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I really don't get why people don't just declare their work public domain.

It's simple to understand. If it is in the public domain, people can just strip your name from your work. I have always seen the BSD, MIT, and comparable licenses as 'this is effectively in the public domain, but please keep my name on what I wrote, and don't sue me if it causes damage'.



Giving credit as a matter of courtesy is often good behavior. However, neither the modern three-clause BSD license nor MIT require it.


> Giving credit as a matter of courtesy is often good behavior. However, neither the modern three-clause BSD license nor MIT require it.

Read the very first clause of the 3-clause BSD license, and the first condition of the MIT License.

You'll find that they both require you to retain the "above copyright notice" which usually includes a line such as "Copyright (c) <year> <name>".


That's why I specifically wrote "credit" rather than copyright notice. If you distribute modified binaries without code (as you can do with BSD/MIT), there's no copyright notice on code to see.


Then read the second term:

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.




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