>Then it's actually not licensed to anyone, and is thus illegal to use
>by anyone (unless you say otherwise, of course.) You don't have to
>put the © symbol into something for it to be copyrighted (although a
>legal copyright notice, meaning "©", "Copyright", or "Copr", the year,
>and the owner -- see the "Copyright" header of this message -- is
>recommended.)
Correct, in fact you have to explicitely state "I place this code in the
public domain" before it becomes so.
I also think it's a logical conclusion that a patch to a GPL'd program is
released under the GPL - even if you don't specifically say so.
The only problem that may arise is whether a "software program"
is treated differently by the copyright laws than a "bugfix/patch".
I know I've heard people say this was the case.
[ Just to give an example that's not the same as this one, but brings out
issues related to patches and bugfixes ]
Say you voluntarily send a patch to a commercial software vendor without
specifying any restrictions on using it at that time. I seriously doubt
the courts would rule that you are now a part owner of their program.
--
Brian Hayward
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