Jul 4, 2026, 5:14 PMWhat's the current most permissive license for code and algorithms? I thought it was MIT, but apparently there's problems with it? CC0 doesn't feel quite right - isn't that more for art/assets?
STB seems to have two licenses - MIT and "Public Domain (www.unlicense.org)". I guess I could just copy what STB does?
Jul 4, 2026, 5:17 PM@TomF wtfpl
Jul 4, 2026, 5:23 PM@TomF although for more serious work I'd probably use zlib/libpng still.
Jul 4, 2026, 5:18 PM@TomF MIT is probably the way to go, Unlicense is a bit less known and may result in people deciding not to use whatever it is due to uncertainty while MIT is understood and permitted by basically all licensing lawyers.
Jul 4, 2026, 6:13 PM@JamesWidman @jon Reading up, I believe it's this specific line:
"The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."
...and the question is whether that means e.g. a game that uses STB needs to include the license (seems like "no", but lawyers...)
There's a MIT No Attribution version that just removes that line.
Jul 4, 2026, 5:19 PM@TomF the unlicense seems to be OSI approved if that means anything to you https://spdx.org/licenses/
Jul 4, 2026, 5:28 PM
@TomF MIT is fine. worrying about it is a waste of time because nobody enforces this stuff anyway.
@TomF and if you don't want commercial use then release it with a license that says "nobody is allowed to use or distribute this software for any purpose".
regular people will use it anyway because who cares, you're not going to even know let alone sue them. but companies will balk at it, so objective achieved.
@gsuberland @TomF There’s MIT-0, which removes basically every condition including attribution
Sometimes I’ve used an atribution-only edit of the ISC license:
Copyright © Year, Author
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH
REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT,
INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM
LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
I like the ISC license because it removes language from the MIT license rendered unnecessary by the Berne convention.
@gsuberland @TomF Oh there’s an even more minmal ISC edit confusingly called 0BSD in the OSI database.
@erincandescent @TomF imho it doesn't really matter what the text of the license is, as much as the social expectation.
I could write a file called "MIT_LICENSE.TXT" in my project that contains the GPL and I guarantee 99% of users would assume it's MIT licensed without bothering to read the license text.
whether or not a particular clause is present or not is practically immaterial outside of commercial consumption, 'cos the text isn't the point. it's a social signpost.
@erincandescent @TomF (and I maintain that licenses are irrelevant for the target users of the vast majority of people's personal projects, and are only useful for hindering corporate adoption, which means that the only useful license is one that essentially either says "fuck off" or "fuck you pay me")
Jul 4, 2026, 6:06 PM@TomF if you are fine with public domain, then yes copying STB makes sense. It has MIT due to some countries (Germany?) not appreciating public domain
Jul 4, 2026, 8:40 PM@Doomed_Daniel @aras Multiple licenses certainly make sense from a "how do I get the lawyers to say yes" - even if MIT isn't perfect, it's a thing they will have already evaluated.
@TomF use MIT and don't worry about it. I prefer CC0.
@TomF public domain is awesome
Jul 4, 2026, 8:58 PM
Jul 4, 2026, 10:00 PM@TomF Your feeling about CC0 is correct
https://hackaday.com/2022/07/29/why-fedora-decided-to-give-cc0-licensed-code-the-boot/
Jul 4, 2026, 10:05 PM@TomF mit-0 or 0bsd afaik