[License-review] veto against Unlicence (was Re: [License-discuss] Certifying MIT-0)

[Thorsten Glaser]

mccoy at lexpan.law dixit:

>The second paragraph of Unlicense is a license, at least as much of a

It’s not:

|This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

This is a voluntary relinquishing of copyright protection done by the
authors. (Whether this is valid in the country of origin is subject to
their local laws; someone told me that even in the USA it’s not always
that easy.) But even if it is, the work is still protected in all other
countries, or AT THE VERY LEAST those that don’t allow PD dedication,
due to the Berne convention, which requires a country B to protect a work
from country A the same as it would protect a work from country B, and we
know there have been cases of US government employees successfully defen‐
ding their copyright in a work in IIRC Germany.

|Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or
|distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled
|binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any
|means.

This is not a licence statement (which would not be valid anyway, because
a licence is issued as copyright instrument while PD means absence of
copyright protection) but an explanation of the previous paragraph.

|In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors
|of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the
|software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit

Again, this is *only* a PD statement, not a licence, and *especially*
not a fallback licence.

bye,
//mirabilos
-- 
I believe no one can invent an algorithm. One just happens to hit upon it
when God enlightens him. Or only God invents algorithms, we merely copy them.
If you don't believe in God, just consider God as Nature if you won't deny
existence.		-- Coywolf Qi Hunt