Technology And Tech News @hilariouschaos.com airrow @hilariouschaos.com 4mo ago

The "Unlicense" Software License (Public Domain)

What is the Unlicense?

The Unlicense is a template for disclaiming copyright monopoly 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.

2 comments

I love free software, this whole thing currently runs on it.

I am a bit disappointed though that free software and earning a decent living seem to be mostly incompatible. I don't know how sustainable it is to expect that brilliant people will continue churning out shit for free when they've got bills to pay and lives to live. I think most of them do it as a hobby in their free time, and that really doesn't help.

I don't know what the answer is, but I really wish there was a better solution where people could get adequately rewarded for their work, without falling into the corruption of commercial models.
- couple things. thoughts on these models? https://infogalactic.com/info/Business_models_for_open-source_software
  
  also code should probably be adjacent to producing some other tangible good, and money can be made from that. like designing a 3d printed good, and selling that physical good.
  
  code is indeed something problematic because it is "intellectual property" which isn't really a thing in my view, so in itself it does face monetization issues, because "ideas" aren't tangible products. Another route could be to think of it as something a nonprofit produces (and fund it through people giving to charity basically?)
  
  I'll also note that I've seen a management-programmers conflict and dynamic that I think ultimately will often devalue programmers; therefore programmers need to work at businesses where managers are programmers, or start their own business it seems, if they want to "actually" code.
  
  I think these are good general discussions to have if you have any thoughts on the topics