The following text is included in all my own open-source software:
I, Tom Vajzovic, am the author of this software and its documentation and permanently abandon all copyright and other intellectual property rights in them, including the right to be identified as the author.
I am fairly certain that this software does what the documentation says it does, but I cannot guarantee that it does, or that it does what you think it should, and I cannot guarantee that it will not have undesirable side effects.
You are free to use, modify and distribute this software as you please, but you do so at your own risk. If you remove or hide this warning then you are responsible for any problems encountered by people who obtain the software from you.
Note that the Truly Free Licence (TFL) is not in fact a licence at all, but it is truly free.
‘Licence’ means permission. You do not have my permission to:
but nor do you need my permission to do these things. I have given up the power to stop you from doing them.
I would ask that if you are thinking about using, packaging, distributing or modifying my software that you get in touch with me before you expend any serious effort. I might have already done what you are thinking of, I might know a good reason why it won't work, or I might want to help you. I will incorporate patches to my software, and include the authors' names in the source, but only if you agree to the TFL text above. If you don't agree with it then there is nothing to stop you distributing patches or forking under any licence at all.
I wrote the above text as a rejection of the status-quo in both open- and closed- source software. As a naïve Christian I want to try to bend over backwards to help people. My daily work pays me more than enough to put food on the table, so I cannot morally justify not giving this software away, in a truly free way. The part about identification as the author is to encourage me to remember to give up my ego along with it.
I wrote it the way I did because I don't like legalese mumbo-jumbo. A document does not have more force in law if it uses long words, or if it uses legal-sounding terms, like “INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL”. In fact all that is required is a clear statement of the desired meaning.
In particular I find the whole all-capitals section of the Gnu GPL a bit silly (as well as difficult to read). I can imagine someone shoutting that part out, very slowly, with a lot of unnecessary venom.
I also don't like people misrepresenting the meaning of words. The Gnu GPL is a communist licence, not one which is “free as in freedom”. GPL software is free of monetary cost, but certainly not free of encumbrances. I do not dislike voluntary communism like this, but it isn't any more morally right than commercial software distribution.
I am currently paid to write software. The copyright in it is ownded by my university, and some of it is distributed under the Gnu LGPL. In the past, closed source software has paid my rent, and it probably will again, but while I am writing free software in my own time, it is Truly Free.