Sorry it took me so long to get back to you; I was out of town on an emergency.
I wrote: >> So, what do you recommend for someone who really *wants* to put >> something in the public domain? Rick Moen wrote: >Do you intend that as a real, non-rhetorical question? If so, I Yes. >recommend BSD licence with no advertising clause (or MIT/X). I mean, Not good enough. I don't want to require that subsequent users reproduce a copyright notice or a license text *at all*. I want to waive *all* rights which I have as a consequence of copyright. (I do want to retain any *non-copyright*, non-trade-secret rights I may happen to have.) >why would you _not_ want the shield against warranty claims? That's not the issue, the above is. Do you think that if *I* include a warranty disclaimer, but do not *require* all subsequent redistributors to include one, that *I* would be liable (rather than the subsequent redistributor who failed to include one)? If so, I'd love to know why. >And if that person objects that, no, he really, really wants to destroy >his copyright and make the code be actually (or at least effectively >but for certain so) public domain, then I would advise him that it's an >imperfect world, and nobody knows how to do that without the risk of >creating very troublesome legal questions for the remaining duration of >the copyright term. Well, that's a non-answer. There's absolutely no reason an "effective public domain" license shouldn't be possible. I haven't seen one yet though. >Oddly enough, a UK acquaintance of mine (from OSI license-discuss) was >in contact with several of the notables (including Prof. Lessig) whose >names are cited as founders, to see if they endorsed such site contents >as the "Public Domain Dedication" at >http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ . He reports[2] that >they do not, and apparently the matter is the subject of some >controversy. I have not yet inquired with them directly, though I may >get around to doing so. Interesting. I wrote: >> No such thing. Warranties are incurred by distribution and stuff >>like that, >> not by ownership. Rick Moen wrote: >(Please note that my use of the term "owner" was intended to connote >"author" or "issuer", in this context.) Ah... "owner" meant "copyright holder" to me. :-) > If you are trying to assert >that being the identifiable author of a piece of code that is claimed >to have done harm would not subject you to liability claims, I would >suggest you are mistaken. If I wrote it and kept it secret; and it was distributed without my authorization; and used to cause harm, I am quite sure I would not be subject to any liability claims. Or if I would be, then the legal system is totally off the wall. But we're getting off the topic. -- Nathanael Nerode <neroden at gcc.gnu.org> http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html
