All of the code I've released is under the same license as bitcoin itself. Copy away, it's open source 
I'm undecided about the documentation, but RHorning is way out there: it's ridiculous to think anyone will "take over" the protocol by writing a document and keeping it on their own website.
As long as Satoshi distributes the code, he "owns" the network protocol, and I hope it stays that way!
I'm undecided about the documentation, but RHorning is way out there: it's ridiculous to think anyone will "take over" the protocol by writing a document and keeping it on their own website.
As long as Satoshi distributes the code, he "owns" the network protocol, and I hope it stays that way!
I'm just trying to point out one of the problems of a BSD-type license vs. something more substantial like the GPL or Creative Commons suite of licenses, that keep this sort of thing from happening. I was merely trying to point out that such an effort to claim an "all rights reserved" copyright authority could turn into a tar pit legally if somebody wanted to be a real jerk. They might not succeed in the long run and they would certainly get the community ticked off at them in a major way if they tried, but it could be a major mess.
I've seen copyright tricks done with GPL source code that would boggle your mind and other legal tricks that I would have thought to be absurd even with "open source" content.
I'm glad that you've decided to release this under the "same license as bitcoin itself".... which BTW doesn't require "permission" to copy or to reuse in any other manner. I'll ignore the problems of the "advertising clause" for the moment, which has a long history of discussion within the open source/free software copyright community itself that isn't worth getting into on this thread. Citation of the source of the information is something ethical and should be encouraged anyway.