Reason for going from MIT to Unlicense?

[paazmaya]

I am just curious, what was the reason to make 2589d34 happen?

I was about to request changing to MIT license from Unlicense, but instead opened this question...

[shinnn]

Just what the stacktrace.js maintainer said. stacktracejs/stackframe#13 (comment)

[paazmaya]

Thank you for the clarification

[BMillsVT]

Would you consider dual-licensing it under the MIT License and the Unlicense? My company tries to steer clear of the Unlicense.

[shinnn]

Final conclusion: 99503b7

Would you consider dual-licensing

No.

[BMillsVT]

@shinnn

Thanks for the quick response. I understand your point of view, but others have argued (and our lawyers at least agree enough to make it off limits) that the Unlicense causes more issues than it solves.

For example:

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.

Would you consider using the CC0 license? Apparently that's "better" at being a public domain dedication since it has a better fall back clause. We'd really like to use your code.

Also, if you're interested the OSI has a couple FAQs that talk about the issues associated with public domain dedications. (https://opensource.org/faq#public-domain)

[shinnn]

Click the link in #5 (comment) and check it more carefully.

[BMillsVT]

Thanks!