Why Treebard is public domain
Jul 22, 2020 9:10:18 GMT -8
Post by Uncle Buddy on Jul 22, 2020 9:10:18 GMT -8
Since I just started using github.com/profudeguru/treebard_gps for version control I had to think about what type of open source license to select for the project.
I was looking at some radical-sounding verbiage in one of the licenses, thinking, yeah! this is great... these guys are really letting off some steam. So I copied the license into a Word document and saw that the license is 13 pages of threats encased in legal jargon, in case anyone tries to make money off an "open source" code.
So I got to thinking, I've seen projects of various sorts that looked interesting till I read the rules. The rules took all the fun out of it. But what convinced me not to adopt the license was that I was not willing to actually read a 13-page license. I don't like legalese and I don't think turning the fate of my work over to lawyers and courts and judges and people who love to sue each other sounds like fun.
The original impetus for starting the Treebard project was that the software I was using was so loved by its users that they couldn't find anything to replace it when the author of the program stopped supporting it and updating it. Some of his customers begged him to make his code open source but he ignored them. No doubt the $29.95 they'd paid for his program once upon a time didn't entitle them to make demands on his time so many years down the road.
This is when I first started thinking about Treebard as a replacement for the program I liked well enough that I'd want to go to the trouble of making it better. But couldn't without starting from scratch. After reading the complaints of many of that popular genieware's faithful users who claimed to be computer professionals with decades of experience, I eventually decided it would be fun to start from scratch. I guess because no one was telling me I had to. I wondered why those professionals didn't do it themselves but who wants to fiddle with computers all day and then go home and write code for free? I mean who else besides me.
And then on the other hand you have an extraordinary work of art like Sqlite whose author worded its original copyright notice thusly:
"The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing:
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give."
Now that is real open source attitude. The 13-page license mentioned above is not only daring folks, with a big legalistic chip on its shoulder, to not fall under its control and enforcement, it's downright prohibitive and a big turn-off. Creating works of art is supposed to be fun. Having a team of volunteers to help you should be fun and friendly.
Another one of Treebard's original reasons to exist (whether realistic or not) was to replace GEDCOM: instead of sharing a GEDCOM file, just share the whole program. This naive fantasy implies more than a piece of software, it's suggesting a movement and betrays a hope that someday genealogists will expect public records about their ancestors to be easier to obtain so we don't have to mortgage our houses to do our hobby. I mean why are big fancy corporations selling our ancestors back to us? This leads to a point being made by the movement: make open source code truly open source by putting it in the public domain with no restrictions. Nothing for me to enforce. I just write my code because I like to write code. If someone borrows it and forgets to give it back, we both have my code. It's not like he stole my computer or cut my head off.
It comes down to this: the copyright laws were made to enrich and protect publishers, not artists. And that is the most important teaching of the unlicensing movement. Without the internet and the freedom it offers, we'd still only be reading books published by big corporations. Now we can read books written by individuals. Books that are not edited by Madison Avenue corporations. Things are changing. I predict that sharing might even become popular someday, like it was long ago when a wandering bard (minstrel) was not worried whether someone copied his songs and stories.
Here's the lead paragraph from unlicense.org:
For further reading:
questioncopyright.org/promise
I was looking at some radical-sounding verbiage in one of the licenses, thinking, yeah! this is great... these guys are really letting off some steam. So I copied the license into a Word document and saw that the license is 13 pages of threats encased in legal jargon, in case anyone tries to make money off an "open source" code.
So I got to thinking, I've seen projects of various sorts that looked interesting till I read the rules. The rules took all the fun out of it. But what convinced me not to adopt the license was that I was not willing to actually read a 13-page license. I don't like legalese and I don't think turning the fate of my work over to lawyers and courts and judges and people who love to sue each other sounds like fun.
The original impetus for starting the Treebard project was that the software I was using was so loved by its users that they couldn't find anything to replace it when the author of the program stopped supporting it and updating it. Some of his customers begged him to make his code open source but he ignored them. No doubt the $29.95 they'd paid for his program once upon a time didn't entitle them to make demands on his time so many years down the road.
This is when I first started thinking about Treebard as a replacement for the program I liked well enough that I'd want to go to the trouble of making it better. But couldn't without starting from scratch. After reading the complaints of many of that popular genieware's faithful users who claimed to be computer professionals with decades of experience, I eventually decided it would be fun to start from scratch. I guess because no one was telling me I had to. I wondered why those professionals didn't do it themselves but who wants to fiddle with computers all day and then go home and write code for free? I mean who else besides me.
And then on the other hand you have an extraordinary work of art like Sqlite whose author worded its original copyright notice thusly:
"The author disclaims copyright to this source code. In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing:
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give."
Now that is real open source attitude. The 13-page license mentioned above is not only daring folks, with a big legalistic chip on its shoulder, to not fall under its control and enforcement, it's downright prohibitive and a big turn-off. Creating works of art is supposed to be fun. Having a team of volunteers to help you should be fun and friendly.
Another one of Treebard's original reasons to exist (whether realistic or not) was to replace GEDCOM: instead of sharing a GEDCOM file, just share the whole program. This naive fantasy implies more than a piece of software, it's suggesting a movement and betrays a hope that someday genealogists will expect public records about their ancestors to be easier to obtain so we don't have to mortgage our houses to do our hobby. I mean why are big fancy corporations selling our ancestors back to us? This leads to a point being made by the movement: make open source code truly open source by putting it in the public domain with no restrictions. Nothing for me to enforce. I just write my code because I like to write code. If someone borrows it and forgets to give it back, we both have my code. It's not like he stole my computer or cut my head off.
It comes down to this: the copyright laws were made to enrich and protect publishers, not artists. And that is the most important teaching of the unlicensing movement. Without the internet and the freedom it offers, we'd still only be reading books published by big corporations. Now we can read books written by individuals. Books that are not edited by Madison Avenue corporations. Things are changing. I predict that sharing might even become popular someday, like it was long ago when a wandering bard (minstrel) was not worried whether someone copied his songs and stories.
Here's the lead paragraph from unlicense.org:
Why Use the Unlicense?
Because you have more important things to do than enriching lawyers or imposing petty restrictions on users of your code. How often have you passed up on utilizing and contributing to a great software library just because its open source license was not compatible with your own preferred flavor of open source? How many precious hours of your life have you spent deliberating how to license your software or worrying about licensing compatibility with other software? You will never get those hours back, but here's your chance to start cutting your losses. Life's too short, let's get back to coding.
Because you have more important things to do than enriching lawyers or imposing petty restrictions on users of your code. How often have you passed up on utilizing and contributing to a great software library just because its open source license was not compatible with your own preferred flavor of open source? How many precious hours of your life have you spent deliberating how to license your software or worrying about licensing compatibility with other software? You will never get those hours back, but here's your chance to start cutting your losses. Life's too short, let's get back to coding.
For further reading:
questioncopyright.org/promise