Quoting Branden Robinson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > * To my knowledge, in the U.S, a statement from all the copyright > holders of a work is sufficient to place it in the public domain, if > they want to do so before it would otherwise pass into the public > domain through expiration of copyright....
Branden -- Would that it were so! The matter has been the topic of extensive discussion on the OSI license-discuss mailing list, and after a great deal of discussion the issue remains unsettled, but nobody can cite any clear indication of what the legal effect of such as declaration is: There has been no relevant caselaw. o It might be ruled to constitute an irrevocable licences for gratis usage by anyone, for the remainder of the licence term. o It might be ruled to actually _place_ the work in the public domain, but this seems unlikely, as there is no statutory provision for doing so, and it seems unlikely the owner could excuse himself from the duties of ownership through an act of will. o It might have no effect at all. o Or it might have some different effect entirely -- possibly various effects in diverse jurisdictions. In the USA, creative works (including software) published or generated directly by the Federal government are by law not covered by copyright, and thus are public domain ab initio. However, if the work was created by a non-government contractor, it became copyrighted upon creation, and nothing prevents the Feds from _owning_ such copyrights (e.g., as part of the deal with the contractor). Also, prior to 1978-01-01, it was possible to lose copyright protection in the USA through pilot error, e.g., by publishing the work without a valid copyright notice. (For example, it's probable that AT&T UNIX 32V became public domain in that fashion, as indicated by the judge's preliminary ruling in the AT&T v. UC Regents lawsuit. See: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/bsdi/930303.ruling.txt) Beginning 1978, however, to bring US law in compliance with treaty, copyright has come into existence automatically whenever you put a (covered) creative work "in fixed form" -- and owners got a five-year grace period to fix any broken copyright notices. It's possible that some software became public domain through that mechanism, but not much -- and you'd potentially have to prove it, in the event of dispute. Other than that, it's a near-certainty that _no_ software of conceivable modern interest has yet reached the public domain: Not enough years have passed. Thus, if/when you see some package on the Net that's described as "public domain", beware: That usually just means that the person writing that descriptions is dangerously ignorant of copyright law, and you incorporate such code into larger works at your peril. More at: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/public-domain -- <BLINK>Resize your browser so the following line touches both margins!</BLINK> <HR WIDTH="75%"> Best Regards, Rick Moen, [EMAIL PROTECTED]