On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 09:50:27AM +1000, Andrew Kenneth Milton wrote:
> I guess we can summarize now? :-)
>
> 1) If you are the author of software, it's a bad idea to simply release code
> into the Public Domain, mainly because you can't protect your self from
> litigation by placing disclaimers in your code.
I don't remember that coming up. Licensing doesn't necessarily have
anything to do with a copyright. I can tag whatever licensing
restrictions I want on _my distribution_ of a public domain work
(whether I am the original author or not).
As an analogy, take the example of BSD-licensed code where someone
else owns the copyright (like anything in FreeBSD). Provided I follow
the limited restrictions of the BSD-license, I can pile additional
licensing terms on top of that. I am not the copyright holder, but I
can modify the licensing on _my distribution_ of the code (the terms
under which I give it to someone else).
It is the same situation with public domain code. I don't own the
copyright (because no one does), but I can still license my
distribution of the code how ever I want (e.g. THIS SOFTWARE IS
PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES blah, blah,
blah...).
Very sorry I sent this thread to a list rather than just go to the
committer who made the license change.
--
Crist J. Clark [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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