[squeak-dev] Re: Swazoo - LGPL or MIT?

Stephen Pair stephen at pairhome.net
Mon Mar 24 19:44:36 UTC 2008


On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 9:31 AM, Janko Mivšek <janko.mivsek at eranova.si>
wrote:

> First, this is not my problem in my part of the world, where I am as an
> author protected by default.


Janko,

Be careful with that...if that means the same thing as what it means in the
US (where author's are also "protected by default"), then you may be
mis-interpreting things.  In the US, all authors are afforded copyright
protection regardless of whether or not you include any copyright notice or
license terms with your work.  I *think* those copyright terms extend for
the life of the author+70 years for individuals under current US law.  If
you were subject to that law, it would mean that by default, only you (and
your estate after death) hold the "copy rights" to anything you author until
70 years after your death.  That's why explicit licensing that grants copy
rights is important (at least in the US).  There isn't even a mechanism to
declare something you author to be in the public domain (that only happens
by expiration of copy rights...though I suspect a lawyer might be able to
successfully argue that someone offering something "in the public domain" is
effectively offering that work under a license consistent with the meaning
of "public domain").

I think the best open source licenses are the ones that are as simple and
clear as possible.  The more complicated a license, the more you'll have
nauseating threads like this one (and fewer words means less opportunity for
debate about the meaning of those words).

- Stephen
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