On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:22 -0300, "Marcos Laufer" <mar...@ipversion4.com> wrote: > > Marc Espie wrote: > > On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 06:30:56PM +0000, Miod Vallat wrote: > > > >>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 10:13:34AM -0500, Chris Bennett wrote: > >>> > >>>> I ran into a module on cpan that the author says is licensed as: > >>>> > >>>> You can use this module freely. (Someone complained this is too vague. > >>>> So, more precisely: do whatever you want with it, but be warned that > >>>> terrible things will happen to you if you use it badly, like for > >>>> sending spam, or ...?) > >>>> > >>> Well, he's not actually forbidding any kind of use, does he ? > >>> > >>> So it's free. > >>> > >> I disagree. He does not grant permission to modify, and he does not > >> grant permission to redistribute. That's not free enough. > >> > > > > Sorry, I should have put a huge smiley at the end of my comment. > > What I meant was what Steve Andre said, that this "bad things will happen > > to > > you" is of course not legally binding, but yeah, that licence lacks a lot > > to be a free licence. > > > > > > > > > And what about the ¨do whatever you want with it¨ part? > > Isn´t that permission to do whatever you want with it, like modify it , > redistribute it, etc?
I am no copyright lawyer (thank God), but to me this is still vague. "do whatever you want" could be subject to interpretation and would call into question the author's 'intent'. Better are explicit permissions than vague statements. But still much less vague than any of the GPL licenses. :)
