Public Domain - Licensing without restrictions

Public Domain

Licensing without restrictions

Why it often might be a better idea

Hanno Böck, http://www.hboeck.de/

Why I'm interested in this?

● Active in various free Software / free Content
projects (e. g. Gentoo, OpenStreetMap)
● Always interested to bring the idea of free
licenses to new areas
● Recently worked on ACCEPT_LICENSE
feature in Gentoo

What is Public Domain?

● Any kind of content (music, software, code,
movies, text etc.) that has no copyright
restrictions at all
● Can be because of expired copyright
(death+70y) or because the author „gives“
something to the public domain
● (strictly legal speaking not possible in Germany
and most of Europe)

What are free licenses?

● Gives you the „four freedoms“
– Use
– Modify
– Share
– Share modifications
● Examples: GPL, BSD, Creative Commons by,
by-sa, FDL
● Definitions by OSI, FSF, freedomdefined.org

Restrictions in free licenses

● Usually, two kinds of restrictions are accepted
for free licenses
– Attribution – you must mention the original
author(s))
– Copyleft – derivated works must stay free
● So everything is fine with free licenses? You're
allowed to do anything beside making it nonfree
and using it without attribution?

Freedom to mix?

Two free licenses does not mean they are
compatible.
● GPLv2 vs. GPLv3 vs. CDDL vs. OpenSSL
● Creative Commons by-sa vs. FDL
● FDL vs. GPL
● Creative Commons by-sa 2.0 vs. 3.0

Example: OpenSSL

● OpenSSL contains an advertisement clause
incompatible with the GPL
● GPL doesn't allow linking against non-GPL libs
● Relicensing an old piece of software is nearby
impossible
● Many work around by having a GPL+special
OpenSSL exception clause

Recent example with OpenSSL

● vpnc implemented hybrid-auth with OpenSSL
(used at many universities for internet access)
● vpnc is GPL without exception, thus this is not
allowed – code was there but it wasn't allowed
to distribute binaries
● (in the meantime, they've re-implemented
hybrid-auth using GnuTLS – not in
Debian/Ubuntu yet)

Licenses for specific issues

● We have software licenses, content licenses,
documentation licenses, font licenses
● Soon maybe database licenses, hardware
design licenses, yet-to-be-invented-stuff
licenses
● Many people use already existing licenses, no
matter if it makes any sense

Wrong license usage

● OpenCola is GPL
● Fonts under GPL
● Wikipedia was FDL, some content still is
● OpenStreetMap uses CC by-sa 2.0
● Beolingus-dictionary is GPL
● RepRap is GPL

Interesting example: GPL fonts

● Good question: If you embed a GPL font in a
document, e.g. a PDF, is your document GPL?
● This probably was never intended by the font
author putting his work under a free license
● But that's the wording of the GPL – derivated
works must be GPL, too
● FSF suggests font-exception to GPL

Borderline cases

● Code and documentation often mixed (auto-
generated API-documentation, it makes sense
to move comments to doc and vice-versa) –
remember GPL and FDL incompatible
● Games, Music, Images, Art
● Creative „misuse“ of stuff (e. g. Machinima)
● Screenshots

Attribution no problem? (BSD, CC by)

● The kind of attribution is often unclear
● Many of the more interesting free projects are
highly collaborative – making attribution difficult
● Do you need to print the full revision history if
you want to print Wikipedia articles?
● If you re-use images, e. g. in a design for a
small flyer, is there enough place for the
author? For five authors?

Complexity

● How many people that create stuff under GPL,
CC etc. have read it?
● How many people that use stuff under GPL/CC
etc. have read it?
● People should be „free“ to use stuff – not to
understand the bunch of complexities from
licenses

Creative Commons

● Common misunderstanding: CC is not a
license, it's a whole bunch of licenses – many
people don't know that
● They invented a whole number of new
restrictions (noncommercial, no derivatives,
developing countries, sampling) – more
complexity
● Ignored everything that was there before (FDL)

CC: Noncommercial?

● „Noncommercial“ sounds good to so many
people at a first glance
● Linux was nc at the beginning – I pretend if
Linus had stayed with that, it'd never be where
it is today
● It is very questionable if anyone can give a
strict definition of „commercial“ (is a private
party where drinks are sold commercial?)

CC: No derivatives

● In original announcement, CC referred a lot to
the „Remix“-band Negativland – the question is
why?
● Negativland became famous for remixing
Disney (Gimme the mermaid) and U2
● If Disney and Bono had decided to use CC by-
nd, they could've sued Negativland anyway

Relicensing?

● Very hard (ask everyone involved)
● Less likely to happen with old projects or
projects with many contributors
● Sometimes there are special options
● Biggest relicensing effort was probably
Wikipedia switching to CC by-sa

Copyleft has done good

● Without doubt copyleft licenses did a lot of good
● OpenWRT is a famous example for it
● I was in favour of copyleft for a long time
● I hear more often from licensing problems than
from successful attempts to free code
● Looking at the whole issue, I came to the
conclusion that we'd still get further without it

Alternative: Just ask

● Just ask friendly for attribution, keeping stuff
free etc.
● May sound naive, but most people using your
stuff will be „community“-people
● People can decide theirself if it makes sense to
pay attribution, keep stuff free etc.
● Some won't – take it easy

Go Public Domain!

● You are compatible with everyone
● You can explain the license to everyone within
a minute („you are allowed to do everything“)
● Your project can be everything that is related to
knowledge
● You will make lawyers unemployed

If you don't believe me

● If you start a new project, think twice which
license may fit
● Think if you want to keep an option to change
the license later
● Don't use a license that doesn't fit your purpose

PD not possible in Europe

● Strictly legal speaking, PD not possible in
Europe – but you can „grant all rights“.
– I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby
release it into the public domain. This applies
worldwide. In case this is not legally possible:
I grant anyone the right to use this work for
any purpose, without any conditions, unless
such conditions are required by law.
(Wikipedia)

CC Zero

● Legal text for public domain
● And they have nice logos you can put on your
webpages

Notable PD stuff

● Stuff with expired copyright – gutenberg.org,
archive.org, librivox
● Many images on Wikimedia Commons
● TweetCC
● Book metadata from some german libraries
● digg.com
● Laws, often images from authorities

Public domain Code

● xz-utils
● sqlite
● gameswf
● libcaca
● qmail, djbdns
● More: unlicense.org

What could be done?

● Create catalogues, search engines to collect
(and mirror?) PD data sources
● Force Wikimedia Commons and others to
implement a PD search
● Create the next big project based on PD / CC0
(Encyclopedia without relevance criteria?)

Sources

● http://lists.scribus.info/pipermail/scribus/2005-
April/ Fonts/GPL
● http://creativecommons.org/press-
releases/entry/3707 Negativland/CC
● http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Historiogra
f/GNU_FDL_Highway_to_Hell_-_FAQ
Wikipedia/FDL

Sources

● http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/
1.0/ CC Zero
● http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD
-user-w/en Wikipedia Public Domain Template
● http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.6/germa
n-libraries-cc0-catalog-data Libraries CC0

Public Domain - Licensing without restrictions

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