public domain - licensing without restrictions
DESCRIPTION
Why it might be a good idea to license without restrictions.TRANSCRIPT
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Public Domain
Licensing without restrictions
Why it often might be a better idea
Hanno Böck, http://www.hboeck.de/
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Why I'm interested in this?
● Active in various free Software / free Content projects (e. g. Gentoo, OpenStreetMap)
● Always interested to bring the idea of free licenses to new areas
● Recently worked on ACCEPT_LICENSE feature in Gentoo
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What is Public Domain?
● Any kind of content (music, software, code, movies, text etc.) that has no copyright restrictions at all
● Can be because of expired copyright (death+70y) or because the author „gives“ something to the public domain
● (strictly legal speaking not possible in Germany and most of Europe)
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What are free licenses?
● Gives you the „four freedoms“– Use– Modify– Share– Share modifications
● Examples: GPL, BSD, Creative Commons by, by-sa, FDL
● Definitions by OSI, FSF, freedomdefined.org
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Restrictions in free licenses
● Usually, two kinds of restrictions are accepted for free licenses
– Attribution – you must mention the original author(s))
– Copyleft – derivated works must stay free● So everything is fine with free licenses? You're
allowed to do anything beside making it nonfree and using it without attribution?
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Freedom to mix?
Two free licenses does not mean they are compatible.● GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 vs. CDDL vs. OpenSSL● Creative Commons by-sa vs. FDL● FDL vs. GPL● Creative Commons by-sa 2.0 vs. 3.0
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Example: OpenSSL
● OpenSSL contains an advertisement clause incompatible with the GPL
● GPL doesn't allow linking against non-GPL libs● Relicensing an old piece of software is nearby
impossible● Many work around by having a GPL+special
OpenSSL exception clause
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Recent example with OpenSSL
● vpnc implemented hybrid-auth with OpenSSL (used at many universities for internet access)
● vpnc is GPL without exception, thus this is not allowed – code was there but it wasn't allowed to distribute binaries
● (in the meantime, they've re-implemented hybrid-auth using GnuTLS – not in Debian/Ubuntu yet)
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Licenses for specific issues
● We have software licenses, content licenses, documentation licenses, font licenses
● Soon maybe database licenses, hardware design licenses, yet-to-be-invented-stuff licenses
● Many people use already existing licenses, no matter if it makes any sense
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Wrong license usage
● OpenCola is GPL● Fonts under GPL● Wikipedia was FDL, some content still is● OpenStreetMap uses CC by-sa 2.0● Beolingus-dictionary is GPL● RepRap is GPL
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Interesting example: GPL fonts
● Good question: If you embed a GPL font in a document, e.g. a PDF, is your document GPL?
● This probably was never intended by the font author putting his work under a free license
● But that's the wording of the GPL – derivated works must be GPL, too
● FSF suggests font-exception to GPL
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Borderline cases
● Code and documentation often mixed (auto-generated API-documentation, it makes sense to move comments to doc and vice-versa) – remember GPL and FDL incompatible
● Games, Music, Images, Art● Creative „misuse“ of stuff (e. g. Machinima)● Screenshots
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Attribution no problem? (BSD, CC by)
● The kind of attribution is often unclear● Many of the more interesting free projects are
highly collaborative – making attribution difficult● Do you need to print the full revision history if
you want to print Wikipedia articles?● If you re-use images, e. g. in a design for a
small flyer, is there enough place for the author? For five authors?
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Complexity
● How many people that create stuff under GPL, CC etc. have read it?
● How many people that use stuff under GPL/CC etc. have read it?
● People should be „free“ to use stuff – not to understand the bunch of complexities from licenses
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Creative Commons
● Common misunderstanding: CC is not a license, it's a whole bunch of licenses – many people don't know that
● They invented a whole number of new restrictions (noncommercial, no derivatives, developing countries, sampling) – more complexity
● Ignored everything that was there before (FDL)
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CC: Noncommercial?
● „Noncommercial“ sounds good to so many people at a first glance
● Linux was nc at the beginning – I pretend if Linus had stayed with that, it'd never be where it is today
● It is very questionable if anyone can give a strict definition of „commercial“ (is a private party where drinks are sold commercial?)
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CC: No derivatives
● In original announcement, CC referred a lot to the „Remix“-band Negativland – the question is why?
● Negativland became famous for remixing Disney (Gimme the mermaid) and U2
● If Disney and Bono had decided to use CC by-nd, they could've sued Negativland anyway
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Relicensing?
● Very hard (ask everyone involved)● Less likely to happen with old projects or
projects with many contributors● Sometimes there are special options● Biggest relicensing effort was probably
Wikipedia switching to CC by-sa
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Copyleft has done good
● Without doubt copyleft licenses did a lot of good● OpenWRT is a famous example for it● I was in favour of copyleft for a long time● I hear more often from licensing problems than
from successful attempts to free code● Looking at the whole issue, I came to the
conclusion that we'd still get further without it
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Alternative: Just ask
● Just ask friendly for attribution, keeping stuff free etc.
● May sound naive, but most people using your stuff will be „community“-people
● People can decide theirself if it makes sense to pay attribution, keep stuff free etc.
● Some won't – take it easy
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Go Public Domain!
● You are compatible with everyone● You can explain the license to everyone within
a minute („you are allowed to do everything“)● Your project can be everything that is related to
knowledge● You will make lawyers unemployed
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If you don't believe me
● If you start a new project, think twice which license may fit
● Think if you want to keep an option to change the license later
● Don't use a license that doesn't fit your purpose
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PD not possible in Europe
● Strictly legal speaking, PD not possible in Europe – but you can „grant all rights“.
– I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. (Wikipedia)
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CC Zero
● Legal text for public domain● And they have nice logos you can put on your
webpages
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Notable PD stuff
● Stuff with expired copyright – gutenberg.org, archive.org, librivox
● Many images on Wikimedia Commons● TweetCC● Book metadata from some german libraries● digg.com● Laws, often images from authorities
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Public domain Code
● xz-utils● sqlite● gameswf● libcaca● qmail, djbdns● More: unlicense.org
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What could be done?
● Create catalogues, search engines to collect (and mirror?) PD data sources
● Force Wikimedia Commons and others to implement a PD search
● Create the next big project based on PD / CC0 (Encyclopedia without relevance criteria?)
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Sources
● http://lists.scribus.info/pipermail/scribus/2005-April/ Fonts/GPL
● http://creativecommons.org/press-releases/entry/3707 Negativland/CC
● http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Historiogra f/GNU_FDL_Highway_to_Hell_-_FAQ Wikipedia/FDL
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Sources
● http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC Zero
● http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-user-w/en Wikipedia Public Domain Template
● http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.6/german-libraries-cc0-catalog-data Libraries CC0