For thoughts: fair license

James William Pye x at jwp.name
Thu May 5 01:57:52 UTC 2005


It's longer, but, all in all, I think it makes it a better license:

        The exercise and enjoyment of the rights granted by authorship
        is authorized provided that this instrument is retained with
        substantial portions of the works in a good faith effort to
        notify any entity that uses the works of this instrument.

        DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.

A couple notes,

* I don't explicitly state any exception to the right to the claim of
authorship, as I take the wording of Berne here[1] to, at least, imply
that it is inalienable. Also, claiming authorship of works that another
created is naturally wrong, so I can't imagine it being seen as a
transferrable right.
* The change to the condition uses MIT style allowance of use without
retention(substantial portions), and uses less demanding wording for
notification of the license. I imagine that the "good faith effort" part
would help communicate that retention should be done in such a way to
reflect an honest attempt to display prominently, so that notification
may easily occur. Although, I'm not positive that having "good faith"
qualify the effort actually has much of an affect, so if someone could
shed some light on this, I would appreciate it(possibly save a couple
words ;).

The changes increases clarity and decreases demand wrt notification, so
I think it helps eliminate potential arguments about the meaning, which
is a Good Thing(tm).

The purpose of the license is to create a concise gift license. It
contrasts from BSD and MIT and most other gift licenses by being
"open-ended", rather than closed. That difference being that BSD and MIT
specifically state the exercisable rights, whereas this license
authorizes all the rights granted by authorship(all inclusive).

Without disclaimers, it has about half the number of words that MIT has.
With disclaimers, it is significantly shorter. So despite the expansion,
it still appears to be the shortest license out there. ;)

Thoughts?

[1]http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P123_20726
-- 
Regards, James William Pye



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