From c6384ac2108aadf070da534e5e9ba25f5964f348 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jed Barber Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 23:38:16 +1000 Subject: Slight wording changes, increased sunset clause to 15 years, added more notes in rationale on length and warranties --- rationale.txt | 25 +++++++++++++++++-------- 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-) (limited to 'rationale.txt') diff --git a/rationale.txt b/rationale.txt index 8d517df..87af121 100644 --- a/rationale.txt +++ b/rationale.txt @@ -30,11 +30,15 @@ date, or the work itself has stagnated to the point where nobody cares anyway. But the time that it takes for those parts of a work to be allowed under the rules of public domain will remain reasonable, relatively short, and finite. +The length of 15 years was chosen after reviewing the timelines of multiple +major software projects, the policy of Pirate Party Australia, and a paper on +optimal copyright term lengths by Rufus Pollock published in August 2007. + Combining this idea with minimalistic copyleft clauses should fill another hole in available licenses, as all current ones are exceedingly verbose. The copyleft clauses have to be weak however, as otherwise works using this -license would not be able to link against LGPL/BSD/MIT licensed works, which +license would not be able to be linked with LGPL/BSD/MIT licensed works, which would be less than ideal. Both static and dynamic linking have to be allowed as otherwise there would be too many language specific details required in the license. @@ -47,14 +51,19 @@ Scope This is primarily conceived of as a software license. While the result may be applicable to other works, it may not be optimal for them. -Software patents are not something that will be mentioned or considered. The -position taken is that if software patents are a problem in your country, you -should reform the law. +Software patents are not something that will be mentioned. The position taken +is that if software patents are a problem in your country, you should reform +the law. + +Warranty disclaimers will also not be mentioned. The position taken is that +your software should do what you say it does, and that you should be +responsible for what you release to the public. Again, if this is a problem in +your country, you should reform the law. -Warranty disclaimers will also neither be mentioned nor considered. The -position taken is that your software should do what you say it does, and that -you should be responsible for what you release to the public. Again, if this -is a problem in your country, you should reform the law. +(An interesting note about warranties is that, as buggy software is common, an +occasional software bug fits the standard of "passes ordinarily in the trade" +and thus would not violate a typical implied warranty of merchantability. You +are encouraged to check your local consumer law yourself to verify this.) The focus is on the work actually released, not on spreading the license itself. -- cgit