[solved] X11 license and public domain.

raymboard · 2010-02-02 20:03:48

Hi.

Is it possible to modify a X11 (MIT) licenced program and license it under the public domain?

Last edited by raymboard (2010-02-06 15:54:13)

monstermudder78 · 2010-02-03 00:42:36

My opinion would be no. The X11 license states that "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software," whereas work in the public domain has no restrictions. Once released to the public domain there would be no requirement to keep the copyright notice, violating the terms of the X11 license. This is however only my opinion, and based solely on 5 minutes worth of googling.

Trent · 2010-02-03 13:08:28

It is not possible to license anything "under the public domain". Public domain is not a license; it is what happens to a work that is really, really old or has been released into the public domain explicitly by its authors.

To answer your real question, no, it is not possible to release a work originally licensed under an X11 license into the public domain unless you are the author. The reason is because the license is the only thing that gives you any rights whatsoever to the software (as far as the law is concerned) and you cannot give other people more rights than you have to begin with.

But now it's my turn. Why on earth would you consider doing this? Basically the only difference is the removal of an attribution, which is bad form even when it's not illegal, and it's almost never a good idea to release something into the public domain (which is a legal construct designed for works whose copyright has expired) when permissive licenses will do as well. Especially if it's something you (or other people) have invested time and money into.

raymboard · 2010-02-03 13:14:47

I don't think anyone has the right to impose restrictions upon anyone else for any reason whatsoever. Therefore all laws (including copyright) are evil and I will comply with the law as little as possible. Public domain is the absense of copyright and thus I hope to release all of my software under it.

fsckd · 2010-02-03 17:52:12

You are not free to put someone else's work into the public domain but you are free to put your own work into the public domain. You can also put your modifications into the public domain while the original work retains its license. I'm a little shaky about this last part and it might be wise to consult a lawyer before taking action.

raymboard · 2010-02-03 18:48:06

fsckd: Thankyou, that is a good answer. So I can write a patch for an X11 program and distribute it under the public domain.

wuischke · 2010-02-03 19:06:49

Since some countries have a different interpretation of public domain as the US (afaik works are treated as copyrighted), you might consider the http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ instead.

Last edited by wuischke (2010-02-03 19:07:31)

tlvb · 2010-02-03 19:12:09

Since the patch is your code you can release it under any licence you want, but if you want it to be used by others in a specific context you have to release it in a way that is compatible with that context. (E.g. it makes no sense to release a patch for a proprietary program under the gpl (I think) if you want it to be included)

Last edited by tlvb (2010-02-03 19:12:59)

raymboard · 2010-02-03 19:45:09

wuischke wrote:

Since some countries have a different interpretation of public domain as the US (afaik works are treated as copyrighted), you might consider the http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ instead.

That's not permissive enough: "changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed."

If I just write: "You can do what you want with this code." at the top of the file maybe that will do it.

Anikom15 · 2010-02-03 23:37:11

And then I can copyright it. Copyleft was designed to combat copyright, if you release something in the public domain, it will NOT be protected from proprietary purposes, a copyleft license, or even a permissive license (to an extent) will protect your code. To answer your question, you can only change a copyright if you are the author, and releasing modified X11 licensed software under the public domain will violate that copyright.

gohu · 2010-02-04 02:01:20

raymboard wrote:

wuischke wrote:
Since some countries have a different interpretation of public domain as the US (afaik works are treated as copyrighted), you might consider the http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/ instead.
That's not permissive enough: "changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed."

This applies to the license itself, not the code released under its term(s).
AFAIK wtfpl is the most permissive license that exists (that is recognized by the FSF) and I would suggest you go with it.
Public domain alone is a bad idea as as it was said before, some countries don't allow you to put your work under the public domain.
If you want, you could multiple license your work, for example: "This work is put under the public domain, or if not applicable, under the terms of the WTFPL"
Wikipedia has this sort of multiple licensing for its images, you could fetch some inspiration there.

pointone · 2010-02-04 02:01:45

Have you read this?

raymboard · 2010-02-04 15:06:15

Anikom15 wrote:

And then I can copyright it. Copyleft was designed to combat copyright, if you release something in the public domain, it will NOT be protected from proprietary purposes, a copyleft license, or even a permissive license (to an extent) will protect your code. To answer your question, you can only change a copyright if you are the author, and releasing modified X11 licensed software under the public domain will violate that copyright.

If you want to copyright it that's OK, I don't mind.

I'm not trying to force other people to do what I think is ethical. I'm simply trying to do what I think is ethical. If you think it is ethical to take someone else's public domain work and make it proprietary then you can do so but I don't think you would do that because you know it's wrong.

The reason people do bad things is because they don't realise it's wrong, so I aim to set an example for other people to see what is right.

I think that driving a petroleum powered car is unethical because it wastes a usefull resource and fills the atmosphere with fumes. But I don't go round puncturing people's tire's to force them to walk or use public transport instead. I simply walk and use public transport myself, and when people see my doing this it makes them realise that it's possible to live without a car.

If $teve Ballmer sees a bunch of people making software and licensing it under GPL to take marketshare from his operating system; that doesn't make him think "proprietary software is so unethical I should really stop buying patents and release Window$ source code". It just makes him feel like he's under attack and try to harm us as much as possible.

Imagine a world were cameras watched everywhere and anyone who did something unethical was punished. The people would rebel against the system and destroy it. The only way to spread the truth is by education, not force.

Better for the free software community to license their software under public domain and drive a campaign of education to the public to induce them to use free software by choice, rather than force.

Last edited by raymboard (2010-02-04 15:07:14)

Misfit138 · 2010-02-04 15:54:25

raymboard wrote:

I don't think anyone has the right to impose restrictions upon anyone else for any reason whatsoever.

I hope you don't have kids.

raymboard · 2010-02-04 16:16:57

Misfit138 wrote:

raymboard wrote:
I don't think anyone has the right to impose restrictions upon anyone else for any reason whatsoever.
I hope you don't have kids.

Feed them brown rice. If they behave well reward them with nice food. If they try to steal the food: get there first and lick it; no-one eats food that someone else has licked.

No restrictions, only rewards

Last edited by raymboard (2010-02-04 18:32:11)

z0phi3l · 2010-02-04 16:52:31

Someone obviously doesn't "get" what copyright, copyleft, and licensing is all about, or he wouldn't think that public domain is the only option

Do some research, there are valid ways of licensing your work that would still fall under Stallman's definition of free

raymboard · 2010-02-04 16:55:21

z0phi3l wrote:

Someone obviously doesn't "get" what copyright, copyleft, and licensing is all about, or he wouldn't think that public domain is the only option
Do some research, there are valid ways of licensing your work that would still fall under Stallman's definition of free

Copyleft is like this:

You make a program and license it under a copleft license. I copy some of your code into my program without the copyright notice. You launch a law case against me and try to sue me for using your code without keeping the copyright notice. I refuse to pay because I think that law is wrong and intellectual property is nonsense. Loads of polices come to try to arrest me. I fight to the death and the police then destroy all copies of my work and give you all my money.

That is not ethical.

Releasing software with the source code and without any copyrights or copylefts or patents is ethical.

Last edited by raymboard (2010-02-04 18:22:56)

erje · 2010-02-06 08:05:45

@raymboard: I think Creative Commons is more often than not associated with non-software stuff, but

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0

looks like it might fit your purposes. I'm not really sure how it would apply to software. To me, it looks like if you released the source code under CC0, then it would be close to your "releasing software with the source code and without any copyrights or copylefts or patents." Mostly not sure about the patents component. Anyway, hope it helps.

raymboard · 2010-02-06 15:53:54

erje: that looks absolutely perfect. Thankyou very much

Anikom15 · 2010-02-09 04:30:20

Apparently I'm allowed to copyright his work but not copyleft it.

Ranguvar · 2010-02-09 23:13:04

raymboard wrote:

z0phi3l wrote:
Someone obviously doesn't "get" what copyright, copyleft, and licensing is all about, or he wouldn't think that public domain is the only option
Do some research, there are valid ways of licensing your work that would still fall under Stallman's definition of free
Copyleft is like this:
You make a program and license it under a copleft license. I copy some of your code into my program without the copyright notice. You launch a law case against me and try to sue me for using your code without keeping the copyright notice. I refuse to pay because I think that law is wrong and intellectual property is nonsense. Loads of polices come to try to arrest me. I fight to the death and the police then destroy all copies of my work and give you all my money.
That is not ethical.
Releasing software with the source code and without any copyrights or copylefts or patents is ethical.

I actually agree with your conclusion.

To be very pedantic about it, public domain is the only completely ethical choice for releasing works. I agree, you see -- the very notion of intellectual property is garbage.

However, you forget the reason (the very good reason) why copyright was invented in the first place. Though business now has managed to twist copyright into the notion that one can actually possess and control thoughts, ideas, and culture, the original reason for copyright was to help out the public -- NOT the corporations.

How does that work? Well, though current laws and such are ridiculously overboard, short and limited copyright is not a bad idea at all. The founders of the United States (not getting into politics, just citing a source) realized very clearly that copyright was a trade-off. In return for slightly limited freedom (again, way too much is taken in modern times), the public gets more innovation, and more culture to enjoy.

Basically, we don't need to be 100% ethical. I view the permissive licenses like ISC, BSD, MIT, and X11 to be perfectly fine. Yes, they assume in some ways a right to control the code after it is released -- and I argue that we have no such inherent right -- but the requirements to abide by the license are simple, easily understood, and those which I would say any person acting ethically would follow anyways (give credit to the shoulders your code stands on). So, I do not see anything very wrong with permissive licenses. It would be better if copyright length was vastly shortened, but that is the job of countries to change.

I don't even have much complaint with copyleft. While it enforces more restrictions than permissive licensing, and is therefore less technically ethical, the fact is that copyleft may make it possible to deliver severe blows to modern copyright and the notion of intellectual property. Simply, the means here may justify the end, since the means are still not all that bad (copyleft).

In the end, choice of license depends heavily on the type of software you are creating. Richard Stallman understands this well, for example, though many wouldn't suspect that. He advocated releasing OGG Vorbis under the BSD permissive license, though he personally favors copyleft, because he understands that boosting OGG's presence as a whole was much more important, and could potentially be aided by choosing a more universally favorable license. On the other hand, Stallman chose the strong copyleft GPL for GCC, which I also believe to be a good move. It is because of this choice that we have a Free C++ compiler. Most assuredly by this time another would have been written if the GPL had not forced the opening of the C++ compiler's code, but we cannot accurately predict how much of a damper it could have put on GNU/Linux as a whole. Despite technical wrongdoing on the part of the GCC team by forcing the developers of the C++ frontend to use the GPL, this is not _that_ incredibly bad, and serves a very noble goal in the end.

Do you see what I mean?

Oh yes, and one other thing, which others touched upon -- if you do wish to put your code in the public domain, it would be best if you crafted your own zero-restriction license. Unfortunately, many countries (Germany, if I recall, is one) have very different notions of public domain than what you or I may consider to be public domain. A zero-restriction license achieves much the same effect, without differences over national borders. I made a license a while back that I like for this purpose, but be warned, I am not a lawyer and I would definitely obtain the advice of one (sorry! >.>) before using this license for something that could be of value to others.

Permission is hereby granted to view, use, modify, and/or redistribute this work
without restriction of any kind.

This includes (but is not limited to) the removal of authorship notices, re-use
of any size code portions in other software (with or without credit given), and
creation of commercial products based upon this work in whole or part.

This permission is irrevocable, including by the author(s) of the work.

This work is provided as-is. Use at your own risk. There is no warranty
provided whatsoever (not even for merchantability or fitness for a particular
purpose), neither expressed nor implied, and by using this work in any manner
you agree that the author(s) shall not be held liable for any loss of data, loss
of service, or other damages, be they incidental or consequential.

I suppose there's a bit of restriction at the end... sort of...? Heh. I think that's implied in (at least US) public domain laws anyways, so not really.

Last edited by Ranguvar (2010-02-09 23:28:12)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-02-02 20:03:48

[solved] X11 license and public domain.

#2 2010-02-03 00:42:36

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#3 2010-02-03 13:08:28

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#4 2010-02-03 13:14:47

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#5 2010-02-03 17:52:12

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#6 2010-02-03 18:48:06

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#7 2010-02-03 19:06:49

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#8 2010-02-03 19:12:09

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#9 2010-02-03 19:45:09

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#10 2010-02-03 23:37:11

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#11 2010-02-04 02:01:20

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#12 2010-02-04 02:01:45

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#13 2010-02-04 15:06:15

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#14 2010-02-04 15:54:25

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#15 2010-02-04 16:16:57

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#16 2010-02-04 16:52:31

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#17 2010-02-04 16:55:21

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#18 2010-02-06 08:05:45

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#19 2010-02-06 15:53:54

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#20 2010-02-09 04:30:20

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

#21 2010-02-09 23:13:04

Re: [solved] X11 license and public domain.

Board footer