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We discussed this before[1] but you failed to back up any claims about this re-licensing and re-assigning business you vent about here. You still haven't explained how you can take away someone else's rights. Copyright licenses are used to grant other people rights, not to take them away. You still haven't read the Berne convention, have you? Can you point at a case in any country that suggests the license could be interpreted outside the context of copyright? I.e. that "do what the fuck you want" in a copyright license can be seen as granting someone rights beyond the ones (related to copying, modification, performance, etc.) that are normally exclusive to the author and therefore require him to use a license to grant others these same rights?

If you can't back anything up, I don't think you should be spreading your own interpretations in this manner, presenting them as truth. We already have far too many people confused over licenses, and passing that confusion on doesn't help anyone.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8043969

Perhaps I missed something...

But I don't see where you substantiate any of your claims.

You seem to just want to defend an obviously joke license.

This license, from my interpretations, forfeits most of the copyright protections, including allowing someone to re-license (per the FAQ of the license).

At the end of the day, you are free to use whatever license you think suits you best.

That does not mean it actually suits you best. (As demonstrated by Debian putting their foot down on other BS licenses such as this).

Re-licensing remains a horribly confusing term, which is something I complained about. Some people use it to mean substitute the license on your copy with some other license, and then pass copies on under that new license. This appears to be the way the FAQ uses the term. The way you use the term, you seem to think that you can actually do some magic and revoke the author's rights, then impose your conditions on him, and possibly sue him for violating these conditions. That's just bullshit, it doesn't work like that. Unless you know something the rest of the world doesn't.

You keep saying copyright licenses are used to "forfeit" (by which I assume you mean surrender) rights, so as to (exclusively) transfer them from you to someone else. It doesn't work like that. They are used to grant other people rights. They normally do not remove any rights from the author.

And you still maintain your circular definition of copyright, in which authorhood or copyright itself is a right protected by copyright and that through one of the rights protected by copyright (and granted to you by an author's license), you can obtain that right which is copyright (or authorhood). Can you please back any of it up?

Even if your argument regarding copyright is valid (I don't believe all of it is valid), this still does nothing to address the other (numerous) issues I've raised with this particular license.

Like I said before -- use a more appropriate license that still provides the goals you intend.

As a side note -- don't accuse me of not backing up my claims when neither do you... at this point, we're just two guys bickering on a forum.

WTFPL might have its issues and I might agree that it is not a good license; I can also say the GPLs are bad licenses, since they have their problems too.

But let's not go about making unfounded claims as to what you are allowed to do with it.

> don't accuse me of not backing up my claims when neither do you... at this point, we're just two guys bickering on a forum

Since a lot of your claims assume an exclusive transfer of rights (the method of which is not stated in the berne convention), I have already linked to and cited a US Copyright circular to back up my claim that transfer doesn't happen the way you assume it does. I can also cite the same circular and the Berne Convention to find what rights of authors are protected. Your circular understanding of copyrigts and the rights it reserves for the author assumes rights which appear in neither of the two documents (but the text is online, so prove me wrong). I've also pointed out the illogicalness of your definition.

Even so, the onus is on you to back up the claims you made. You started the discussion by making these claims.

But let me cite one more passage. You probably can't tell where it is from since you haven't read the text. Go do so already.

Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work [..]

So unless you're making an argument about Somalia (in which case you can forget copyright altogether), please drop the bullshit about claiming others' things as your own and then suing the real author. I mean sure, you can try... just as you can try to take the car of someone who released his software under WTFPL. "Because the license said I can!" won't hold up.

So... what's your point? You have discussed copyright to death -- but failed to address a single other point Alupis brought up regarding the WTFPL. Others (below) have even commented that several of the complaints are very valid. Nor have you actually sited any sources other than putting some text in italics.

Sub-licensing is different from transferring copyright ownership. They are both clear and well understood things, what do you mean by re-licence?

> There's not much preventing me from re-assinging copyright to myself (in countries that allow it) and then suing the original creator.

In what jurisdictions would that be interpreted as copyright reassignment? I can see how you might argue that "re-assign copyright to myself" is WTF you want to do, but the onus is on the creator to assign copyright to you.

> There's nothing to stop me from taking your code, re-licensing it under say a proprietary license, then suing the original creator.

Suing them for what? There's nothing to prevent you from suing pretty much anyone, for any reason, including any of the other licenses. Second of all, if you're saying there's nothing preventing your suit from being successful, I still don't understand on what grounds. It doesn't matter what licence you've relicensed under if the original author holds copyright.

> There's nothing that stops me from taking your project's branding/symbol/graphics/name and claiming it as my own and then suing you.

You could do this no matter what the license. What about the WTFPL would make your lawsuit any more successful than any other licence?

> There's nothing that stops me from taking your work and then not providing attribution back to the original creator.

This is fully within the intent of the WTFPL.

> By default there is nothing that absolves the license holder from warranty nor implied fitness for use.

You have a good point that this is something many people would want. Do you know in which jurisdictions this is actually needed? I wasn't able to find any sources for this.

> Has it been challenged before in a legal sense? Has a lawyer reviewed it?

Excellent points.

Okay, lawyer time. Some of these concerns are overblown, some aren't.

First, the license grant is clearly ambiguous. Most license grants are written in terms of exclusive rights of copyright (ie reproduction, derivative work creation, public performance). This one isn't. "Do whatever the fuck you want' is unclear as to exactly what rights you can exercise and can't, because "whatever you want" can be found to not literally be "whatever" (and in fact, when most people say "you can do whatever you want", they often mean "whatever you want within reason")

Maybe a judge will agree with "it means all of them", maybe they won't. It depends on the situation. I wouldn't want to bet my life on it. Damages would likely be minimal in such a case, except in places with high statutory damages awards. You might get enjoined from using it.

Second, As for reassigning copyright, probably not. In most jurisdictions, this requires a specific signed instrument.

Third, you can't put it under a new license and sue the creator, they also have rights to it.

Fourth, "You have a good point that this is something many people would want. Do you know in which jurisdictions this is actually needed? I wasn't able to find any sources for this."

At the very least, in the US it's a very bad idea not to disclaim warranties. Particularly since people are making warranties on mailing lists as to fitness, etc, all the time.

I can't stress enough how dangerous it is to not disclaim warranties in the US.

> Has it been challenged before in a legal sense? Has a lawyer reviewed it? Excellent points."

OSI declined to name it an open source license, considering it mostly duplicative of others.

I specifically try to push people to avoid it, and the company i work for won't distribute software that uses it.

> I can't stress enough how dangerous it is to not disclaim warranties in the US.

Can you offer some specific examples where an open source software project has suffered harm as a result? I generally trust your judgement, but would like to see the details.

I also appreciate the lack of IAALBTDNCLA in your post, although it might seem at odds with the disclaimer of warranties you advise. Is this omission a considered decision?

"Can you offer some specific examples where an open source software project has suffered harm as a result? I generally trust your judgement, but would like to see the details."

Not yet, but only because WTFPL is the only license i'm aware of that does not disclaim warranties, and it isn't all that popular.

I can offer plenty of examples of regular old sales without them that have gone bad. I can also offer examples of cases where judgement went for the defendants because the warranties were disclaimed.

As an aside, the WTFPL has a suggested warranty disclaimer in the FAQ, which is probably not effective in some places, which is even worse :(

I don't know if cases that involve an actual sale of a good are parallel enough to draw conclusions. I'm particularly looking for case law regarding implied warranty in the absence of a sale. My suspicion is that the disclaimer is an odd side effect of the desire to create a transaction so as to have an enforceable contract. In the absence of a sale or contract, I'm not sure what warranty would be construed. While false claims might cause damage, it seems like these might be issues even in the presence of a disclaimer.

So, there is a definitely a contract, regardless of sale. This much is 100% certain (no court has otherwise sold). If the question is "can there be implied warranties on stuff given away for free", the answer is definitely "yes"

In that sort of case, the only question is one of "damages", not of "validity of claim"

> So, there is a definitely a contract, regardless of sale.

How? Where is the mutual consideration? WTFPL looks like a gratuitous license, rather than a contract.

> If the question is "can there be implied warranties on stuff given away for free", the answer is definitely "yes"

The usual implied warranties of concern are implied warranty of merchantability and implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose; the former only applies when a good is sold, and even then only when it is sold by a merchant in the class of goods to which it belongs. And the latter applies again only with a sale, and only when the buyer relies on the seller's selection of the good for a purpose identified by the buyer, or at least known by the seller before selling the product to the buyer.

"How? Where is the mutual consideration? WTFPL looks like a gratuitous license, rather than a contract."

So if i understand your argument, because you are required to do nothing under the license, it is not a contract for lack of consideration?

If so, this is an interesting argument.

Let me turn it around then: Why, in your view, do most public domain dedications then include disclaimers of warranty (including CC-0), if they are pointless?

As for the second, A. A vast number open source projects are sponsored or sold by merchants in the class of goods to which it belongs (consultants, companies people selling things on app stores, etc) B. You can sell something for zero dollars. C. For fitness, I specifically mentioned representations often made on mailing lists (IE as to whether the software would work for a given person)

The gratuitous license argument is interesting (though from what I can tell, legal minds greater than mind still feel the urge to disclaim warranties in that case), but the contract/sale one is just completely uninteresting to me, given the lengths courts have gone in the past.

> So if i understand your argument, because you are required to do nothing under the license, it is not a contract for lack of consideration?

Yeah, that's like the first week of Contracts.

> Let me turn it around then: Why, in your view, do most public domain dedications then include disclaimers of warranty (including CC-0), if they are pointless?

Standard-form gratuitous licenses (incl. public domain declarations) often are written under the assumption that the transfer of the covered work may occur as part of a sales transaction (e.g., sale of media containing the work) from the licensor to the licensee, which is a situation in which implied warranties may be applicable.

WTFPL is absolutely not suited for that use case, at least on its own, though nothing prevents you from including both the WTFPL and a warranty disclaimer.

> B. You can sell something for zero dollars.

You can't have a sale without a contract, and while you can have a contract without money changing hands, you can't have a contract with an intended two-way exchange of obligations. One party merely offering a limited waiver of some of its exclusive rights without asking anything in return that it wouldn't be entitled to anyway isn't a two-way exchange of obligations.

> The gratuitous license argument is interesting (though from what I can tell, legal minds greater than mind still feel the urge to disclaim warranties in that case), but the contract/sale one is just completely uninteresting to me

I don't think you understand -- they are exactly the same argument. A sale involves a contract. A license without a contract is gratuitous.

You can't be interested in the argument of whether p is true but not be interested in the argument of whether ~p is true.

"Yeah, that's like the first week of Contracts."

Now you are just being a dick. I"m trying to be nice here and make sure i understand your argument. In most cases, courts won't look at consideration at all, and outside of the US, whether consideration is required at all varies.

" you can't have a contract with an intended two-way exchange of obligations. "

This is false, of course. You can have unilateral contracts accepted by performance of something that a contract requests, contracts implied in fact, contracts implied in law, and all sorts of interesting quasi-contracts, plenty of which still have warranties.

But that's also "first week of contracts".

"I don't think you understand -- they are exactly the same argument. A sale involves a contract. A license without a contract is gratuitous."

Not in all cases, actually, but if you are going to act like you have above, i'm not horribly interested in continuing the conversation, we'll just see what happens when someone gets sued over the WTFPL.

> " you can't have a contract with an intended two-way exchange of obligations. "

> This is false, of course.

Except, not.

> You can have unilateral contracts accepted by performance of something that a contract requests,

You can have contracts accepted by performance as described, but they aren't unilateral. Acceptance by performance is a mechanism for demonstrating acceptance (hence the name) of a contract offer with mutual obligation while simultaneously fulfilling some or all of the obligations on one side.

> contracts implied in fact,

Which are contracts where the acceptance of mutual obligation (and perhaps the actual content of the mutual obligation) is inferred from non-verbal communication, not an exception to the requirement for an intended two-way exchange of obligations.

> contracts implied in law, and all sorts of interesting quasi-contracts,

quasi-contracts are another name for implied-in-law contracts, which are not actual contracts, but equitable arrangements; given the nature of the equitable basis for these -- particularly the direction they run -- it would be odd to see implied warranties, or even some equitable analog, mattering to them except to reduce liability that might be due to the provider. But equity can be be weird, so I wouldn't rule it out entirely that there might be some relevance there.

> But that's also "first week of contracts".

Indeed.

While it's true that courts have held that open source licenses are enforceable (or at least not held to the contrary), I presume this is because of the specific way that each license is crafted.

Since the license wants to be enforceable, it goes out of its way to create a contract. Are you saying that the simple statement "Use this as you see fit" would also be held to be a contract, even in the absence of consideration? If so, why all the convolutions and verbiage in the current licenses?

And getting back to disclaimer of warranties, what about the absence of any stated license? Do you feel that a disclaimer of warranty is no more or less necessary with a license than without?

How about DBAD?

http://www.dbad-license.org/

> There's not much preventing me from re-assinging copyright to myself (in countries that allow it) and then suing the original creator.

By that logic, public domain is "ambiguous".

> There's nothing to stop me from taking your code, re-licensing it under say a proprietary license, then suing the original creator.

By that logic, virtually all the "BSD-style" licenses and their ilk are "ambiguous".

> There's nothing that stops me from taking your project's branding/symbol/graphics/name and claiming it as my own and then suing you.

By that logic, virtually every FOSS license that doesn't extend to branding (e.g. pretty much everything other than the MPL) is "ambiguous".

> There's nothing that stops me from taking your work and then not providing attribution back to the original creator.

See the public domain remark above.

> By default there is nothing that absolves the license holder from warranty nor implied fitness for use.

That is true, and would be a worthwhile addition as a default rather than an afterthought.

> legally, what does "DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT" actually mean?

It means "do what you want". Unless you're claiming that lawyers don't have a strong-enough grasp of the English language to be able to properly interpret extraneous expletives (which wouldn't surprise me to be quite honest...).

> By that logic, public domain is "ambiguous".

The notion of public domain can vary from country to country. The first time I wanted to release something inconsequential on Google Code I was surprised that it didn't let me choose "Public domain" and forced me to choose a license. Here's their FAQ about it: http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ#Can_I_host_code_th...?

"It means "do what you want". Unless you're claiming that lawyers don't have a strong-enough grasp of the English language to be able to properly interpret extraneous expletives (which wouldn't surprise me to be quite honest...)."

This is a very simplistic view of the phrasing.

For starters, when I ask someone "hey do you mind if i do x", and they say "do whatever you want", it doesn't usually mean "yes it is okay if i stab you with a knife", it means "yes it is okay to do x".

This phrase does not have a single, simple definition that is clear and robust.

> This phrase does not have a single, simple definition that is clear and robust.

Since this is in the scope of, say, a program's source code, the implicit meaning would be "do what you want [with this code]". Explicitly stating that would help, but it's not really that necessary unless you feel like being needlessly pedantic.

Virtually all license agreements are also implicitly bound by jurisdictional laws, so "yet it is okay if i stab you with a knife" would not be a valid interpretation of "do whatever you want" - in a legal sense - unless the agreement is taking place in a jurisdiction in which stabbing someone with a knife is legal.

The implicit meaning is going to be argued over repeatedly. Particularly when an author says "well, what i really meant by do whatever you want is 'x'"

Depending on how reasonable x is, a judge may or may not buy it.

Note also that the suggested license header is: "/* This program is free software. It comes without any warranty, to * the extent permitted by applicable law. You can redistribute it * and/or modify it under the terms of the Do What The Fuck You Want * To Public License, Version 2, as published by Sam Hocevar. See * http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/COPYING for more details. */"

This is also bad if it really lets you do whatever you want - The clause "use it or modify it under the terms of ..." implies there are limitations on how you may use/modify it - in particular, only under the terms of the WTFPL. If the WTFPL truly has no restrictions, this wording is meaningless. Under various canons of interpretation, a judge will usually find that people didn't mean for words to be meaningless. What limitations/meaning will be ascribed is also up in the air.

Realistically, the right wording to use there would have been "you may use it without restriction, as the WTFPL version 2.0 explains" (or something similar).

Again, you can argue this both ways. But it is just not the certainty it seems some want to ascribe to it.

Copyright is not something you can take away. It exists from the moment you create something creatively and originally.

You can however license someone to use something that is protected by copyright. This is what licenses do; they give you a license to use the content.

This is exactly what CC0 tries to do, it works around the fact that you cannot (easily) give away or stop copyright, but can state that you distance yourself from all the rights that come with having the copyright. See also: http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0

Go on, sue all the people publishing stuff in the public domain. Because surely you can magically re-license it under your own copyright and sue them.