[repost] [j at uriah.heep.sax.de: For Approval: The beer-ware license]

[Russ Nelson]

Joerg Wunsch writes:
 > The more lines, the higher will be the salary for the lawyer.  I don't
 > see who else would profit from a complicated license when a simple one
 > will do.

What is the purpose in having a license?  Why not simply put your code
into the public domain?  Clearly, people license code because they
want to put conditions on the distribution of the code.  And yet, they
want those conditions to have the force of law behind them.
If they simply wanted to put forth moral conditions on the code, they
would do so in the public domain dedication, like this:

The Moral Rights Public Dedication (MRPD):

    I am not going to rely on the use of the legal system to enforce
    the below restrictions on the distribution of this code, therefore
    I am putting this code into the public domain.  However, that does
    not mean that you are free to do anything you want.  I assert a
    moral right to require you to give credit to myself whenever you
    take credit for the work you have combined my work with.  If you
    fail to do this, I will tell your mother, your wife, your
    girlfriend, your mistress, and your priest.

Ever heard of anybody doing this?  Me neither.  Thus, logically,
anybody who licenses their code wants to be able to take the license
to a court and get them to enforce the terms of the license.

And if you're gonna do that, you should take our advice when we tell
you that a license is under-specified.  If you simply MUST use a
simple license, then consider using the MRPD instead of a license.

By the way, the BEER-WARE license was never submitted to
license-discuss.  It was only submitted to license-approval,
which isn't sufficient.

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