[License-review] Please rename "Free Public License-1.0.0" to 0BSD.

[Bruce Perens]

Rick Moen:
> appreciate Bruce having spoken to encourage OSI to certify 0BSD
It's already certified, the requested action is simply a name change.

And while you are waxing pedantic at great length about it not being
equivalent to the public domain, there is also the warranty waiver.

But none of this is reason to deny the requested name change.

On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 7:11 PM Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Rob Landley (rob at landley.net):
>
> > Last year there was a discussion of Github adopting 0BSD, which was
> > derailed by the name confusion.
> >
> >   https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com/issues/464
> >
> > That thread contains a discussion between myself (who uses 0BSD in
> > toybox and got SPDX approval under the original name) and the person
> > who sent the license to OSI under a different name after SPDX had
> > already approved 0BSD.
> >
> > Unfortunately, due to the name confusion, Github took no action on the
> > request.  Similarly wikipedia reproduces this confusion in its
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_equivalent_license page.
> > There are multiple other examples of this negatively impacting the
> > adoption of the license.
> >
> > I copied my two contributions to the above github thread to my blog,
> > with slightly cleaned up formatting. They explain the issue at length:
> >
> >   http://landley.net/notes-2017.html#26-03-2017
> >
> >   http://landley.net/notes-2017.html#27-03-2017
>
> I applaud you for taking this very useful step, Rob, and appreciate
> Bruce having spoken to encourage OSI to certify 0BSD.  FWIW, I heartily
> concur.  This licence is clearly well drafted, non-duplicative, and so
> on.
>
> I'm actually about to revise my
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html page,
> to strongly recommend 0BSD for anyone seeking maximally permissive
> licensing  (It already says 'Rob Landley's BSD Zero Clause License
> [link] is also excellent if obscure', but I can do better than that.)
>
>
> Please pardon a bit of legal pedantry, but 0BSD is not 'equivalent to
> placing code in the public domain' (as you say on
> https://landley.net/toybox/license.html and elsewhere).  Copyright title
> continues to exist in the abstract ownable property in question from the
> date of creation to when copyright expires -- whereas the defining trait
> of actual PD is ownable title having expired or been expunged.  You
> might feel that this distinction doesn't matter:  We would all hope this
> is the case.  The assurance third-party reusers have that they aren't
> committing copyright torts is that they're doing so in good-faith
> reliance on a copyright notice with permissions grant, knowing they're
> either inside the copyright runtime but exercising that grant or past
> the copyright runtime in which case the work is _truly_ public domain.
>
> And another reason this isn't equivalent to PD is that the legal
> obligation[1] to retain the copyright notice (e.g., the 'Copyright (C)
> 2006 by Rob Landley <rob at landley.net>' example on your toybox page)
> until copyright expires -- which for reasons mentioned above is for
> everyone's benefit.
>
> Yes, we get that coders would like to magick all of this hassle away --
> but wishing doesn't make it so.  Your licence, CC0, MIT License,
> ISC License, and Fair License are IMO about the closest one can safely
> get that I've so far seen.
>
>
> [1] In the USA, covered by 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b).
>
> --
> Cheers,              "I am a member of a civilization (IAAMOAC).  Step back
> Rick Moen            from anger.  Study how awful our ancestors had it, yet
> rick at linuxmafia.com  they struggled to get you here.  Repay them by
> appreciating
> McQ! (4x80)          the civilization you inherited."           -- David
> Brin
>
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-- 
Bruce Perens K6BP - CEO, Legal Engineering
Standards committee chair, license review committee member, co-founder,
Open Source Initiative
President, Open Research Institute; Board Member, Fashion Freedom
Initiative.
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