How-To
How To License Your Work With The Do What The Darned Heck You Want To Public License (WTDHPL)
To license your work with The Do What The Darned Heck You Want To Public License (WTDHPL), you need at a minimum provide a statement that the work is released under The Do What The Darned Heck You Want To Public License (WTDHPL) along with your other legal statements, and provide a copy of the license itself (or at least a reference to http://wtdhpl.info for downloading/viewing the license). Providing the plain-text license in a file called WTDHPL.txt or license.txt would be well-suited to computer software; printing the text of the license with your other printed materials might be more appropriate for a more physical work.
For example, you might provide in your documentation or "readme"-type document a copyright statement, a licensing statement, a disclaimer of warranty, and a statement of limitation of liability. Please refer to the examples labeled "Example Legal Text". (The example disclaimer of warranty and statement of limitation of liability are very similar to those used by the Free Software Foundation in the GNU GPL.) (FSF, 2017)
You might also choose to use one of the graphic logos available on the Logos page.
In addition to simply making a statement that your work is licensed with a free license, in this case The WTDHPL, you should then comply with your responsibilities to service that license. This consists of providing access to the things that you grant licensees the rights to.
- In the case of computer software, you should provide or make available (preferably by download) the source code of the software.
- This means providing the complete source code to every released version, clearly labeled as to what version it is (otherwise your licensee can't exercise rights having to do with source code because they can't find the source code of whatever version was conveyed).
- In the case of a published work such as a book, this might not be the book itself, but rather a source document (the document that you edit when you make changes to the book).
- For digital artwork, it might be a high-resolution digital image file, and might contain image layers.
If you don't provide licensees access to the building blocks that you have, and only provide a finished product, then declaring that your work is licensed under The WTDHPL or any other free license may be interesting, but practically fall short, because licensees may not be able to exercise their rights under the license to modify and improve the work and redistribute their modified changes, without those building blocks.
References
The GNU General Public License v3.0, Free Software Foundation, Inc., 2017. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html , accessed Thu., Dec 7, 2017. ↑
Example Legal Text
This work is copyright (c) YYYY by Your-Name. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed under The Do What The Darned Heck You Want To Public License (WTDHPL). You should have received a copy of this license at the same time you received the work. If not, you may refer to http://wtdhpl.info/ for the text of the license.
Disclaimer of Warranty: This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THERE IS NO WARRANTY, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE WORK “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THERE PROVE TO BE ANY DEFECT, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
Limitation of Liability: IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MODIFIES AND/OR CONVEYS THE WORK AS PERMITTED BY ITS LICENSE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF USE OR INABILITY OF USE (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR ANY FAILURE IN INTEROPERABILITY), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.