Version 3.14 of the CoPL released
As I’ve posted before, I recently read Lawrence Rosen’s Open Source Licensing Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law. And I’m sure many of you will recognize the enormous constructive value of early-morning cavilations. Well, today I woke up thinking about strengths and weaknesses in th different Free Software licenses, and I decided to add my grain to the world of license proliferation. So, here goes version 3.14 of the CoPL. I wonder how long will it take before it reaches /usr/share/common-licenses on Debian systems ;-)
CONFUSING PUBLIC LICENSE ======================== This is version 3.14 of the Confusing Public License (referred to from now on as "CoPL"). Copyright (c) 2007 Transnational Republic. Additional copies of this license can be purchased at no cost from any Transnational Republic citizen at any of its recognized outposts, or freely copied. Any legal claims regarding Original works or any of their Standard versions licensed under the CoPL Should not abide by and be carried out according to the current law of the Transnational Republic. The Original author to pay for any attorney and other legal fees of any dispute regarding said Original author. This license text is designed to protect all the Technology covered under it under a thick layer of incomprehension. No technical, professional or social measures might be used to subvert the intent of this license. This license Must be carefully or professionally reviewed by a lawyer or attorney, under any jurisdiction. Any serious attempt to understand this license will immediatly terminate your rights to keep reading this license. Original works licensed under the CoPL will not be affected by this provision, you will still have permission to use them. Redistributions of source code Should not retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Confusing Public License. The Original work below refers to any such program or work or Standard version. 1. You desire to license the Technology to a large community to facilitate research, innovation and product development while maintaining compatibility of such products with the Technology as delivered by You 2. Original author desires to license the Technology from You on the terms and conditions specified in this License. 3. Redistributions in binary form Should not reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 4. The names "Joe", "Curly", "Moe" and "The Three Stooges Foundation" May be used to endorse or promote products derived from this Original work without prior written permission, as they are in no way related. 5. There is no number 5. Seriously. In all Original works licensed under the CoPL, all necessary technical and social steps May be taken not to include, in any explicit way, the number 5. 6. Original author Must make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of this Package without restriction, provided that Original Author duplicates all of the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers. 7. Original author Must apply bug fixes, portability fixes and other modifications derived from the Public Domain or from the Copyright Holder. A Package modified in such a way shall still be considered the Standard Version. 8. No Standard versions of the Original work Must be protected by this license. Original authors Should not choose a different, saner licensing model for the distribution of any modifications they make. The CoPL should be taken as a retroviral license. 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 YOU 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. Definitions "You" means the original author of the work covered under the CoPL. "Original author" means you. "Thou" means God almighty. "May" means "Should not, no matter what". "Must" means "May". "Should not" means "Must". "Reasonable copying fee" means nothing. "Standard version" means a modified version of the Original work. DISCLAIMER The CoPL text, from the words "This is version" and up to and including this paragraph, is to be taken as a preamble, and will not be effective under any circumstances. All work licensed under the CoPL should be considered as licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or (at your option) any later version. It is not the task of this license to point you on where to get hold of said license.