In January 2012, when discussed on OSI's license-review mailing list, the Unlicense was brushed off as a crayon license.

The license terms of the Unlicense is as follows: This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.Īnyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, orĭistribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiledīinary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any A request for legacy approval was filed in March 2020, which led to a formal approval in June 2020. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,ĮXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF Relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this We intend this dedication to be an overt act of Of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and Of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors TEW 2016 LICENSE UNLICENSE CODE OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,ĪRISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. The Free Software Foundation states that 'Both public domain works and the lax license provided by the Unlicense are compatible with the GNU GPL.' However, for dedicating software to the public domain it recommends CC0 over the Unlicense, stating that CC0 'is more thorough and mature than the Unlicense'. The Fedora Project recommends CC0 over the Unlicense because the former is 'a more comprehensive legal text'.

Google does not allow contributions to projects under public domain equivalent licenses like the Unlicense (and CC0), while allowing contributions to 0BSD licensed and US government PD projects. In December 2010, Mike Linksvayer, the vice president of Creative Commons at the time, wrote in an identi.ca conversation 'I like the movement' in speaking of the Unlicense effort.

Tew 2016 free license