Sean Kelly wrote:
> Don Clugston wrote:
>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>>> Todor Totev wrote:
>>>>> Sean,
>>>>> what license does Ares use?
>>>>
>>>> Sorry about that.  I'll get file headers in before the next release.
>>>
>>> I've added licenses to modules that lacked them.  std.math.special still needs one, but it's from Don's MathExtra library so I'll need to sort that out separately.
>>
>> Actually I don't care. Public domain or something like the Phobos license is fine by me. But as short as possible -- I really *hate* those files where there's 100 lines of legalese and 2 lines of code.
>>
>> What I'd really like to find is some kind of "non-infect" free license for libraries. That is, you can do anything you like with this code, except that if you redistribute the source code AS SOURCE CODE, it must remain with the same license. So that if it's included in a GPL project, that single file doesn't get GPLed, and if it's in a commercial library where the source is sold, that single file remains free.
> 
> The BSD (artistic) license is about as close as I've found, and is what I'm using for the Ares source for pretty much the same reason as you've indicated--I really don't care what people do with my code so long as they don't claim to have written it.

Yup. I'm pretty sure that's already covered by plagiarism, though. It's certainly unethical. I've always believed that anyone that plagiarises code is not going to behave differently if there's a license on the code... but I could be wrong.
Still, BSD license does seems to be good for reassuring everyone that there are no legal issues with the code.

>> But since I don't know of any license that does that, any unrestricted license (including public domain) will do.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> Sean

"Don Clugston" <dac@nospam.com.au> wrote in message news:du0v94$oa8$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Actually I don't care. Public domain or something like the Phobos license is fine by me. But as short as possible -- I really *hate* those files where there's 100 lines of legalese and 2 lines of code.

Yup. For the simpler files, I've just been making them public domain. I don't think there's any "intellectual property" in a list of enums or declarations.

"Walter Bright" <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:duttsc$1lfb$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> "Don Clugston" <dac@nospam.com.au> wrote in message news:du0v94$oa8$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> Actually I don't care. Public domain or something like the Phobos license is fine by me. But as short as possible -- I really *hate* those files where there's 100 lines of legalese and 2 lines of code.
>
> Yup. For the simpler files, I've just been making them public domain. I don't think there's any "intellectual property" in a list of enums or declarations.
>
Lol yeah really. "Your constants all look the same as mine!  This jeopardizes my company's situation, since having constants that are named the same across multiple programs causes major financial loss.  You must've taken my idea, despite the fact that that's the only way to do it... I'll see you in court!"

Don Clugston wrote:
> Actually I don't care. Public domain or something like the Phobos license is fine by me. But as short as possible -- I really *hate* those files where there's 100 lines of legalese and 2 lines of code.

It appears you cannot simply donate files to the public domain.
According to Lawrence Rosen [1], an attorney who served for many years
as general counsel and secretary of the Open Source Initiative, "there
is no accepted way to dedicate an original work of authorship to the
public domain before the copyright term for that work expires. A license
is the only recognized way to authorize others to undertake the authors’
exclusive copyright rights." This is the raison d'être of all-permissive
licenses.

I don't think you need the complete license text in every file. Raymond
and Raymond [2] tell us that "It is not necessary to include a copy of
the license in every source file, but it is a good idea for the header
comment to refer readers to the license file with a comment like this:
This program is open source.  For license terms, see the LICENSE file."


> What I'd really like to find is some kind of "non-infect" free license for libraries. That is, you can do anything you like with this code, except that if you redistribute the source code AS SOURCE CODE, it must remain with the same license. So that if it's included in a GPL project, that single file doesn't get GPLed, and if it's in a commercial library where the source is sold, that single file remains free.
> But since I don't know of any license that does that, any unrestricted license (including public domain) will do.

The MIT license [3] does this. The license itself consists of a single
sentence, followed by a disclaimer.


Best regards,
Bastiaan Veelo


[1] Lawrence Rosen, 2004, "Open Source Licensing -- Software Freedom and
Intellectual Property Law", Prentice Hall, New Yersey, page 74,
http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch05.pdf

[2] Raymond E.S.; Raymond, C.O., 2002, Licensing HOWTO [draft OSI
working paper], http://www.catb.org/~esr/Licensing-HOWTO.html

[3] http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

Bastiaan Veelo wrote:
> Don Clugston wrote:
>> Actually I don't care. Public domain or something like the Phobos license is fine by me. But as short as possible -- I really *hate* those files where there's 100 lines of legalese and 2 lines of code.
> 
> It appears you cannot simply donate files to the public domain.
> According to Lawrence Rosen [1], an attorney who served for many years
> as general counsel and secretary of the Open Source Initiative, "there
> is no accepted way to dedicate an original work of authorship to the
> public domain before the copyright term for that work expires. A license
> is the only recognized way to authorize others to undertake the authors’
> exclusive copyright rights." This is the raison d'être of all-permissive
> licenses.

Interesting. I read somewhere that the US library of congress has a special provision for shareware, and that by paying them a filing fee you get public domain in practice. I doubt many people have actually done that, however. I suspect that public domain works OK in some countries but not others. As always, the legal system is several decades behind reality...


> I don't think you need the complete license text in every file. Raymond
> and Raymond [2] tell us that "It is not necessary to include a copy of
> the license in every source file, but it is a good idea for the header
> comment to refer readers to the license file with a comment like this:
> This program is open source.  For license terms, see the LICENSE file."

That's great news. I will do that from now on.

>> What I'd really like to find is some kind of "non-infect" free license for libraries. That is, you can do anything you like with this code, except that if you redistribute the source code AS SOURCE CODE, it must remain with the same license. So that if it's included in a GPL project, that single file doesn't get GPLed, and if it's in a commercial library where the source is sold, that single file remains free.
>> But since I don't know of any license that does that, any unrestricted license (including public domain) will do.
> 
> The MIT license [3] does this. The license itself consists of a single
> sentence, followed by a disclaimer.

Thanks!


> Best regards,
> Bastiaan Veelo
> 
> 
> [1] Lawrence Rosen, 2004, "Open Source Licensing -- Software Freedom and
> Intellectual Property Law", Prentice Hall, New Yersey, page 74,
> http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch05.pdf
> 
> [2] Raymond E.S.; Raymond, C.O., 2002, Licensing HOWTO [draft OSI
> working paper], http://www.catb.org/~esr/Licensing-HOWTO.html
> 
> [3] http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php

Don Clugston wrote:
> Bastiaan Veelo wrote:
>> Don Clugston wrote:
> 
>> I don't think you need the complete license text in every file. Raymond
>> and Raymond [2] tell us that "It is not necessary to include a copy of
>> the license in every source file, but it is a good idea for the header
>> comment to refer readers to the license file with a comment like this:
>> This program is open source.  For license terms, see the LICENSE file."
> 
> That's great news. I will do that from now on.

Same here.
> 
>>> What I'd really like to find is some kind of "non-infect" free license for libraries. That is, you can do anything you like with this code, except that if you redistribute the source code AS SOURCE CODE, it must remain with the same license. So that if it's included in a GPL project, that single file doesn't get GPLed, and if it's in a commercial library where the source is sold, that single file remains free.
>>> But since I don't know of any license that does that, any unrestricted license (including public domain) will do.
>>
>> The MIT license [3] does this. The license itself consists of a single
>> sentence, followed by a disclaimer.
> 
> Thanks!

Very nice.  I'll be using this for the C headers in Ares.  And others on request, as it's easiest to simply use a single license for an entire project.


Sean