Talk:Public-domain-equivalent license

0BSD now consistently named
OSI agreed to SPDX's precedent and switched to calling it "Zero-Clause BSD".

http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2018-November/003830.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.58.139.78 (talk) 16:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Zero Clause BSD was recognized by SPDX first (in 2015, 0BSD is the SPDX short identifier for the license), there's no need to mention OSI, they contributed nothing to the process. What they eventually did was undo their mistake of misidentifying the license, 3 years late to the party.


 * And it's not just "the toybox license": github's choose-a-license now recognizes Zero Clause BSD, ever since https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com/pull/643 was merged.


 * The genealogy of the license is it's the OpenBSD suggested template license with half a sentence removed (that's the source it was copied from, see https://landley.net/toybox/license.html), and its first user asked permission from Kirk McKusick in 2013 to call it a BSD license (and confirmed it in 2018, with the permission email recorded for posterity at http://landley.net/toybox/0bsd-mckusick.txt).


 * The rationale for explicitly choosing a license that could be called a BSD license (and getting permission to do so from the guy who owns the BSD daemon trademark) was explained at https://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2016/03/23/11 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.6.202 (talk) 22:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Page for "Unlicense"
Given that there is a wikipedia article for CC0 and for WTFPL, would it be a good idea to have one for Unlicense (currently a redirect here)

-- Harry Wood (talk) 00:17, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it would be a good idea. I had actually begun working on a draft on February 9 at User:Riceissa/Unlicense. I've now resumed work on it and it should be published to main shortly. Feel free to contribute. Cheers, Riceissa (talk) 06:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Update: I have now published the page at Unlicense. Riceissa (talk) 10:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Nice one! The new Unlicense article looks great. Thanks for doing that. - Harry Wood (talk) 15:42, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Some points
Some open points of the WP article:
 * 1) revocability: being the license a private voluntary act, the author doesn't lose its legal qualification as the copyright holder who anytime, everywhere, without any notice nor justified motive has the faculty to legitimately revoke the license and refresh the copyright notice which never has really expired. It is a license of use, and not a permanent transfer of some  subjective rights from a person to another. If this affirmation is incorrect, the current article needs to mention the permanent and irrevocable nature of the license.
 * 2) norms to be referred: The WP article doesn't cite any law which mentions, defines and regulates the Public-domain-equivalent license, both in the EU and in the U.S., such a single article of the civil code or an EU directive or regulament. If this is correct, such a license doesn't impact the property right nor implies a transfer of the property from a physic or juridical person to another. A transfer of the property rights of an intellectual work to the public domain is a major issue, namely because it is something like a property of nobody, at least in countries where specific laws aren't provided.
 * 3) The article itself states "In February 2012,...controversy arose over a clause which excluded any relevant patents held by the copyright holder from the scope of the license." What happens if patents deposited by the copyright holder have similar or the same content that the one that has been released under a "public domain equivalent license"?
 * 4) elements of the "public domain equivalent license": it is unclear what are the licenses belonging to the "public domain equivalent" family. Is this type of license adopted for any of the sources cited in the whole encyclopedia, at least in the U.S.?

While copyright is legally recognized and protected at an international level, it is not the same for the "public domain equivalent license", despite the latter means the opposite of the copyright and thus stays at an equal logic level. The risk is the commercial strategy to use a long-term free license just to introduce a brand and the subsequent copyright fees. it would be a major risk for the lot of derived works by uninterested volunteers of the truth.Philosopher81sp (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Missing bar chart?
In the "Licenses" section, [note 2] begins with, but there is no such chart in the article. 91.129.99.65 (talk) 21:10, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Unlicense does not belong here
Unfortunately, the “Unlicense” is merely a PD dedication, it lacks a fallback licence (it has an attempt at that which is worded so badly that it fails (“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.” is the absence of a licence). mirabilos (talk) 21:36, 12 May 2024 (UTC)


 * There's not really a meaningful difference between a PDEL and a PD dedication. Whether people even have the ability to disclaim copyright at all is debatable in most jurisdictions. lethargilistic (talk) 21:34, 17 May 2024 (UTC)