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I have often heard that I should not use the Unlicense because of issues regarding putting things into the public domain. However, I do not understand why this would be an issue for the Unlicense. The Unlicense attempts to put whatever is being unlicensed into the public domain, and if that works, awesome! However, the author of the Unlicense understands that putting something into the public domain is not so simple, it may even be impossible, and therefore the Unlicense contains a backup clause (the 2nd paragraph) which clearly states that everyone is free to do whatever they want with the Unlicensed software. The Unlicense even includes a disclaimer containing the usual "this software is provided as-is blah blah" legalese.

Is the Unlicense bad because it is short and doesn't define who the "unlicensor", the "unlicensee" and Santa Claus is? If yes, then what about the MIT/BSD-style licenses? They are generally considered to be valid, so why isn't the Unlicense? Is the opposition to public domain waivers with permissive license backup clauses, such as the Unlicense, and even the Creative Commons CC0, just FUD or are there really major legal issues with them?

Here is the full text of the Unlicense:

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 http://unlicense.org/

cgt
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    Can you link to someone that is discussing the issues that you're concerned about? – Justin Cave May 03 '12 at 15:47
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    There is nothing wrong with this question. It's common knowledge that the concept of public domain doesn't exist in all areas, and this is a valid question about if this particular license is suitable and valid for software projects. – Thomas Owens May 03 '12 at 15:55
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about a license issue. – Jim G. Jul 08 '14 at 01:08
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    @JimG. Software licensing is a valid topic for this site. – cgt Jul 09 '14 at 01:30
  • Use 0BSD which was created earlier but doesn't have any issues as the Unlicense and used by a Google itself in Android (Toybox) – Sergey Ponomarev Apr 28 '23 at 14:36
  • https://opensource.org/license/unlicense/ – Adam Aug 05 '23 at 10:54

2 Answers2

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(Disclaimer: IANAL - for reliable advice on legal issues, ask a lawyer.)

See the discussion on the OSI mailing list for some of the immediate issues with the license. My interpretation:

  • It's not global. It doesn't make sense outside of a commonwealth ecosystem, is explicitly illegal in some places (Germany), and of unclear legality in others (Australia)
  • It's inconsistent. Some of the warranty terms cannot, logically, co-exist, given the current legal ecosystem, as written, with the licensing terms.
  • Its applicability is unpredictable. The license is short, clearly expressing intent, at the cost of not carefully addressing common license, copy-right and warranty issues. It leaves a lot of leeway interpretation - meaning that, in the US, it will take a few trials before you can reliably know when the license is applicable, and how.

Personally, I think of the license as having been written in human-readable pseudo-code, without having been properly compiled yet to a given set of legal systems.

V2Blast
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blueberryfields
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  • Thank you for the answer. Do you know anything about the legal validity of the CC0? – cgt May 03 '12 at 17:01
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    It looks like CC0 has done a much better job at the "compilation", including making sure the license degrades gracefully in systems where it's not possible to legally apply parts of it. I'm not a lawyer - but it looks like there's a body of work discussing the finer points of where the CC0 applies and where it doesn't, meaning it's written well enough for the legal system to take seriously. So I'd say, reliable, but no guarantee it works as written everywhere. – blueberryfields May 03 '12 at 17:15
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    (which might be as good as it gets to these types of licenses) – blueberryfields May 03 '12 at 17:16
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    @blueberryfields I'm curious, why the Unlicense is illegal in Germany? I couldn't find it on Google... – Metalcoder Oct 02 '13 at 13:57
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    @Metalcoder looks like the stackexchange question i was referencing has been deleted. Again, I'm not a lawyer, so don't take this as 100% true, but, as I understand it, in Germany it is explicitly illegal for anyone to relinquish all rights, in perpetuity, to the public domain; there is no easy graceful way to degrade built into the law - you're expected to list, in excruciating detail, how all of the related legal cases are to be handled; judges are much more hesitant there, in general, to attempt to decipher intent and judge based on that. – blueberryfields Oct 02 '13 at 15:13
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    This means that, for example, if you unlicence a piece of software, in Germany, technically, your inheritors still might own some of the relevant rights, and might be able to start going after people for money, or with cease and desist letters, after you've passed away. Or you can change your mind, and do this. Meaning that unlicensing your software makes it potentially dangerous for german companies to use – blueberryfields Oct 02 '13 at 15:15
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    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights for some kinds of rights regarding copyright which are non-transferable. Also in Japan, we are uncertain about validity/applicability of FOSS licenses and "public domain." – nodakai Nov 21 '14 at 01:20
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    @blueberryfields, wrt to your "it's not global": the succeeding "it's applicabilty is unpredictable" is a reasonable interpretation of the german statute, as is your later comment with respect to eventual enforcement, but the characterisation as "illegal" is not. –  Jan 11 '15 at 11:46
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    You say in Germany it is illegal - does that only apply to unlicensing software being a German or is it illegal too to use unclicensed software/code from another country e.g. for commercial use? – Luca Steeb Oct 03 '15 at 18:52
  • just do a damm german compliant unlicense? unlicense 2? still not convinced :/ – 94239 Jan 11 '16 at 22:37
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    @uprego please read the answer, specifically the part that says "without having been properly compiled yet to a given set of legal systems." - you're asking exactly for the part which no one has hired lawyers to implement (and maintain up to date). your donations of money to pay for said laywers, i assume, are going to be immediately welcome :) – blueberryfields Jan 11 '16 at 22:47
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    And then when you've created "unlicense 2", make a website which hosts all of the unlicensed code, and releases it under "unlicense 2". (You're allowed to do this because... hey! it's unlicensed!) . ...and then what will that mean? It means german copyright law just exploded in a puff of logic – Harry Wood Jun 10 '16 at 15:06
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    So what are people to do when they genuinely don't care about the copyright or legality of it all and just want to give their software away with the least BS in the way as possible? CC0? Is that all there is? Or no license? – Olical Mar 28 '17 at 14:08
  • @Olical Not putting any license means that you retain all copyright, and makes your software effectively unusable. I don't know what is the best option, but many people recommend CC0, so that should be fine. *EDIT*: what you can probably do, is dual-license the code under the CC0 or the Unlicense, "at your option". I'm not aware of any drawback of doing this, but there may still be some hidden legal issues. It's very sad that we don't have a simple, global legal means of dedicating works to the Public Domain. – Suzanne Soy Mar 30 '17 at 12:16
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    @GeorgesDupéron While you can probably try ot dual-license using CC0 and Unlicense, it is really a liar paradox - in one place you claim to release the code to the public domain, in the other, you grant some license to use the code - which assumes that you are in a position to license the code, which assumes that the code is *not* in the public domain. (Also not a lawyer, just saying that the *intent* isn't even clear). – lrn Apr 03 '17 at 10:30
  • This is not logical, not even in Germany, because the original author WAIVED COPYRIGHT FOR HIS OWN WORK. The state is not allowed to steal software and relicence it as it sees fit like insinuated above. – shevy Aug 27 '17 at 08:15
  • Who exactly is going to sue who for violating the unlicense? There's nothing to violate. – hasen Apr 12 '18 at 03:21
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    The Unlicense was recently [submitted to OSI](https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004795.html) for legacy approval. While the license isn't particularly well-written and dangerously unclear, I think it will get approved soon because it is clearly open source per the Open Source Definition. – amon Apr 23 '20 at 09:34
  • @amon [And OSI rejected Unlicense](https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-March/004799.html) because it plays with "Public Domain". – gavenkoa Jan 31 '21 at 08:59
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    @gavenkoa You're citing an email that I wrote. It is my opinion and not official OSI communication. Despite my efforts, the Unlicense was eventually recognized as an OSD-compliant Open Source license by the OSI: http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/2020-June/004890.html – amon Jan 31 '21 at 09:12
  • @amon So https://opensource.org/licenses/unlicense My search led to different old discussions with negative reviews. Haven't checked official status. – gavenkoa Jan 31 '21 at 15:06
  • so if I selected Unlicense in github when first creating the repo, times goes by, lots of commits, can I change my mind and goto MIT? – Andrew Arrow Apr 24 '21 at 22:58
  • So..... given OSI approval, it looks like the answer to this question should be "There is nothing wrong with the Unlicense"? – Xunnamius Jul 31 '21 at 00:08
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    @Metalcoder I know it's been the better part of a decade, but, to answer your question, this [analysis of the CC0](https://rd-alliance.org/sites/default/files/cc0-analysis-kreuzer.pdf) provides good insight into what a public domain dedication must do in order to work well in Germany. – ssokolow Oct 04 '21 at 04:06
  • @LucaSteeb, in Germany, if you write software, you and nobody else has the right to claim that they wrote the software. Even if I'm paid by my employer, the employer does not have the right to claim authorship. They can claim copyright, but not authorship. This right cannot be sold or given away. If a license allowed you to claim that you wrote the software when you didn't, that would be void in Germany. Now you have to get a lawyer to figure out how much one invalid term in the license affects the rest of the license. – gnasher729 May 30 '22 at 08:07
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Doesn't work for Google

Forbidden patches

Our general philosophy is that we do not allow patches to projects that Google cannot use, either because of the terms of the license or Google policy. For example, we can’t use software that restricts commercial use, and so we don’t contribute to those projects. In some cases, you may be able to contribute to these projects via IARC.

You can’t patch projects with any of the following licenses:

  • No License

  • WTFPL

  • AGPL (except those with special exceptions)

  • Public domain dedications (including CC0 and Unlicense)

    • Exceptions: United States government projects; BSD0.

  • CC BY-NC-* (this restricts Google’s access to that code)

  • Hippocratic License or similar “Ethical Source” licenses (not OSI approved)

  • Private repositories (unless under a written agreement between Google and a third party)

Jay
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    This is Google's internal policy and doesn't explain what's wrong with the license. – user253751 Oct 15 '20 at 11:37
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    Google’s policy prohibits “Public domain dedications”. It has nothing to do with explaining why Unlicense is a bad way to dedicate your work to Public domain. – kirelagin Oct 15 '20 at 23:22
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    Frankly, I consider the fact Google wouldn't touch public domain code to be a nice bonus rather than a negative - it's not a bug, it's a feature! – Pharap Oct 21 '22 at 14:20