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Comment by hardmath123 | Hacker News Reader

"un-" is indeed a funny prefix. You might enjoy (or be frustrated by) this analysis… https://hardmath123.github.io/un-unravelable.html

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In this case something different but related is going on: software engineers have come to perceive a license as something negative, as something that sets limitations on what you can do. This makes an un-license seem desirable, as it's freedom from restriction. This also matches our behavior: code on a blog post is assumed to be free to copy and use, unless it has a license attached that limits this freedom.

In reality of course the base state is reversed: having no license means you are allowed approximately nothing, and a license gives you (often limited) rights to do something with it. In reality an un-license would take away rights you previously have been granted.

It feels like we are on the threshold to license becoming a Janus word.

> The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program--to make sure it remains free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies also to any other work released this way by its authors. You can apply it to your programs, too.

Excerpt from https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

Thanks for this! I enjoyed all of it. It’s these sorts of things I would likely have never found that I can thank HN for bringing to me.

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