WTFPL – Do What the Fuck You Want to Public License

The WTFPL is a very permissive license for software and other scientific or artistic works that offers a great degree of freedom. In fact, it is probably the best license out there. This site provides information on how to make the most of the WTFPL.

About the WTFPL

Posted December 26th, 2012 by Sam Hocevar.

The Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL) is a free software license.

There is a long ongoing battle between GPL zealots and BSD fanatics, about which license type is the most free of the two. In fact, both license types have unacceptable obnoxious clauses (such as reproducing a huge disclaimer that is written in all caps) that severely restrain our freedoms. The WTFPL can solve this problem.

When analysing whether a license is free or not, you usually check that it allows free usage, modification and redistribution. Then you check that the additional restrictions do not impair fundamental freedoms. The WTFPL renders this task trivial: it allows everything and has no additional restrictions. How could life be easier? You just DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO.

Full license text

DO WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT TO PUBLIC LICENSE 
                    Version 2, December 2004 

 Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar <[email protected]> 

 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.

Download

You can download a plain text file for inclusion in your projects.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240715121016/http://www.wtfpl.net/download/

WTFPL Showcase Posted December 27th, 2012 by Sam Hocevar.

Some websites feature collections of works that use the WTFPL.

The WTFPL tag on Freecode (formerly Freshmeat) lists dozens of software entries.

The WTFPL category on Wikimedia Commons lists hundreds of images:

Below is a list of some works that use the WTFPL:

libcaca, a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels

zzuf, a multi-purpose fuzzer

Lol Engine, an experimental framework for games and 3D applications

øbin, a pastebin implementation using encryption

el-get, an elisp package manager for Emacs

AP3, an Objective C 3D graphics and animation framework

bxSlider, a responsive jQuery content slider