CypherPunks anti-License (CPL)
Some may recall the "cypherpunks license" debate back in 1998 and continuing for a few hundred posts with contributions from Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Eric Young, and numerous others. It starts around here (a little before, but the threading doesn't go back past subject line change). http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/dir.1998.09.28-1998.10.04/msg00018.ht... (The search tool on http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/ doesn't seem to work for pairs of words. But google will find lots of "cypherpunks license" on inet-one.) So I was releasing some source code I wrote a couple of days ago, and it struck me that perhaps it might be fun to try doing what was discussed back then, and put a license on it which explained the motivations and made the thing a little more free than putting it in the public domain. (I so far have put no license at all on anything I've released). So here's a cypherpunks license proposal. Generally it's a statement of how things would be if there were no IP laws governing copyright and related licensing, and an attempt to allow people to act as close to as if such laws did not exist given current laws. In addition for people who publish anonymously, and consume anonymously it avoids making silly claims based on force monopoly backed legal constructs which couldn't be applied to an anonymous actor. It tries to say: - you can do what you want with this, and I can't change my mind about these terms for this copy - I won't attack you in court for IP related laws - you can redistribute it under other licenses - you can claim you wrote it - you can advertise it anyway you like - copyright isn't compatibile with privacy, and anyway needs to die. - you don't have to send me patches This is not to say a distributor would necessarily like all of these things but it acknowledges that he would not able to enforce these things in an IP law free world. Instead such requests are recognised for what they are -- requests only. I'm not sure about the implications of the fact that the author could change his mind, and/or distribute different copies of the same under different licenses. Presumably if someone has a copy you released with the statement that it is in the public domain, and that you won't revoke that, you can't then do anything to them in a court afterwards relating to their use or further distribution. The acronym is a little bit of a stretch, but I thought it would be more easily fit into the GPL, MPL pattern and so be recognised as to do with licensing. It struck me after a while that it was not a license because a license presumes you have some right to exert control. So I used anti-license. It's a notice that the work is placed into the public domain together with a pledge about behavior to expect from the distributor. Also notice that the person making the pledge is not called the licensor (as it isn't a license), and also not the author as the distributor doesn't have to be the author. The CPL presumes people will distribute collections of things where they are not the author, copyright holder, and are barred under existing laws from distributing perhaps. There's also this crappy law against illegal contracts, which may easily affect this in some circumstances. Also there is the requests clause. It tries to say that the CPL distributor won't enforce in court his requests. This seems reasonable enough otherwise that would violate the spirit of the CPL, and would anyway not be a request, but more a threat. And of course the CPL is itself distributed under the CPL, so anyone can change it, call the changed versions whatever they want etc. I suppose the only reasonable request to place on the CPL would be to mark modified versions as modified to avoid confusion, so that people know what they're referring to. Well here we go... comments solicited. Below in text, or here: http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/ (I may edit this as things occur to me, or people comment on things). Adam ====================================================================== Cypherpunks anti-License Intent The intent of the Cypherpunks anti-License (CPL) is to inform users that they are free to use and redistribute the indicated work or any derived or modified work in any manner they choose. Works distributed under the CPL are in the Public Domain. Licensing The CPL is not a license, it does not require the user to do or not do anything; the user does not agree to any terms, because there are no terms, and the user does not need to do anything to indicate acceptance or rejection of the CPL. Non Litigation The CPL serves to pledge to the user that the distributors will behave in a manner consistent with the non-existance of Intellectual Property (IP) laws as far as they are able. The distributors will not use or participate as far as they are able to government legal systems to attempt to enforce requests restricting the use, modifications, or redistribution of the work for perpetuity. The distributor may prefer to be anonymous to preclude attempts to coerce them into enforcing IP laws relating to this work against their will. Requests The work may be distributed with some distributor requests in addition to the CPL. The distributor pledges similarly to not attempt to use IP laws to enforce these requests. Redistribution Users choosing to redistribute this work may change anything about the work, including distributing it under a different license, and adding or removing previous distributors requests. Interpretation The CPL is completely liberal. Here are some examples of implications of this which are not true for many licenses. The user can redistribute the work or a derived or modified work * under a different license of their choosing * with or without source code as they choose * without acknowledging the distributors or authors * with false or innaccurate claims about authorship of the work * advertise without acknowledging the authors Requests can be arbitrary, but are requests only. Example of requests that the distributor may choose to make: * that improvements to the work be drawn to the distributors attention * that improvements to the work be released back to the distributor under the CPL * that the distributors name not be used to advertise derived works without the distributors approval Legacy Considerations The distributor may choose to inform the user of his opinion of the IP status of the work, for example by identifying any IP law restricted aspects such as the copyright holders of parts or the whole of the work, trademark owners of trademarks used in the work, potentially applicable patents on algorithms or ideas contained in the work, but the distributor is not obliged to do so and takes no responsibility for the accuracy of such information. Background The CPL is written from a mindset which derides the very concept of Intellectual Property restrictions as being incompatible with a free society. Cryptographically assured anonymity and anonymous use of Internet resources mean that denizens of cypherspace can ignore copyright, licenses attempting to control use and distribution of works, and patents on ideas. It is not possible to enforce IP laws by calls to government legal systems when the flaunter is strongly anonymous. The enforcement of IP law and anonymity are in direct conflict. To fully enforce IP laws, anonymity would have to be outlawed. Cypherpunks believe this would be a bad thing, because control of information imparts power, and anonymity gives individuals control over disclosure of information about themselves and their actions. ======================================================================
I'd include something along the lines of: 'use the code at your own risk. No warranties expressed or implied. This is the entire warranty and supercedes anything else you might have heard or read about this code. The code might work or it might not. it might include stolen or 'borrowed stuff' and it might not.' phillip -----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of Adam Back Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 10:52 PM To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM Subject: CypherPunks anti-License (CPL) Some may recall the "cypherpunks license" debate back in 1998 and continuing for a few hundred posts with contributions from Richard Stallman, Eric Raymond, Eric Young, and numerous others. It starts around here (a little before, but the threading doesn't go back past subject line change). http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/dir.1998.09.28-1998.10.04/msg00018.ht ml (The search tool on http://www.inet-one.com.my/cypherpunks/ doesn't seem to work for pairs of words. But google will find lots of "cypherpunks license" on inet-one.) So I was releasing some source code I wrote a couple of days ago, and it struck me that perhaps it might be fun to try doing what was discussed back then, and put a license on it which explained the motivations and made the thing a little more free than putting it in the public domain. (I so far have put no license at all on anything I've released). So here's a cypherpunks license proposal. Generally it's a statement of how things would be if there were no IP laws governing copyright and related licensing, and an attempt to allow people to act as close to as if such laws did not exist given current laws. In addition for people who publish anonymously, and consume anonymously it avoids making silly claims based on force monopoly backed legal constructs which couldn't be applied to an anonymous actor. It tries to say: - you can do what you want with this, and I can't change my mind about these terms for this copy - I won't attack you in court for IP related laws - you can redistribute it under other licenses - you can claim you wrote it - you can advertise it anyway you like - copyright isn't compatibile with privacy, and anyway needs to die. - you don't have to send me patches This is not to say a distributor would necessarily like all of these things but it acknowledges that he would not able to enforce these things in an IP law free world. Instead such requests are recognised for what they are -- requests only. I'm not sure about the implications of the fact that the author could change his mind, and/or distribute different copies of the same under different licenses. Presumably if someone has a copy you released with the statement that it is in the public domain, and that you won't revoke that, you can't then do anything to them in a court afterwards relating to their use or further distribution. The acronym is a little bit of a stretch, but I thought it would be more easily fit into the GPL, MPL pattern and so be recognised as to do with licensing. It struck me after a while that it was not a license because a license presumes you have some right to exert control. So I used anti-license. It's a notice that the work is placed into the public domain together with a pledge about behavior to expect from the distributor. Also notice that the person making the pledge is not called the licensor (as it isn't a license), and also not the author as the distributor doesn't have to be the author. The CPL presumes people will distribute collections of things where they are not the author, copyright holder, and are barred under existing laws from distributing perhaps. There's also this crappy law against illegal contracts, which may easily affect this in some circumstances. Also there is the requests clause. It tries to say that the CPL distributor won't enforce in court his requests. This seems reasonable enough otherwise that would violate the spirit of the CPL, and would anyway not be a request, but more a threat. And of course the CPL is itself distributed under the CPL, so anyone can change it, call the changed versions whatever they want etc. I suppose the only reasonable request to place on the CPL would be to mark modified versions as modified to avoid confusion, so that people know what they're referring to. Well here we go... comments solicited. Below in text, or here: http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/ (I may edit this as things occur to me, or people comment on things). Adam ====================================================================== Cypherpunks anti-License Intent The intent of the Cypherpunks anti-License (CPL) is to inform users that they are free to use and redistribute the indicated work or any derived or modified work in any manner they choose. Works distributed under the CPL are in the Public Domain. Licensing The CPL is not a license, it does not require the user to do or not do anything; the user does not agree to any terms, because there are no terms, and the user does not need to do anything to indicate acceptance or rejection of the CPL. Non Litigation The CPL serves to pledge to the user that the distributors will behave in a manner consistent with the non-existance of Intellectual Property (IP) laws as far as they are able. The distributors will not use or participate as far as they are able to government legal systems to attempt to enforce requests restricting the use, modifications, or redistribution of the work for perpetuity. The distributor may prefer to be anonymous to preclude attempts to coerce them into enforcing IP laws relating to this work against their will. Requests The work may be distributed with some distributor requests in addition to the CPL. The distributor pledges similarly to not attempt to use IP laws to enforce these requests. Redistribution Users choosing to redistribute this work may change anything about the work, including distributing it under a different license, and adding or removing previous distributors requests. Interpretation The CPL is completely liberal. Here are some examples of implications of this which are not true for many licenses. The user can redistribute the work or a derived or modified work * under a different license of their choosing * with or without source code as they choose * without acknowledging the distributors or authors * with false or innaccurate claims about authorship of the work * advertise without acknowledging the authors Requests can be arbitrary, but are requests only. Example of requests that the distributor may choose to make: * that improvements to the work be drawn to the distributors attention * that improvements to the work be released back to the distributor under the CPL * that the distributors name not be used to advertise derived works without the distributors approval Legacy Considerations The distributor may choose to inform the user of his opinion of the IP status of the work, for example by identifying any IP law restricted aspects such as the copyright holders of parts or the whole of the work, trademark owners of trademarks used in the work, potentially applicable patents on algorithms or ideas contained in the work, but the distributor is not obliged to do so and takes no responsibility for the accuracy of such information. Background The CPL is written from a mindset which derides the very concept of Intellectual Property restrictions as being incompatible with a free society. Cryptographically assured anonymity and anonymous use of Internet resources mean that denizens of cypherspace can ignore copyright, licenses attempting to control use and distribution of works, and patents on ideas. It is not possible to enforce IP laws by calls to government legal systems when the flaunter is strongly anonymous. The enforcement of IP law and anonymity are in direct conflict. To fully enforce IP laws, anonymity would have to be outlawed. Cypherpunks believe this would be a bad thing, because control of information imparts power, and anonymity gives individuals control over disclosure of information about themselves and their actions. ======================================================================
participants (2)
-
Adam Back -
Phillip H. Zakas