Open source license

[ajmeese7]

Hey boss, I know this issue is similar to #18, but I'm experiencing an issue using your cyrb53 implementation:

We cannot accept this algo (or derivations thereof) due to its problematic usage rights situation. The author has claimed to have made this "public domain", but such a claim is invalid in some jurisdictions. I have not found an OS license attributed to this code by the author. If you have found that anywhere, please provide the link.

Any chance you'd be willing to throw a license into the repo to satisfy these conditions? Your code works perfectly for my use case and I'd love to see it implemented in the project I'm working on.

[bryc]

I'm not going to revoke dedication to the public domain (to do so would undermine the public domain and feels wrong - such a declaration should be immutable). The best I can do is move my PD statement to a root LICENSE.md file so it covers the entire repo.

If this is unacceptable to that project's team, I'm sorry, but I'm sure large projects like SQLite which are also public domain would not start using GPL or MIT on request just because North Korea lacks a public domain.

Quick suggestion: Any hash 64-bit or higher can be truncated to a 53-bit Number and will function identically.

[ajmeese7]

Fantastic, thank you! That would be great, if that doesn't work for the other project then I will follow your suggestion and implement a different solution.

Thanks for your quick reply, cheers!

[mtrezza]

Just my 2ct, because I find this an interesting conundrum. On one hand it seems to be the "ultimate giveaway" to declare something to enter the public domain. On the other hand it just doesn't seem to be legally effective in some jurisdictions. It doesn't come as a surprise, given the complexity and plurality of authorship and copyright laws worldwide.

Legal certainty when it comes to open source contributions is paramount. For SQLite, we can see how complex the effort to release something into the public domain can be; from a custodian of legally reviewed contracts that contributors need to sign, to the evaluation of where these contributors are based and under what jurisdiction they enter that agreement, to the availability of paid legal attestation of copyright status.

In my personal opinion there should be an easier way to relinquish all rights to a piece of work and let it enter the public domain, so that it holds up in every jurisdiction worldwide. I think we are not there yet.

Maybe a solution could be to add a fallback OS license, in cases where the way of declaring something to be public domain is legally void. And even in a country where something can be entered into the public domain, a simple "I declare this to be public domain" may not be legally enough.

[bryc]

A fallback license seems reasonable enough. I added MIT as a fallback license, see: https://github.com/bryc/code/blob/master/LICENSE.md

I am of course no lawyer, but this seems like an acceptable compromise. Those with a public domain can utilize it as such, those without, get their beloved MIT. If there's some nuance I'm missing let me know.

I looked into things like 0BSD, MIT0, Unlicense and Fair License, but seems that there's always at least someone who has a problem with a given license, so MIT it is. It seems simple enough.

It's really a shame that things can't just be declared as public domain. I know the obvious thing to do would be to just slap MIT on everything. But it feels wrong to me that random organizations/entities get all this free endorsement through mandatory document attachments. Not to mention a lot of OSS licenses (typically copyleft) get violated in certain foreign countries, and nothing can be done about it really except not make your code public. And it's just easier to say "fine, i'm making this free and unrestricted to everyone, enjoy, do whatever you want". because even if i didn't want it to be used in closed source or commercial software, i'd still need to pay a lawyer to defend it. But that's life I guess. 😄

[mtrezza]

Nice, I believe that's a good outcome and this issue can be closed.