This is my understanding as well. IIRC, copyright attaches automatically upon creation, and there's no way to disclaim all intellectual property rights under the Berne Convention.
I suppose one could theoretically release something anonymously, but that technically would just be a copyrighted work with an unknown author.
As far as code goes, what's wrong with the MIT license?
Although the WTFPL may have been a joke at first, it is substantially similar to your suggestion. It says, in full:
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, December 2004
Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar <sam@hocevar.net>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim
or modified copies of this license document, and
changing it is allowed as long as the name is changed.
DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.
The WTFPL is "recognized" in the sense that several Linux distributions ship software released under it. I don't think it has been "recognized" in boring legal terms by any of the organisations that we normally trust to do such things (FSF or OSI). Apparently Bradley Kuhn of the FSF made an unofficial remark that it's a free software license (and I would agree), but clearly being a free license in spirit and philosophy is not the same as being recognized in a legal context. Have any of the paranoid companies like Google and Microsoft used WTFPL software for anything? I wouldn't recommend using WTFPL unless the point is specifically to make life harder for corporations (which I think is a totally valid thing to do).
> I wouldn't recommend using WTFPL unless the point is specifically to make life harder for corporations (which I think is a totally valid thing to do).
The same effect seems to be obtained by using the AGPL. Funnily enough, the two licenses at the "extreme ends" of free software elicit exactly the same kind of corporate panic. I always hesitate between these two for my works.
I suppose one could theoretically release something anonymously, but that technically would just be a copyrighted work with an unknown author.
As far as code goes, what's wrong with the MIT license?
Although the WTFPL may have been a joke at first, it is substantially similar to your suggestion. It says, in full:
The WTFPL is recognized as a valid open source license: http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/