License under OSI-approved license
Issue #106
new
The WTFPL apparently makes it very complicated for me to contribute updates to vim-pi as an employee of any modern software company.
Would it be possible to use an OSI-approved license such as Apache 2?
Comments (13)
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reporter
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I am fine with most licenses, but WTFPL was chosen by the original author (@MarcWeber). I would choose CC0 for the new database (i.e. https://bitbucket.org/vimcommunity/vim-pi-db with https://bitbucket.org/vimcommunity/_vim-pi-data), but cannot do this for this one. I have no idea whether it can be legally done at all without permissions of all of the contributors (and I also have no idea whether tagging database with WTFPL was legal in first place: lots of contributions were made without any license).
I would not use Apache 2 or some license from the list you referenced because I do not know how they apply to databases; CC has official status regarding applying it to the database.
Also relevant reading: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/26283.
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reporter
Thanks, that would make me very happy. Is there a specific bug for switching VAM over to use vim-pi-db?
Incidentally, I hear CC0 is actually terrible because the public domain does not exist the way the authors of the license think it does. Apache would still be appropriate here, or you might also look at the ODBL which is pretty loose and addresses content as separate from software: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/.
At any rate, thanks a ton for rethinking the license!
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vim-pi-db is still not actually present. Current status is that script that uses www.vim.org sorta works, but there are some issues I want to address (at least: sanitizing version numbers) and some features I want to have are missing (at least autoget.py and current database conversion).
About CC0: can you point to some article regarding the matter?
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reporter
The OSI FAQ (http://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero and http://opensource.org/faq#public-domain) and the resources linked from there are the best info I can find on the matter.
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How many countries are there worldwide? How many different rules to to take care off? How many lawyers to pay? If you get results how long will they be valid? In the end, who will be legally responsible? Who is going to sue whom for what ? I don't think anybody really cares about vim-pi, sry. Thus at this point I'd like to ask you, mu_min, how much are you going to contribute? If its a couple of lines consider doing it in your spare time. BTW: http://opensource.org/licenses => "Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition — in brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared" - I guess this is what WTFPL is about as well. After all its GPL compatible, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL. Thus maybe read WTFPL - it means you can do whatever you want. So I don't understand the problem.
After all: You're welcome! :-)
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reporter
I agree that the license of vim-pi doesn't seem to be that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but I really like using VAM and to the extent that it prevents me from using VAM how I want and sharing my vim-pi entries with my friends, it's an issue for me. I'm not trying to cause trouble for you and wouldn't have brought it up if it were just a matter of my personal preference for licenses.
CC0 works fine for me if you still plan on using that.
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1) Changing the license could have impacts on other people we don't know yet
2) "but I really like using VAM and to the extent that it prevents me from using VAM" doesn't go into my mind - because you could fork and relicense yourself thus just happily using VAM and illustrating how big the changes you want to do actually will be. That is what 'Do the fuck you want with it' actually means, right?
We could also ask OSI about whether WTFPL could be approved to be OSI compatible or to document why not
I kindly asked you "how much are you going to contribute" ? I don't know anything. I strongly encourage you to be more accurate about what your exact problem is - because "complicated for me to contribute updates to vim-pi as an employee of any modern software company" - is vague - because "any modern" is a generalization which does not say much.
http://opensource.org/approval says a license must follow http://opensource.org/docs/osd - have a look at both sites - in which way could WTFPL be a problem ?
In VAM in the past we had the attitude to "move" if individuals have a problem - because I think VAM should serve anybody. Yet I'd still like to understand the problem before moving - and currently I still don't.
I just had a look at http://opensource.org/lists/ (license-review) - couldn't find 'do the fuck you ..' nor 'WTFPL'
So maybe we should just ask to approve it? This would take at least 30 days - the license is simple so we would have a result fast.
Comments? Again thanks for your interest.
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I was wrong, see http://projects.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-May/000436.html - according to that http://opensource.org/licenses/fair would be closest/shortest and OSI approved. The reason seems to be that you cannot "give up copyright". ZyX, How do you think this fair license compares to CC0 ?
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reporter
Was waiting to see if @ZyX_I responded first.
My issue is that my employer's lawyers told me WTFPL was too vague for any of our employees to contribute to. Their specific issue is: Copyright automatically attaches to works. In the U.S. and other countries, you have to explicitly give a license to use, copy, and make derivative works of software. "Do whatever the fuck you want" has no legal meaning. It is an ineffective rights grant, and is equivalent to no license at all.
I understand your wanting to be pragmatic about mucking with the license. My only concrete plans are to occasionally add vim-pi entries if I'm able; I have no concrete plans to contribute major changes to vim-pi. But it kills my enthusiasm for an open source project and puts me in a mindset of looking for a better alternative if in practice I'm prohibited from actually sending patches.
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Let's wait again 7 days - please send the missing github urls to marco-oweber AT gmx.de meanwhile, I'll just commit them (I don't think it does make sense to care about ownership). According to your wording contributing is the problem, not using.
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Hi Marc, please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL Contributing is a problem because anyone who distributes WTFPL code is liable for any damage it does. It might be a risk you're ok with, but anyone working in a company will not be allowed to take that risk for their company, even for a project that is unlikely to blow up a nuclear plant :) But using is a problem too: As the WTFPL is up to now untested in court and also misses broader legal analysis, the legal validity in jurisdictions remains unclear.
According to the WIPO copyright transfer or licence may have to meet particular formal requirements in order to be effective.[16] For example, in the United States copyright is specifically the right to copy, make derivative works, distribute, perform, or display.[17] As an agreement between two parties, an effective license must make the material terms of the rights and obligations granted to recipients clear and unambiguous.[18] The WTFPL never explicitly specifies the rights and obligations a recipient of the work is granted, and may therefore not grant any rights at all because copyright rights default to being exclusive to the author in the United States.[19] On the other hand, others like Daniel J. Bernstein, see only little formality required for an effective public domain transfer, so while the WTFPL could be an ineffective license it could be an effective public domain waiver.[20]
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Sadly, while the WTFPL tries to be cute and novel, it's not an effective license, and generally there is a reason why other fine licenses like MIT, BSD, or Apache-2 have so much legalese in them, it's because it's actually needed to protect the author and the user.
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A nice alternative for my case would be having some way to submit requests with all necessary fields, validate the fields (e.g. verify the URL is valid), have some approval step if necessary, and then automatically add them via cron job or something. Then anyone can submit entries without caring what license the DB is under, and it would also be lower-friction collaboration.
Would something like that be possible?