+Inf. "Public domain" doesn't mean what one might think it means. Most importantly, it doesn't mean much outside U. S. jurisdictions.
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:14 PM, David Golden <xda...@gmail.com> wrote: > 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 > -- There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'. It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen
