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Comment by javantanna | Hacker News Reader

btw the license is nuts

WTFPL (Do What The F*k You Want To Public License) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL

This seems like a bad idea. Surely the warranty and liability disclaimer found in licenses like MIT exists for a reason.

> Surely the warranty and liability disclaimer found in licenses like MIT exists for a reason

Obviously IANAL, but I entirely don't see how the WTFPL (which does not ask the consumer to accept any restrictions) would create an implied contract (which would seem to be a necessary precondition for a warranty obligation)?

IANAL either, so my own legal theories are as creative as yours, but I'd like to offer the following data point: All unrestricted open-source licenses that were written by actual lawyers, from MIT to CC0, have found it necessary to include such a liability clause.

In what sense is the MIT license "unrestricted"?

In the sense that when people want to use a piece of MIT-licensed software in another piece of software, they don't in practice find themselves restricted from doing so by the conditions of the license. "Permissive" might be a word I should rather have used.

The MIT license does place one specific license restriction on its users. Specifically: "subject to the following conditions: the above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software"

This is what I was getting at. The MIT license has restrictions, so calling it "unrestricted" doesn't make sense.

Off the top of my head the CAPITALIZED WARRANTY DISCLAIMER is specific to a subset of states in the US. If you’re outside those jurisdictions (or any other where it is required) then for aesthetic or principled reasons I can see why you wouldn’t kowtow to the legalese spiral.

Maybe don't drop the warranty disclaimer just yet.

> The MMWA requires conspicuous disclosure of warranty terms (e.g., designations like "Full" or "Limited" as prominent titles).

> The common practice of ALL-CAPS WARRANTY DISCLAIMERS (e.g., "AS IS, NO WARRANTY") stems primarily from state adoptions of UCC § 2-316, which requires disclaimers of implied warranties to be "conspicuous" (and suggests all-caps as one way, especially in plain text).

- Grok https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_5c7db73a-ffd2-48b2-bb36-296f...

That said, maybe it wouldn't be too hard to argue there is obviously no implied warranty with a crass license like WTFPL.

Author here.. that was kind of the point.

To be fair, most are.

Better than LGPL which prevents you from static linking even if you give attribution.

That is a fact.. LGPL can unintentionally contaminate the code base, and why https://wxwidgets.org/ had to have a more open license to cross-port programs from/to other platforms (especially Android and windows often needed Static builds just for practical reasons.)

Additionally, a public-domain/CC0 license can run up against some organizations policies. It is better to release under several licenses to reach as many users as possible. Personally prefer Apache 2.0, as 10 years from now someones situation may need that...

Sad a grief'er decided to bury your response. Happy holidays =3

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