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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.<br>
<br>
Pam <br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">Pamela Chestek<br>
Chair, License Review Committee<br>
Open Source Initiative</div>
<br>
License: Unlicense (Exhibit A)<br>
Submitted: March 28, 2020,
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html">http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html</a><br>
Decision date: due no later than the first Board meeting after May
28, 2020<br>
<br>
License Review Committee Recommendation: <br>
<br>
<i>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.</i><i><br>
</i><br>
<u>Rationale</u><br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
Exhibit A<br>
<br>
===========<br>
<br>
This is free and unencumbered software released into the public
domain.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
For more information, please refer to <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://unlicense.org/"><http://unlicense.org/></a><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/28/2020 11:03 AM,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:osi-license-review@jaeckel.eu">osi-license-review@jaeckel.eu</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:78c8ac54-5d5b-6acd-3636-ef17f5609600@jaeckel.eu">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://unlicense.org/"><http://unlicense.org/></a>
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
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://unlicense.org/">https://unlicense.org/</a> 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] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://ar.to/2010/01/set-your-code-free">https://ar.to/2010/01/set-your-code-free</a>
[2]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=">https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aunlicense&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=</a>
[3]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-1.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=">https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-1.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=</a>
[4]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-2.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=">https://github.com/search?q=license%3Aepl-2.0&type=Repositories&ref=advsearch&l=&l=</a>
_______________________________________________
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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