[ndriscoll]

Sounds like a smart strategy then. Use an amateur license. People who just want to do stuff know they have your blessing. Corporations will stay away or pay up, not because you made them, but of their own volition. Everyone is happy.

Of course even better is to simply have no explicit license, especially for something like code. Normal people can assume they can do whatever they'd like (basically, public domain). Lawyers will assume they cannot. The only thing stopping someone is their own belief in their self restrictions. i.e. you can use the thing if and only if you don't believe in my authority on the matter.

[iamnotai666]

No explicit license is not basically public domain. In most jurisdictions it means the default is full copyright, so permission is less clear, not more. The practical effect is usually to increase ambiguity rather than grant freedom.

[ndriscoll]

That's the point: it's a rejection of the premise that you need these sorts of terms. You treat the law as the farce it has turned itself into. If people reject the farce, they can use it. If they support the farce, they can't (well, they can, but they think they can't). In a sense, an anarchist's viral FOSS license.

[knorker]

You are essentially saying that shoplifting is legal because as a civilian you are unlikely to get caught.

This is a terrible take. All it takes is a litigious jerk, and you could get bankrupt. And that jerk will be legally in the right.

[ndriscoll]

I'm not. In saying people who want to share their work should just do so. If your goal is to not have terms, don't have terms. Don't lend credibility to the idea that you need to by default.

Consider the war on drugs. Recreational marijuana is still highly illegal everywhere in the US, but there's businesses selling it that operate in plain view. How did we get there? Because people continued to point out how the law delegitimized itself until enforcement has started to become impossible.

[knorker]

You can't unilaterally opt out of copyright. Not in a legal sense. In many jurisdictions not even on the creator side. E.g. Europe commonly doesn't even give creators the option to declare work "public domain". You have to be more specific than that, or it still reserves you the right to sue (and win) against any recipients.

If you want to follow Vaclav Havel's "Living in truth", then I commend you for it. But that's always a legal risk, and we're no longer talking about the law.

[tekne]

You are essentially saying that walking is safe because as a civilian you are unlikely to get robbed.

This is a terrible take. All it takes is an angry mugger, and you could get killed.

[knorker]

Walking is not illegal.

That's why your analogy doesn't work.