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GitHub doesn't recognize this enough to summarize it, and that last paragraph seems weird to me; is this a customized license of one that I might recognize? https://github.com/chronologicaldot/CopperLang/blob/master/l...

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The license seems self-contradictory. On one hand it says "THIS SOFTWARE MAY BE USED, MODIFIED, REDISTRIBUTED, DECOMPILED, DISASSEMBLED, REVERSE-ENGINEERED AND INCORPORATED INTO OTHER WORKS FREELY"

So, it can be used and incorporated freely, but it also says "YOU ARE NOT GRANTED LEGAL AUTHORITY OVER THE USAGE, PROTECTION, AND DISTRIBUTION OF THIS SOFTWARE." so you don't have legal authority over its usage. IANAL, but that seems to limit one's own authority over one's own work based on this software. It's very confusing.

The guy who wrote it isn't a lawyer either.

What you intend essentially corresponds to the two-clause BSD or the MIT license. Here is a good summary: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/217/what-are-... Your statement "you are not granted legal authority ..." essentially means that you are the copyright owner and don't want to give away your copyright, but only give a license to others as explicitly stated; that's essentially the default in all jurisdictions I'm aware of, so you don't have to repeat it in your license. But if you're in US you might want to register your copyright.

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