bowdenweb

wtfpl Licensing….ytf Are You Not Using It?

I am extremely proud to announce that I am licensing this blog in it’s entirety into the public domain via wtfpl (Do What the Fuck You Want To Public License). Touted as the freest of all licenses, wtfpl lives up to its name: anything being licensed through it is wide-open for public consumption. Using wtfpl is also a great step to take if you believe in open source and fsf, more importantly if you believe in webcomm.

I found out about wtfpl about a year ago via the great Paul Irish, however it was introduced by one Sam Hocevar, both of whom we all should thank and be grateful to have such balls out trailblazers lighting the way.

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License cc by 3.0

cc by 3.0 is also an extremely open license and gives your content more of a polished/professional touch, mainly because it comes with the Creative Commons seal of approval…..and it doesn’t have the word fuck in it. cc by 3.0 is certainly the route you want to go if you are in a corporate/restrictive/less open-minded (read douchebag-filled) environment.

gpl (GNU General Public License v3.0)

gpl is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. Again, nearly identical to wtfpl, just missing the cursing. gpl is supported by the fsf; if you choose to rock the gpl, you are simultaneously supporting open source and webcomm and automagically have earned your place into heaven.

Don’t forget the Microformats!

Regardless of the license you choose, don’t forget to add microformats goodness to them so they can be interpreted by machines as well. This is achieved by simply adding the microformats html attribute rel="license" to the referencing a element. The example below is the implementation I’ve pasted into my blog:

<a class="fwtfpl" href="http://bowdenweb.com/wp/wtfpl.html"><abbr title="Do What the Fuck You Want Public License">wtfpl</abbr></a>