On 21-Jul-1998, Hans Aberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 10:38 +0100 98/07/21, Simon L Peyton Jones wrote:
> >> Do you mean "public domain" literally, i.e. are you renouncing all
> >> copyright? (The source code contains copyright notices, but no
> >> licence, as far as I can see.)
> >
> >No I am not renouncing all copyright. By "public domain" I mean freely
> >available for anyone to use for any purpose other than making money
> >by selling the compiler itself. That isn't a formal definition,
> >but I'm sure you see the intent.
>
> The wording "public domain" is not a legal or otherwise well-defined
> concept,
IANAL, but I believe the phrase "public domain" is a well-defined concept.
It does not mean why Simon L Peyton Jones means by it, though.
If something is public domain, then anyone can use it for anything.
> so the advice to anybody writing publicly distributed software is
> claim the copyright, and then specify what rules there should be for its
> use.
Yes, indeed. Copyright law forbids anyone from copying software without the
copyright owner's permission (except for certain specific circumstances,
e.g. "fair use").
> But the conditions should be spelled out in the copyright notice, I think.
Definitely.
--
Fergus Henderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh> | of excellence is a lethal habit"
PGP: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- the last words of T. S. Garp.
