[License-discuss] Non-attribution license variants

[Jeff Johnson]

Greetings,

I'm wondering the best way to go about distributing some files in
an ICU Licensed project, but without requiring any attribution.

>From what I can see, there are two good options here...

#1) The first would be proposing an "ICU-0" license, which removes
all attribution requirements from the ICU license.  The license as
proposed, however, would be completely redundant with the MIT-0
license.  Of course, the "advantage" is that files within already
ICU-licensed projects (for example, configuration files, etc.) that
should not require attribution could be placed under this variant
of the ICU License, rather than having some files under MIT-0 and
others under ICU.

(Currently, in the project I'm working on, we've already changed the
license--where we can--for files things like example configuration
files and some documentation to MIT-0 license, however, it seems it
would be simpler and more consistent to use one license family, ICU
and ICU-0, for the entire project.)

Note that the ICU-0 text below also drops the no-publicity clause.
This could be optional. IANAL, but I believe that the resulting
license is legally sound, being mostly identical to the ICU License,
but even more permissive.

```
COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE

Copyright (c) yyyy-yyyy copyright holder

[All Rights Reserved.]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so.

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 OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR HOLDERS INCLUDED IN THIS NOTICE
BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, OR ANY SPECIAL INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES,
OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION,
ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
```

#2) I believe the second alternative would be to add an exception to those
files (and then register the exception with the SPDX people).  I don't fully
know how exceptions would affect the resulting license status with the OSI.

Are there other options available to us (other than #1 and #2 here, or using
MIT-0) for configuration/example/incidental files?  I understand that any
responses are not legal advice, and I hope this is an appropriate topic for
the "discuss" list.

--
Jeffrey H. Johnson
trnsz at pobox.com