On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 11:04 AM, David Cantrell <da...@cantrell.org.uk> wrote: > On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 03:44:14PM -0400, David Golden wrote: >> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 1:50 PM, Barbie <bar...@missbarbell.co.uk> wrote: >> > Can we also have "public" for Public Domain, or is this what >> > "open_source" represents? >> It's not clear that "public domain" is a valid legal status, >> particularly in many countries. >> >> C.f. http://rosenlaw.com/lj16.htm > > That article looks solely at software. Distributions on the CPAN are > not just software. I can imagine *lots* of applications that combine > perl code (under a licence such as BSD or whatever) and a public domain > work. If you're going to allow multiple licences (which IMO is > necessary) then there's a place for "public domain" in the list.
It's a general point, because "software" is only licensable because code is protected by copyright. (Thus, the term "copyleft"). It's murky legal territory and IANAL. But everything I've read about "public domain" says "don't do it" -- just use a permissive license instead. E.g. http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0_FAQ. -- David
