a quick blogpost about funny software licenses

04 Oct, 2026

Heya!

It's been a while! Mostly just because I've been really busy with life. Oh well, today I wanna talk about my favorite software licenses very briefly.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know much about the legal aspects of software. But i do find software licensing kind of fascinating. Specifically, the idea of forcing people to do very silly things if they want to use your software legally. Yep, we're gonna talk about my favorite joke licenses.

1. JSON License
   This license states that the software "shall be used for good, not evil". we've solved software licensing, everyone! we can all go home now! funnily enough this is the actual, real license for the json reference implementation, i believe? You can go look it up on json.org.

2. Don't ask me about it license
   You may use the software, as long as you don't contact the author. The perfect license, honestly. No notes here.

3. Alternative Variable Chain Public License:
   Forks have to alternate between being commercial and non-commercial. Original source no longer available, summary can be found at this github repo: https://github.com/benlk/misc-licenses

4. Good Luck With That Shit Public License Explicitly forbids giving credit to the original author of the software. Good luck with that shit, it's no longer my fault!

5. Death and Repudiation Public License You may only use the software if you are dead.

6. Fuck your license A software license that disallows everything, including just perceiving the program or text of the license. Because fuck you.

Now, none of these would probably hold up in court... but, it's funny to pretend that they could. And hey, copyright is kind of bullshit anyway, so it's nice to just poke some fun at it while also making your software be effectively unusable by any companies.