Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 16:47 UTC (Mon) by azure (guest, #112903)
Parent article: Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

With CC0 out, is there an accepted license that doesn't require attribution or reproduciton of the copyright notice?

That's what I've always used CC0 for. Small libraries of self-contained functions or tutorial examples where I want people to be able to copy, paste, and forget where they ever got it from.

MIT and the GNU all-permissive license both require you to bring the copyright notice along, so this seems to leave a gap.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 16:57 UTC (Mon) by danpb (subscriber, #4831) [Link] (11 responses)

In the reply in the original thread:

https://lwn.net/ml/fedora-legal/CAC1cPGyCRfTNE-Ff57rCfOf+...

Richard points to SPDX:MIT-0 (MIT No Attribution) as a viable alternative for this purpose. There's also SPDX:0BSD (Zero-Clause BSD) which achieves a similar goal.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 17:29 UTC (Mon) by martin.langhoff (guest, #61417) [Link] (10 responses)

And somehow, there's an implication that by licensing the code with a minimalistic license like BSD, you're also licensing _other things_?

The BSD license doesn't say "you also get a license to the associated trademarks", nor "you also get a license to the associated patents".

Not trying to be difficult here, but pushing towards making explicit what the threshold issue is. Clarity matters, because I don't think disallowing CC0 in a distro speaks to the heart of the matter.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 18:46 UTC (Mon) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (4 responses)

I am not a lawyer so the following is at best speculative fiction:

The difference comes down to what is 'reserved' for the original writer.

The 0BSD and MIT-0 say that the software can be used for any purpose:
https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html "Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted."
https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT-0 "Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so. "

The Creative Commons zero puts in a lot of verbiage saying the user could use it for any purpose but then removes that with

"4. a. No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document. "

It is this lack of 'license/waive' which can in current reading by various lawyers following current court cases and such which affects the upper sections which say a downstream user can use it for any purpose. So any user of 'CC/0' code would need to work with the original writer to see if there were outstanding patents, trademark licenses, or similar restrictions which stop the usage. Depending on those further licenses the CC0 could be completely overridden.

== End speculative fiction where I play at knowing more than a Day's Inn stay on law.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 19:18 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

> "4. a. No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, surrendered, licensed or otherwise affected by this document. "

Hmmm ... it looks like that is the problem then - explicitly NOT giving a patent grant is damning. Explicitly not giving a trademark licence makes it look like this has been written by an armchair lawyer.

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 26, 2022 15:01 UTC (Tue) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link] (2 responses)

True, this could be the problem.

The MirOS Licence has an explicit permission on use combined with no such wording, and I intend that to be an implicit patent licence (I’d rather not have added an explicit one because software patents are illegal).

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 26, 2022 15:31 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

Stick a clause like "by distributing this software you agree that it contains no patent-eligible material".

Okay, any armchair lawyer stuff could be dangerous, but that would take your software firmly out of the net.

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 26, 2022 15:58 UTC (Tue) by mirabilos (subscriber, #84359) [Link]

Ugh, no… for multiple reasons, but the “no armchair lawyering” is probably the best one, and the one OSI looks at these days.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 25, 2022 22:58 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

> Not trying to be difficult here, but pushing towards making explicit what the threshold issue is.

There's a contradition in your words right there. First part is incompatible with second.

> Clarity matters, because I don't think disallowing CC0 in a distro speaks to the heart of the matter.

It does, because you, apparently, don't understand (or maybe just don't want to understand) how law works.

Law is squishy. All these texts, licenses, and other things don't give you straight answers and are not supposed to give straight answers in 100% of cases. BY DESIGN! It's not a mistake of people who created them! You can read more here, e.g.

That's why English phrase “I just want clarity” is interpreted as “I want to be difficult” by lawyers.

> The BSD license doesn't say "you also get a license to the associated trademarks", nor "you also get a license to the associated patents".

And that's precisely what opens up the possibility of talks about “implied license”.

Precisely because license says nothing about these things you may argue these were supposed to be passed along, too.

But if you say these are not covered by license then “implied license” is no longer plausible.

It's as simple as that.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 27, 2022 16:16 UTC (Wed) by rfontana (subscriber, #52677) [Link] (3 responses)

See my colleague Scott Peterson's article on the patent license in the MIT license:
https://opensource.com/article/18/3/patent-grant-mit-license

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Jul 29, 2022 22:11 UTC (Fri) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link] (2 responses)

Fascinating article. I would love to see this tested in a court.

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Aug 4, 2022 8:27 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link] (1 responses)

You'd think there would be a lot of money in it for a patent troll who had received legal advice that they were likely to prevail in such a lawsuit. So perhaps the fact that it hasn't happened yet is indicative...

Fedora to disallow CC0-licensed code

Posted Aug 4, 2022 9:01 UTC (Thu) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

Such repute would be certainly better than nothing.