Scott: Posting this back to the list. Hope you don't mind; I think the others on this list could benefit from your reply.
On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 12:01 PM, Scott Elcomb <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Jonathan Yu <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi all: >> >> I'm working on a module that will be released into the Public Domain. >> It contains some code that is, itself, in the public domain by another >> author. >> >> There has been a lot of discussion on the implications of Public >> Domain software in places that do not have the notion of Public >> Domain, particularly on the Debian list about copyright law in >> Germany. >> >> What I did to get around this is provide a clause in the module like so: >> >> # All rights to this package are hereby disclaimed and its contents released >> # into the public domain by the author. Where this is not possible, you may >> # use this file under the same terms as Perl itself. >> >> So it's released into the public domain, but also the Perl license >> (Artistic + GPL) to get around this problem. I have chosen thus far to >> reflect this in the Build.PL as: license => 'unrestricted' (ie, >> unrestricted distribution). > > Hi Jonathan, > > I can't provide any suggestions to this, but it seems (to me anyway) > that releasing under the Public Domain would automatically preclude > any other licensing terms. Is that not the heart (if not point) of > Public Domain? The idea is that the module is public domain (do whatever you want with it, no terms, no copyright), however, in certain jurisdictions that don't allow public domain, or where an author chooses to do so, the module may be used under the terms of Artistic/GPL. Basically this is no different from *just* public domain in countries that support the idea of it, since, if something is public domain, you can do whatever you want with it, including putting it under a different license. That's my understanding of public domain, anyway, but I'm not a lawyer. > > Anyway, I'm not sure if it's of any value to you however the folks > behind the Creative Commons licenses recently released a new "Public > Domain Certification" called CC0 (CC-Zero). You can find more > information here: http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0 I will look into this, but the problem with CC licenses is that they are not "Perl-approved" - that is, they do not have fields in Module::Build's license field, though public domain isn't really a license, it's an explicit statement that there need be no licensing because there is no ownership of copyright. The implications of this are particularly important for Debian packaging. By saying that the code is licensed under (one of) Public Domain (no license), Perl Artistic or GNU GPL, it gets around the restrictions of jurisdictions that do not allow authors to place their work into the public domain. The Perl license itself is either Perl Artistic or GNU GPL. The GPL is incompatible with the Perl Artistic license, but nonetheless, because of the "or" clause, Perl's licensing is not contradictory. You can pick one or the other. If someone decides to fork the Perl code into something else, they can license it as EITHER Perl Artistic OR GPL, or continue to license it as both. > > I look forward to reading the paper you linked-to in your original post. > > Take care and thanks for the though provoking question! > - Scott. > > -- > Scott Elcomb > http://www.psema4.com/ >
