WTFPL to be banned from Content DB soon

[Wuzzy]

The developers are currently pushing very hard to ban WTFPL from the Content DB:

https://github.com/minetest/contentdb/issues/107

[Mantar]

Seems sensible to me, it's a crap license. More sensible would be to just mass-relicense all those mods, since the WTFPL allows it.

[ShallowDweller]

I just wish they mention there are other valid licenses than MIT in this planet.
Or at least give a definition of what a "substantial portion of the software" is and how to credit a modder whose mod has this license.
The ONLY reason I avoid touching the code of MIT-licensed mods like the plague is that one line about "substantial portions of the software". aaand i never remember if mit is a viral license like cc-by-sa or not
I don't mind using a viral license if I understand its terms but I would rather use a license that allows the derived works to use a different license if they don't like the one I chose.

There is also the fact that I'll have to do a research on how to credit the MIT mod's autor if I use a bit of their code in my mod, but then, all I'd have to do is some research.
I mean, can I just state somewhere that "this software is a rework of <insert name here> by <insert name here> and uses some code from <insert name here> by <insert name here>" or is there a SPECIFIC way to give them credit? (if so, how?)

I will give people credit even if I don't have to, but not having to means I can give them credit in any way that leaves it clear that they were important for my software's existence and functionality. Whereas having to give credit usualy means there are rules or a specific format in wich credit must be given.

Sorry about the rant. I've had problems with tecnical norms in the past. They are the main cause of my paranoia about whether I'm giving credits correctly. And I often feel like I'm asking a stupid question when I have to ask questions.

[sofar]

Sorry about the rant. I've had problems with tecnical norms in the past. They are the main cause of my paranoia about whether I'm giving credits correctly. And I often feel like I'm asking a stupid question when I have to ask questions.

Next time, feel free to ask me, either in a PM or forum msg, or on IRC. I'd be happy to take a look and make sure you've got your bases covered. There are others that can help, of course, but I can't speak for them. So don't hesitate to ask.

[ShallowDweller]

Sorry about the rant. I've had problems with tecnical norms in the past. They are the main cause of my paranoia about whether I'm giving credits correctly. And I often feel like I'm asking a stupid question when I have to ask questions.

Next time, feel free to ask me, either in a PM or forum msg, or on IRC. I'd be happy to take a look and make sure you've got your bases covered. There are others that can help, of course, but I can't speak for them. So don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks for the aid. I'll be sure to ask next time. Thank you ^-^

[Wuzzy]

No matter if WTFPL is banned from Content DB or not, let me be perfectly clear here:

If you are using MIT or WTFPL'ed software, you should be perfectly safe, legally spoken.
With either license, you are free to use, re-use, remix, modify, share, share the modifications, copy, sell, sublicense the software without any permission.

People who slap one of those license on their mod DO want you to do whatever. That's the point! There is no reason to be afraid. It saddens me that there is so much fear. :(

I would be surprised if anyone gets into legal trouble for doing any of these things with MIT'ed software.

[sofar]

If you are using MIT or WTFPL'ed software, you should be perfectly safe, legally spoken.

If you are not a lawyer, you should probably not make statements like this. Maybe, just add "IANAL" to your posts, if you say stuff like this. Maybe you're right, but if you're wrong, someone is going to end up hurting, badly.

The WTFPL does not include a liability waiver. This means that it is up to the local jurisdiction as to what warranty or liability applies to software that you distribute, and, in some cases, may make you potentially liable for damages that occur if people use your software, something goes wrong, they identify you as a possible defendant, and take you to court.

Just from that perspective, I advise everyone to not take word from the forums, and if you're uncertain, avoid WTFPL. MIT has a liability waiver, so, it's a lot better, but even then due to the ambiguous wording in the MIT license, I would still prefer a most strongly worded license myself over it (i.e. ISC as I've mentioned before).

[Wuzzy]

I was speaking from the licensee perspective, not the licensor perspective. The waiver is irrelevant for the licensee.

And yes, you're right. IANAL.

[uwu]

God bless.

WTFPL is a joke and should've never gotten as popular with mods as it has.

[neoh4x0r]

God bless.

WTFPL is a joke and should've never gotten as popular with mods as it has.

That acronym.....it is the "WTF people" license.

It claims it is a free license, but any code can then be re-licensed under a more restrictive non-free license.
Which basically means that this so called "free code" could now be copyrighted by someone and there is no protection from that company going after people using the code (claiming copyright/trademark/patent infringement, etc), even if it is under the WTFPL license.

This was the whole reason that that idea of "copyleft" was born (once code is licensed under copyleft it cannot be changed to non-copyleft and individual licenses might allow/disallow a re-license under another copyleft compatible license).

In fact, I would go as far as saying that WTFPL is just a fancy way of saying that a work is not copyrighted, and it is stupid because that has existed for as long as we have had the notion of attributing ownership to things, known as the public domain.

[Wuzzy]

Even if the WTFPL is kind of a silly license, it does no real harm. It's still a libre license after all for obvious reasons. I find it hilarious that the devs seriously discuss banning it, as if it would be a really serious problem. Well, whatever, its not that there are similar licenses (CC0, MIT), so I don't even try to defend it anymore. So it's not the end of the world if the WTFPL has to die. Just a bit annoying.

But I just find it hilarious that a license that does only imaginary harm is going to get banned, but the license CC BY-NC (and other NonCommercial licenses) that is actually harmful is still perfectly fine with the core devs (even if almost nobody in our community uses it, thankfully), and no amount of discussion has changed that.

Perhaps with all this license discussion we should not forget the point of free software: It's about freedom. WTFPL is no threat to freedom. NonCommercial licenses are.

[rubenwardy]

I have no plans to ban it from ContentDB.

"The developers" seems to be only paramat

[Wuzzy]

LOL.

[Linuxdirk]

Banning software because of the name of the license is absolute and utter nonsense. I see more issues in some of the CC licenses since they disallow commercial use or some other licenses that force developers to open-source their work even if they simply use the unmodified library in their own work.

[Mantar]

The harm isn't imaginary -- a teacher who installs such software could lose their job due to common school policies. For a license that does diddly squat versus a simple "public domain" declaration, that's bad. It has no reason to even exist.

The word "ban" is a bit hyperbolic in this case, nobody's going to stop anyone from downloading these mods off the forum, they just won't be featured on the content DB. That way there's a convenient and safe channel for teachers to allow students to get mods without fear of the parents/administrators coming down on them.

[Wuzzy]

This topic has ended. Rubenwardy just closed the GitHub issue.

https://github.com/minetest/contentdb/issues/107

[sofar]

Well, there is still the matter that the WTFPL isn't an actual OSI approved license, which I think is what we should strive to promote. We definitely do not want to encourage people to make more software under the WTFPL, because it's such a terrible thing from a legal perspective.

Forget the swearing/name problem, it's just absolutely gutter material compared to any other *actual* proper license.

[TumeniNodes]

Just make a stickied post in the mods section, which explains the issues with using the "license", and state the community prefers that mod developers do not use it, as well as how they will benefit more from not using it.
Divert attention to it as best as possible and hope it works...
Make it a must read post for those who which to share mods

[paramat]

To be fair, sofar seemed to support doing this too, it's not just me.
"WTFPL to be banned from Content DB soon" was a false and sensational title for this, it was always very uncertain as you can see from the thread.

A teacher has told me that they could lose their job if they used MT in a school and expletives were found. This is why we removed WTFPL from MTG.

[Linuxdirk]

A teacher has told me that they could lose their job if they used MT in a school and expletives were found. This is why we removed WTFPL from MTG.

So you removed WTFPL because some teachers complained about a word in the license title instead of removing it for the horrible, horrible legal issues this pseudolicense causes?

[sofar]

So you removed WTFPL because some teachers complained about a word in the license title instead of removing it for the horrible, horrible legal issues this pseudolicense causes?

Yes, and I support him doing that. The other reason is great, too, but if the GPL had the word fuck all over it, I would still, and many companies and organizations with me, avoid it as much as we could.

[Mantar]

So you removed WTFPL because some teachers complained about a word in the license title instead of removing it for the horrible, horrible legal issues this pseudolicense causes?

"Causes abstract legal issues" and "could cost me my job" are both solid reasons for it to be removed, but the harm from the latter is more immediate and obvious.

[Festus1965]

this discussion started on 12.11.2018 and until now nothing happened:
* neither the [Mod]s terms was changed,
* neither the [Mod] was banned
take it out, explain the coder why, and then things will get faster.

[Linuxdirk]

Yes, and I support him doing that.

Yes, removing this pseudolicense is good, for whatever reason.

The other reason is great, too,

The "other reasons" are actually the real reasons. No-one gets fired because the license of the software they use has "fuck" in the written-out title. This is just nonsense (even if I'm pretty sure you or paramat can bring up at least one example being the complete opposite of what I stated).

[Mantar]

It sounds like you've never worked in a school in your life. I can confirm in parts of America they take that sort of thing very seriously, because angry parents can be a big problem.