WTFPL approval, please?

[Matthew Flaschen]

Makc wrote:
> Hello list,
> 
> This request is about WTFPL license, full text at http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/

Similar licenses get submitted all the time under the theory that, "It's
only a permissive license, so who cares about proliferation!" ignoring
the fact that some poor lawyer(s) will still eventually have to do a
formal review against it when it first becomes relevant to their boss.

Furthermore, it has no warranty which also came up.

Just a few semi-recent permissive license submissions/inquiries are
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:12806 (Simplified BSD license),
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2007Dec/0073 (Æsthetic
Permissive License - For Approval),
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:msp:32:chphgjcnoibafhhebkjc (The
beer-ware license)
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.licenses.open-source.general/10345
(Unnamed BSD+IF YOU USE THIS CODE YOUR PATIENTS WILL DIE),
http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:msp:356:cdlfccngalhjfnbbbkfk
(Unnamed AFL+Required Academic Citation),
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.licenses.open-source.general/10539
(BSD+type of advertising clause),

Only one of those was approved (guess which).

Also, on a vaguely related note, I think it is time OSI set up some new
mailing list archives.  crynwyr is okay (despite currently having
blatant script errors apparently due to broken Trac integration), and of
course there are third-party-hosted archives but a nice standard archive
both hosted and linked on opensource.org would be great.  This might
entail switching away from ezmlm though apparently there is a available
web archive system (http://ezmlm-www.sourceforge.net/) that improves on
ezmlm-cgi.

> This license has made it to "version 2", and apparently fits in
> "Legacy Approval" submission type - freshmeat has 9 projects listed
> under this license (see http://freshmeat.net/browse/1008/ )

Legacy means no one has any intention of distributing /new/ software
under the license.  You say below that you do have that intent.

> I don't know if it goes under "popular" proliferation by OSI standards

No.

> The reason why this license needs OSI approval (and also "Link to
> earlier public discussions") can be seen at
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=350001&aid=1725061&group_id=1
> - after two years of silence sourceforge suddenly denies me the right
> to license my project under WTFPL...

No, that's why /you/ want OSI approval.  It doesn't say why OSI should
give it to you.

> ha. Well, sourceforge registers many new projects every day, and I 
> believe that you guys just can't allow the lack of OSI approval be used 
> as an excuse to deny all that project authors a right to use the license 
> of their choise, can you.

OSI and SourceForge are totally separate.  OSI is not responsible for
SourceForge's inconsistent enforcement of their policies.

And no, SourceForge is not meant to let you use the license of your choice.

Matt Flaschen