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Validity of the post aside, there are real-world examples of this license being abused by third parties. Given the cost is very low to just change the license, I think it might be worth considering.


To be clear, the issue we are talking about here does not exist for the CC0 license TinySSH is using. CC0 lacks a termination clause, it wouldn't make sense for it to have one. It only exists for other CC licenses, like the (earlier versions of) CC-BY(-NC/-SA).

CC0 has other issues – some people (e.g. Red Hat Legal) are concerned about its language explicitly excluding patent and trademark rights, and think that is legally inferior to other public domain declarations (such as The Unlicense) which don't mention that topic at all.

In a declaration/license in which patents and trademarks go unmentioned, if the original author sues you on those grounds, you can try to argue that by releasing the software they gave you an implied patent/trademark license – that argument may or may not win in Court, but at least it has a chance. With language in the declaration/license explicitly excluding patents and trademarks (like CC0 has), that argument is likely dead-on-arrival.




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