s11n is here to Save Our Data, man!
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s11n's software license
The vast majority of the source code released by this project is released into the Public Domain. There are some source files which are released under other, Open Source, licenses, all of which allow the user to distribute and modify them without placing one's own code under the licenses used by those files.
Some have asked me why not release under the GPL or LGPL. The answer, while not popular, is simple:
i find the GPL to be only slightly less draconian than traditional copyrights, patents and "exclusive" licenses. Despite the assertions by GPL advocates, software released under the GPL does not guaranty freedom because it inherently forces the users into a set of license-restricted conventions. As Alan W. Watts so wonderfully put it:
"... pleasure is a grace and is not obedient to the commands of the will."which i will bend a bit to:
"... Freedom is a grace and is not obedient to the commands of the will."Freedom implies having a choice, and the GPL leaves us with no room for choices. (On the other hand, i do quite like the LGPL.)
While i cannot discount the Great Things that the GPL has helped bring to the development community (and the computing world as a whole), i do not feel compelled to use it in my own source code.
In my opinion, any ideas worth publishing should be placed into the Public Domain. The reasons for this are long, philosophical and probably very boring/uninteresting, so they are not detailed here.
All of that said: a BSD-, Apache- or Boost-style license is under consideration, as "Public Domain" seems to make some people think that nobody truly claims responsibility for maintaining this project (which, in fact, is quite far from the truth!).