just apply to the license document -- not the software itself?

~~~
guelo
Oh, you're right.

------
eli
I would worry that this is not actually legally binding.

~~~
steveklabnik
Why would it not be?

~~~
eli
If your license won't hold up in court, then you might as well not bother with
one. You really can't be cavalier about the langauge in your contracts.

Take the recent landmark case of Jacobsen v. Katzer -- Jacobsen nearly lost
because he was using a slightly oddball open source license (the Artistic
License) that was not written by a lawyer, had some ambiguous passages, and
didn't quite say what he intended.

Sure, it's less of an issue with an extremely permissive license like this
one, but let's imagine you aren't around any more and some company wants to
use your code... but they can't because their legal department doesn't trust
the license.

