Developers need to start paying attention to licenses. This is because german law doesnt permit simply waiving all copy. There is a long ongoing battle between gpl zealots and bsd fanatics, about which license type is the most free of the two. The hot potato license is literally a game of hot potato. A kalimba version ogg vorbis format, 690kb is offered by vaba under the wtfpl. If youre using unlicensed software, or violating a software licensing agreement, your business is at risk.
When code has been dual licensed, allowing the recipient to pick between several licenses e. Opensource license wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. Every major linux distribution debian, red hat, gentoo, suse, mandrake, etc. Are there any operating systems that are better than gnu. Each operating system os has its own purpose, own strengths, own weaknesses and because. In fact, both license types have unacceptable obnoxious clauses.
Unlike other posts licensed under creative commons, this post is licensed under the do what the fuck you want to public license. When you use open source software that is licensed under the apache 2. The wtfpl is a license that basically puts the work licensed with it under public domain. However, under the dual license, the company can purchase a commercial licensed version of the software that does not have this limitation. That is possible and there are multiple ways to do so. It allows redistribution and modification of the work under any terms. Get contact details and address of software licensing services firms and companies. Its is also useful if you plan to duallicense software. An opensource license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified andor shared under defined terms and conditions. All software must be legally licensed before it may be installed. Earn 10 reputation in order to answer this question. If you are just applying the license to your program, then no you do not need to change the name of the wtfpl. Open source software license text oracle help center.
The zlib compression module for nsis is licensed under the zliblibpng license. Whether or not you should change the name of the license depends upon what youve changed and what youre applying the license against. Tldrlegal software licenses explained in plain english. Bradley kuhn executive director of the free software foundation was quoted saying. If the users like the software and happen to meet the author, they are obligated to buy the author a beer. Yet another version from wikimedia commons 967kb is licensed under cc0. Your free software can be binary linked to proprietary programs under certain very specific circumstances.
The first version of the wtfpl, released in march 2000, was written by banlu kemiyatorn for his own software project. Basically putting a work into public domain allows everyone to use it as he sees fit. Derivatives works including modifications or anything statically linked to the library can only be redistributed under lgpl, but applications that use the library dont have. License as permissive as wtfpl but including no warranty disclaimer. When i read a software license, what i see is a bunch of officious, mindnumbing lawyerly doublespeak.
Proof of purchase purchase orders, receipts, invoices or similar documentation are. The free version may be under a gpl license, limiting its use in proprietary software unless the creator wants to commit to also licensing this work as gpl and making the source publicly available. Do what the fck you want to public license v2 wtfpl2. Mostly copyleft 16 gpl with a cleverlyconstructed pressure valve release. It is similar to the bsd license, which was first used for the berkeley source distribution, a version of unix that was developed at the.
If the person who made the modifications got the code under wtfpl e. A software license is a document that provides legally binding guidelines for the use and distribution of software. There are limited areas where rejecting using something that is licensed under wtfpl makes sense, the only reason for rejecting it i can think of is because you intend to use the software in a setting where swearing would not be appropriate such as schools, and simply swapping out the license would not be possible. Do i have to indicate thirdparty softwarelicenses used. As the name implies, it allows you to do whatever you want and has no extra restrictions. Wtfplshort for, well, wtf public license, the wtfpl is a very short and exceedingly informal affirmation that you can do whatever youd like to do. The apache software foundation and the free software foundation agree that the apache license 2. Do what the fck you want to public license choose a license. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project. The licenses directive must appear before the first build rule in the build file. The do what the fuck you want to public license wtfpl is a free software license. I see that libtommath is dual licensed under public domain and wtfpl. This site provides information on how to make the most of the wtfpl.
Your code can never be used in any proprietary program, ever. The do what the fck you want to public license v2 wtfpl2. Minetest forums view topic is it okay to relicense. Itd just be rude to not mention the original creator in the credits of any derivative work.
Id like to use a jquery plugin on my website that is dual licensed under mit and gpl. The gpl is viral in that it extends to derivative works. It gives the user permissions to do whatever they want with your code. Anything that ends up here will be licensed under the wtfpl, a public license regarding usage of this software. I am not a lawyer, and i dont work for you either, but ill tell you what i believe, what i do, and why.
Wtfpl is a gplcompatible permissive license most commonly used as a free software license. You can find software licensed under wtfpl in almost all major linux distributions. Bradley kuhn executive director of the free software foundation was quoted saying that the fsfs folks agree the wtfpl is a valid free software license. Every major linux distribution debian, fedora, arch, gentoo, etc.
Software licensed under the gnu gplv2 is incompatible with all other licenses, with the exception of gplv3 in most cases. The bzip2 compression module for nsis is licensed under the bzip2 license. You may copy, distribute and modify the software provided that modifications are described and licensed for free under lgpl. Confusion about dual license mitgpl javascript for use on. The mit license also known as the x11 license or mit x license is a software license that was originally developed at the massachusetts institute of technology. Over time, ive begrudgingly come to the conclusion that, like lawyers, death, and taxes. Personally id probably rephrase the question from better than gnulinux to similar to gnulinux because i suspect that might be what youre looking for.
Gpl enforces many restrictions on what can and cannot be done with the licensed code. Seeing that is probably the most permissive license out there, most companies find the terms too vague and dont allow software to be licensed under the wtfpl. You could license your software under the free public license 1. 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, sublicense, andor sell copies of the software, and to permit. For reference, here is a table of every license described in the repository if youre here to choose a license, start from the home page to.
If you are changing the terms or language of the wtfpl then you need to change the name of the wtfpl as well. It could be a reason to be cautious in using wtfpl licensed software. The archetypal bearded, sandalclad free software license. The lzma compression module for nsis is licensed under the common public license version 1. Add wtfpl to your projects package description, if applicable e. In fact, it is probably the best license out there. As a public domain like license, the wtfpl is essentially the same as dedication to the public domain. Software engineering stack exchange is a question and answer site for professionals, academics, and students working within the systems development life cycle. In fact wtfpl has no restrictions whatsoever other than to change the license name if the license is changed. Personally, i choose between the mit license and the gnu general public license gpl. Version 2 of the wtfpl do what the fuck you want to public license was created by. This software is provided asis, without any express or implied warranty.
The bsa contends that one fifth of all software in use today is pirated. And the impact of a licensing violation lawsuit on a small, underinsured business can be devastating. The php developers decided to release php under a much more loose license apachestyle, to help php become as popular as possible. It allows redistribution and modification of the work. Do what the fck you want to public license software package. However, a later study in 20 showed that software licensed under the gpl license family has increased, and that even the data from black duck software has shown a total increase of software projects licensed under gpl. This should be basically obvious to most when they think about it basically all business to business software is negotiated under different licenses for example, but most somehow still dont realize it when it comes to the gpl for some reason. If i had my way, everything would be released under the wtfpl. Reading the comments to the answer of this question, it seems that the unlicense presents legal problems in countries like germany. That is an option in theory, and lots of software is dual or multiple licensed. Do what the fuck you want to public license version 2. The rpsl is a free software license that is gplincompatible for a number of reasons. All software produced by the apache software foundation or any of its projects or subjects is licensed according to the terms of the documents listed below. The wtfpl is a very permissive license for software and other scientific or artistic works that offers a great degree of freedom.
Why is php 4 not dual licensed under the gnu general public license gpl like php 3 was. Wtfpl may not be legally viable and public domain is not a license because it is dependent on the country of the softwares use. The content of this site is licensed under the creative commons attribution 3. The proliferation of different free software licenses is a significant problem in the free software community today, both for users and developers.