unlicense

The text of the Unlicense is as follows:

This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.

Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or

distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled

binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any

means.

In jurisdictions that recognize copyright laws, the author or authors

of this software dedicate any and all copyright interest in the

software to the public domain. We make this dedication for the benefit

of the public at large and to the detriment of our heirs and

successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act of

relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to this

software under copyright law.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,

EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF

MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR

OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,

ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR

OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

For more information, please refer to

The Free Software Foundation states that "Both public domain works and the lax license provided by the Unlicense are compatible with the GNU GPL."

Google does not allow its employees to contribute to projects under public domain equivalent licenses like the Unlicense (and CC0), while allowing contributions to 0BSD licensed and US government PD projects.{{cite web |url=https://opensource.google/docs/patching/ |access-date=2020-09-29 |title=Open Source Patching }}

Notable projects that use the Unlicense include youtube-dl,{{cite web|title=youtube-dl GitHub page|url=https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/blob/master/LICENSE |website=GitHub |access-date=2 October 2016}} Second Reality,{{cite web |url=https://github.com/mtuomi/SecondReality/blob/master/UNLICENSE |title=SecondReality/UNLICENSE at master · mtuomi/SecondReality |publisher=GitHub |access-date=February 28, 2017 |date=August 1, 2013 |author=Mika Tuomi}} and the source code of the 1995 video game Gloom.{{GitHub|earok/GloomAmiga}} - Source code of Gloom released in May 2017

In a post published on January 1 (Public Domain Day), 2010, Arto Bendiken, the author of the Unlicense, outlined his reasons for preferring public domain software, namely: the nuisance of dealing with licensing terms (for instance license incompatibility), the threat inherent in copyright law, and the impracticability of copyright law.{{cite web |url=http://ar.to/2010/01/set-your-code-free |date=January 1, 2010 |title=Set Your Code Free |author=Arto Bendiken |access-date=February 10, 2017 |quote=anybody affixing a licensing statement to open-source software is guilty of either magical thinking or of having an intention to follow up on the implied threat}}

On January 23, 2010, Bendiken followed-up on his initial post. In this post, he explained that the Unlicense is based on the copyright waiver of SQLite with the no-warranty statement from the MIT License. He then walked through the license, commenting on each part.{{cite web |url=http://ar.to/2010/01/dissecting-the-unlicense |title=Dissecting the Unlicense: Software Freedom in Four Clauses and a Link |author=Arto Bendiken |access-date=February 10, 2017 |date=January 23, 2010}}

In a post published in December 2010, Bendiken further clarified what it means to "license" and "unlicense" software.{{cite web |url=http://ar.to/2010/12/licensing-and-unlicensing |title=Licensed, License-Free, and Unlicensed Code |author=Arto Bendiken |access-date=February 10, 2017 |date=December 19, 2010}}

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, considering it compatible with the goals of the CC Zero (CC0) license, released in 2009.{{cite web |url=http://identi.ca/conversation/59986314 |archive-date=August 16, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110816083109/https://identi.ca/conversation/59986314 |title=Conversation |publisher=Identi.ca |access-date=February 28, 2017 |date=December 17, 2010 |quote=@bendiken surely there's a better name than copyfree, but I like the movement and look fwd to your roundup. |author=Mike Linksvayer}}{{cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/unlicense/an9PHJ0NGxA |title=CC0 and the Unlicense |publisher=Google Groups |access-date=February 28, 2017 |date=December 18, 2010 |author=Arto Bendiken |quote=In case it's of interest, I'm engaged in an ongoing Identi.ca conversation with Mike Linksvayer, the vice president of Creative Commons [...] In short, the folks at Creative Commons are aware of the Unlicense initiative, and apparently supportive of it.}}

On January 1, 2011, Bendiken reviewed the progress and adoption of the Unlicense, saying it was "difficult to give estimates of current Unlicense adoption" but there were "many hundreds of projects using the Unlicense".{{cite web |url=http://ar.to/2011/01/unlicense-1st-year |title=The Unlicense: The First Year in Review |author=Arto Bendiken |access-date=February 10, 2017 |date=January 1, 2011}}

In January 2012, when discussed on OSI's license-review mailing list, the Unlicense was brushed off as a crayon license. In particular, it was criticized for being possibly inconsistent and non-standard, and for making it difficult for some projects to accept Unlicensed code as third-party contributions; leaving too much room for interpretation; and possibly being incoherent in some legal systems.{{cite web |url=https://github.com/docopt/docopt.rs/issues/1 |title=Use a working license instead of UNLICENSE |author=Val Markovic (Valloric) |date=July 6, 2014 |access-date=February 9, 2017 |publisher=GitHub}}{{cite web |url=https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/147111/what-is-wrong-with-the-unlicense |title=What is wrong with the Unlicense? |access-date=February 10, 2017 |author=cgt |publisher=Software Engineering Stack Exchange |date=May 3, 2012}}{{cite web |url=https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-January/001386.html |title=[License-review] OSI, legal conditions outside the "four corners" of the license, and PD/CC 0 [was Re: Can OSI specify that public domain is open source?] |access-date=February 10, 2017 |first=Rick |last=Moen |date=January 3, 2012 |publisher=Open Source Initiative |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301020915/https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review/2012-January/001386.html |archive-date=March 1, 2017 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }} A request for legacy approval was filed in March 2020,{{cite web|url=http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html |archive-date=September 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200908143823/http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html| title=[License-review] Request for legacy approval: The Unlicense |date=March 28, 2020| first=Steffen |last=Jaeckel}} which led to a formal approval in June 2020, with an acknowledgement of a "general agreement that the document is poorly drafted".

In 2015, GitHub reported that approximately 102,000 of their 5.1 million licensed projects (2% of licensed projects on GitHub.com) used the Unlicense.{{cite web|url=https://github.com/blog/1964-license-usage-on-github-com |title=Open source license usage on GitHub.com |date=2015-03-09 |first=Ben |last=Balter |access-date=2015-11-21 |publisher=github.com |quote=1 MIT 44.69%, 2 Other 15.68%, 3 GPLv2 12.96%, 4 Apache 11.19%, 5 GPLv3 8.88%, 6 BSD 3-clause 4.53%, 7 Unlicense 1.87%, 8 BSD 2-clause 1.70%, 9 LGPLv3 1.30%, 10 AGPLv3 1.05% (30 million × 2% × 17% = 102k)}}

Until 2022, the Fedora Project recommended CC0 over the Unlicense because the former is "a more comprehensive legal text".{{cite web |url=https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Licensing/Unlicense&direction=next&oldid=384273 |title=Licensing/Unlicense |publisher=Fedora Project |access-date=February 28, 2017 |date=August 14, 2014 |quote=Fedora recommends use of CC-0 over this license, because it is a more comprehensive legal text around this tricky issue. It is also noteworthy that some MIT variant licenses which contain the right to "sublicense" are closer to a true Public Domain declaration than the one in the "Unlicense" text.}} However, in July 2022, the CC0 license became unsupported and software to be released in the Fedora distribution must not be under CC0, due to CC0 not waiving patent rights.{{Cite web |last=Claburn |first=Thomas |date=2022-07-25 |title=Fedora sours on CC 'No Rights Reserved' license |url=https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/25/fedora_sours_on_creative_commons/ |access-date=2022-09-14 |website=The Register |language=en}}

• 0BSD a public domain equivalent license used by Toybox and explicitly allowed for Android
• WTFPL
• Comparison of free and open-source software licenses

{{Reflist}}

• {{official website|https://unlicense.org/}}
• [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/unlicense Official mailing list]

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Category:Permissive software licenses