[License-review] Request for legacy approval: The Unlicense

Wed Jun 3 14:03:59 UTC 2020

Below is the OSI License Committee's recommendation to the OSI Board 
recommending approval of the Unlicense. The matter will most likely be 
taken up at the next OSI Board Meeting, which is scheduled for June 12, 
2020.

Pam

Pamela Chestek
Chair, License Review Committee
Open Source Initiative

License: Unlicense (Exhibit A)
Submitted: March 28, 2020, 
http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html
Decision date: due no later than the first Board meeting after May 28, 2020

License Review Committee Recommendation:

/Resolved that it is the opinion of the OSI that the Unlicense be 
approved as an Open Source Initiative Approved license in the Special 
Purpose category of licenses.//
/
_Rationale_

There is general agreement that the document is poorly drafted. It is an 
attempt to dedicate a work to the public domain (which, taken alone, 
would not be approved as an open source license) but it also has wording 
commonly used for license grants.There was some discussion about the 
legal effectiveness of the document, in particular how it would operate  
in a jurisdiction where one cannot dedicate a work to the public domain. 
The lawyers who opined on the issue, both US and non-US, agreed that the 
document would most likely be interpreted as a license and that the 
license met the OSD. It is therefore recommended for approval.

The submitter asked that the license be included in the “Popular and 
Widely-Used or With Strong Communities" category. The License Committee 
instead recommends, because of its intended nature as a dedication to 
the public domain, that it be placed in the “Special Purpose” category.

Exhibit A

===========

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

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.

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 of the public 
at large and to the detriment of our heirs and
successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of 
relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this 
software under copyright law.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS 
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF 
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. 
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER 
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING 
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER 
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

For more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org/>

On 3/28/2020 11:03 AM, osi-license-review at jaeckel.eu wrote:
> The license
> ===========
>
> This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.
>
> 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.
>
> 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
> of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and
> successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of
> relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this
> software under copyright law.
>
> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
> EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
> MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
> IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
> OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
> ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
> OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
>
> For more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org/>
>
> The rationale
> =============
>
> The Unlicense exists since 10 years [1] to give projects the possibility
> to dedicate their code into the public domain in jurisdictions that
> don't have an understanding of the public domain. The homepage at
> https://unlicense.org/ lists a wide variety of software that already
> uses said license. A search on GitHub for projects using The Unlicense
> [2] returns by the time of writing 133,188 repositories using it (not
> including forks of repositories).
>
> Proliferation category
> ======================
>
> Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities
>
> Reasoning for this category
> ---------------------------
>
> e.g. the EPL1.0 and EPL2.0 licenses together don't have half of the
> number of repositories (38,117 [3] resp. 12,509 [4]) and they fall as
> well under this category.
>
>
>
>
> Thank you for your work and considering the approval of The Unlicense to
> the wide and well-chosen variety of Open Source Licenses.
>
>
> Kind regards,
> Steffen Jaeckel
>
>
> [1] https://ar.to/2010/01/set-your-code-free
> [2]
> https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=
> [3]
> https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-1.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=
> [4]
> https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-2.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=
>
> _______________________________________________
> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Communication from the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
>
> License-review mailing list
> License-review at lists.opensource.org
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