Consider making the Unlicense (public domain) the default for the template

[djanowski]

Just wanted to bring attention to this license, which I'm sure most people already know, but many probably don't adopt it just because of inertia. Making it the default in the template created by component-create(1) would help a lot, at least bringing attention to the matter.

http://unlicense.org

Also, I don't want this to become a discussion on the Unlicense or public domain themselves, just on why we're going with MIT as the default option.

[vendethiel]

Probably because this gives "enough" freedom and is gpl-compatible, probably

[tj]

im not really up on the whole licensing thing, too much legal junk for me, but whatever is the most liberal gets a +1 from me, I've just always used MIT

[djanowski]

@visionmedia That's exactly my reason for going with the Unlicense/Public domain, because I don't care about all the legal stuff. Bottom line is: you refuse to claim a copyright, anyone can do whatever they want.

[buschtoens]

Haha, WTFPL.

[jhnns]

Nice license, exactly my style 😀

[djanowski]

So?

[edmellum]

What are the pros of this compared to MIT? Don't see the point of churn if there's no benefit.

[buschtoens]

So, to get this to an end: @djanowski where's the difference between MIT and Unlicense?

[djanowski]

The Unlicense is a template for disclaiming copyright interest in software you've written; in other words, it is a template for dedicating your software to the public domain. It combines a copyright waiver patterned after the very successful public domain SQLite project with the no-warranty statement from the widely-used MIT/X11 license.

More: http://unlicense.org

My rationale is: most people simply don't care (like myself), so providing a more liberal default makes sense. For those who argue that people care, then they are free to change the default.

[djanowski]

@visionmedia Just to keep the discussion on this thread: you closed #290 because you say that MIT is something you heard about. So is that the only reason to include it by default in the template?

Again, I am no expert in licensing and I just don't care what people do with my open-sourced code. Since probably most of us in this community feel the same way, why even acknowledge copyright? Do you want to impose on users of your libraries that they read the license, and possibly try to figure out whether they should copy the copyright notice over to their application (as that's what MIT says)? Even if you argue that's not what the license says, this is all wasting energy of our lives, for those of us who simply don't care. (It's just the default, and those who do care will change it, quite possibly to a copyleft license.)

SQLite is public domain and I've never heard of anybody not adopting it because of that. I think they set a great example. It'd be amazing if we could add this default (it's just a default) to the list of things that make Component great and magical.

[tj]

I've never heard of any constraints with MIT either so they're both fine AFAIK, I just wanted a default so the dev will at least see it and remember to change it if necessary