Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes: > Ben Finney writes ("Re: Public domain and DEP-5-compliant debian/copyright"): > > Rather, I think such a declaration is not established to be an > > effective divestment of copyright in all the jurisdictions where > > Debian recipients operate, and the risk to them is unacceptable — > > Are you aware of _any_ case where a piece of software was released > with a statement from its copyrightholders saying it was "public > domain", but where later the copyrightholders reneged on the implied > permissions ?
I'm not. But we are both well aware of cases where a later, *different* copyright holder makes an already-distributed work non-free by taking advantage of unclear or contradictory terms in that work's copyright status. > We're not talking about a situation where the whole thing might be a > deliberate trap. If someone like IBM or Oracle came out with a `public > domain' statement we should be very suspicious - but that's not (ever) > what we're dealing with. The copyright holder can change. If Oracle or IBM acquire copyright in the work, does that count as “coming out with” a public domain statement? I'd say that question doesn't much matter. What does matter in that case is that the work would simultaneously have a past assertion of public domain status, and also lack a clear grant of license. That's a situation to avoid, and we can't avoid the future copyright acquisition; we can only avoid accepting that work without clear grant of copyright license in the first place. > > [the risk is unacceptable] especially because it's quite easy for > > the copyright holder to correctly apply a known simple free-software > > license that grants all the relevant permissions. > > I don't see how it allegedly being `easy' to fix increases the risk to > Debian and our users and downstreams. The risk isn't increased, it stays the same. The risk becomes less acceptable, because it's quite easy to avoid: just apply a known-enforcible widely-understood free software license. -- \ “Anyone who puts a small gloss on [a] fundamental technology, | `\ calls it proprietary, and then tries to keep others from | _o__) building on it, is a thief.” —Tim O'Reilly, 2000-01-25 | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/85mw8zy5a9....@benfinney.id.au