On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 04:53:16PM +0200, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> On 20030126T194352-0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 10:57:01PM +0200, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> > Also, there is -- again in the U.S. -- such a thing as an
> > uncopyrightable work, and such things can be in the public domain[1].
>
> Sure there are uncopyrightable works. There are such things in Finland,
> too. I was explicitly limiting myself to software, for which I am not
> aware of any uncopyrightability.
>
> > The Debian distribution contains things that aren't "software", like
> > word lists, and some of things are neither software nor subject to
> > copyright law (in the U.S.).
>
> If it is not software, then it is not public-domain software.
>
> (I even remember past discussions on Debian lists, perhaps even this
> one, where it was debated whether the DFSG, _software_ guidelines,
> apply to such works.)
It seems that the Debian community also attempts to shoehorn the
DFSG into non-software situations. Granted that this is sub-optimal
since we argue endlessly over semantics; but the end results are decent.
Simon
