<story><title>A New Code License: The MIT, This Time with Attribution Required</title><url>http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-license-the-mit-this-time-with-attribution-required</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greggman</author><text>Why can&amp;#x27;t SO just say, &amp;quot;If you post code here it&amp;#x27;s public domain&amp;quot; (or some other license that says no action required, no attribution required, copy at will)&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve posted quite a bit of code on SO. I don&amp;#x27;t want attribution. That is not my goal. That&amp;#x27;s is an anti-goal for me. I don&amp;#x27;t want to make it harder to use code in my code. I want to make it easier. I don&amp;#x27;t even want a link back to SO.&lt;p&gt;Sure if I write some 1000+ line library on github I might want attribution but I have no such desire on SO.&lt;p&gt;Am I a rare case? Do most SO contributors want attribution?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zamalek</author><text>&amp;gt; Do most SO contributors want attribution?&lt;p&gt;The highest voted answer on the original proposal[1] authoritatively asserts that &lt;i&gt;absolutely&lt;/i&gt; everyone wants attribution. It uses the example of O&amp;#x27;Reilly ripping off answers for a book without providing attribution. Like you I get my fix from simply helping people out and I would be overjoyed if someone ripped off an answer of mine and put it in a book (sans attribution). However, like that highest voted answer, don&amp;#x27;t make the mistake of thinking that everyone is the same.&lt;p&gt;The obvious solution is to allow people to choose the license for their answers. That is still a bad solution because it violates this principle:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I don&amp;#x27;t want to make it harder to use code in my code.&lt;p&gt;For that reason I don&amp;#x27;t mind having people providing an attribution code comment when they use my answers because a blanket rule-set is easier to follow than dozens of different rule-sets; especially for something as completely inconsequential as a code snippet.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;a&amp;#x2F;271113&amp;#x2F;168017&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;a&amp;#x2F;271113&amp;#x2F;168017&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>A New Code License: The MIT, This Time with Attribution Required</title><url>http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/272956/a-new-code-license-the-mit-this-time-with-attribution-required</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>greggman</author><text>Why can&amp;#x27;t SO just say, &amp;quot;If you post code here it&amp;#x27;s public domain&amp;quot; (or some other license that says no action required, no attribution required, copy at will)&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve posted quite a bit of code on SO. I don&amp;#x27;t want attribution. That is not my goal. That&amp;#x27;s is an anti-goal for me. I don&amp;#x27;t want to make it harder to use code in my code. I want to make it easier. I don&amp;#x27;t even want a link back to SO.&lt;p&gt;Sure if I write some 1000+ line library on github I might want attribution but I have no such desire on SO.&lt;p&gt;Am I a rare case? Do most SO contributors want attribution?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Shog9</author><text>Apparently this gets weird pretty fast as you try to navigate various legal systems; CC0 is taking a stab at simplifying this, but even that would be potentially problematic on SO.&lt;p&gt;Tim just posted an answer that touches on this: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;questions&amp;#x2F;273015&amp;#x2F;cc0-public-domain&amp;#x2F;273050#273050&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;meta.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;questions&amp;#x2F;273015&amp;#x2F;cc0-public-do...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>