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Don't put your software in the public domain

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  Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-02 00:59 +1000
    Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-06-01 18:44 +0300
    Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-01 13:45 -0700
      Re: Don't put your software in the public domain John Wong <gokoproject@gmail.com> - 2016-06-01 17:00 -0400
        Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-02 13:38 +1000
      Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-02 13:43 +1000
    Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-06-02 18:41 +1200
      Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-02 21:56 +1000
        Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-06-02 22:04 +1000
          Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-06-02 15:26 +0300
            Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-02 18:11 -0700
      Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com> - 2016-06-02 13:52 +0100
      Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-03 19:53 +1000
        Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Michael Torrie <torriem@gmail.com> - 2016-06-03 07:14 -0600
          Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-04 12:02 +1000
            Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-06-04 23:46 -0400
        Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-03 09:15 -0700
          Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Nobody <nobody@nowhere.invalid> - 2016-06-03 21:58 +0100
            Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> - 2016-06-03 18:10 -0700
              Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2016-06-04 09:04 +0100
            Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-04 12:28 +1000
              Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Nobody <nobody@nowhere.invalid> - 2016-06-06 06:54 +0100
                Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2016-06-06 13:36 +0100
                Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-07 01:59 +1000
            Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2016-06-04 08:24 +0100
              Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-06-04 11:24 +0300
                Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2016-06-04 15:12 -0400
                  Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-06-05 00:26 +0300
          Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-06-04 12:12 +1000
          Re: Don't put your software in the public domain Paul Rudin <paul.nospam@rudin.co.uk> - 2016-06-04 08:20 +0100

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#109308 — Don't put your software in the public domain

... because it is extremely unlikely to work. If you actually want your
users to be legally able to use your software without a commercial licence,
use a recognised open licence like the MIT licence. Public domain
dedications are on extremely shaky ground and give your users no
protection.

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html




-- 
Steven

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#109310

Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info>:

> ... because it is extremely unlikely to work. If you actually want
> your users to be legally able to use your software without a
> commercial licence, use a recognised open licence like the MIT
> licence. Public domain dedications are on extremely shaky ground and
> give your users no protection.
>
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html

http://www.wtfpl.net/faq/

I say, abolish the copyright from the laws altogether.


Marko

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#109316

On Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 3:00:05 AM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> ... because it is extremely unlikely to work.

Which is why CC0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ was invented.

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#109317

On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 3:00:05 AM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > ... because it is extremely unlikely to work.
>
> Which is why CC0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ was
> invented.
> --
>

This does not solve the dependency copyright issue.

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#109328

On Thursday 02 June 2016 07:00, John Wong wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 4:45 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> On Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 3:00:05 AM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> > ... because it is extremely unlikely to work.
>>
>> Which is why CC0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ was
>> invented.
>> --
>>
> 
> This does not solve the dependency copyright issue.


I do not know what the dependency copyright issue is.


-- 
Steve

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#109329

On Thursday 02 June 2016 06:45, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

> On Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 3:00:05 AM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> ... because it is extremely unlikely to work.
> 
> Which is why CC0 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ was
> invented.


Very true. The purpose of CC0 is, in a nutshell, to say:

"Put this in the public domain if possible, and if not, have a liberal licence 
to use it for anything you want, with no warranty."

But the question is, since putting things into the public domain is legally 
dubious, the first part is very likely not possible, which makes it just a more 
complicated way of saying:

"... have a liberal licence to use it for anything you want, with no warranty."



-- 
Steve

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#109337

Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html

 From that:
> It might be ruled to create a global licence for unrestricted use. That
 > licence might or might not then be adjudicated to be revocable by subsequent
 > copyright owners (heirs, divorcing spouses, creditors).

If that's possible, then could said heirs, divorcing spouses
and creditors also revoke supposedly permanent rights granted
under an explicit licence? Or is putting the word "irrevocable"
in the licence enough to prevent that?

-- 
Greg

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#109355

On Thu, 2 Jun 2016 04:41 pm, Gregory Ewing wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> 
>> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html
> 
>  From that:
>> It might be ruled to create a global licence for unrestricted use. That
>  > licence might or might not then be adjudicated to be revocable by
>  > subsequent copyright owners (heirs, divorcing spouses, creditors).
> 
> If that's possible, then could said heirs, divorcing spouses
> and creditors also revoke supposedly permanent rights granted
> under an explicit licence? Or is putting the word "irrevocable"
> in the licence enough to prevent that?

Ask a real lawyer :-)

This is why we should use licences that have been written and vetted by
actual lawyers. They're the experts.



-- 
Steven

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#109357

On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 9:56 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Thu, 2 Jun 2016 04:41 pm, Gregory Ewing wrote:
>
>> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>
>>> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html
>>
>>  From that:
>>> It might be ruled to create a global licence for unrestricted use. That
>>  > licence might or might not then be adjudicated to be revocable by
>>  > subsequent copyright owners (heirs, divorcing spouses, creditors).
>>
>> If that's possible, then could said heirs, divorcing spouses
>> and creditors also revoke supposedly permanent rights granted
>> under an explicit licence? Or is putting the word "irrevocable"
>> in the licence enough to prevent that?
>
> Ask a real lawyer :-)
>
> This is why we should use licences that have been written and vetted by
> actual lawyers. They're the experts.

I honestly don't see why people want to put their code into the public
domain, when the MIT license is pretty close to that anyway. What's
the point?

ChrisA

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#109360

Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>:

> I honestly don't see why people want to put their code into the public
> domain, when the MIT license is pretty close to that anyway. What's
> the point?

Why did I put my book translation into the public domain (<URL:
http://pacujo.net/esperanto/literaturo/juho/>)?

Because that's what I felt like doing. If the author has one right to
their work, it is relinquishing all rights to that work. All works will
eventually fall into the public domain anyway; all we are talking about
is the possibility of expediting the inevitable.


Marko

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#109394

On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 12:26:33 AM UTC+12, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> If the author has one right to their work, it is relinquishing all rights to
> that work.

In Europe, you don’t have that right.

> All works will eventually fall into the public domain anyway...

Not if certain large corporations have anything to say about it.

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#109362

On 02/06/2016 07:41, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>
>> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html
>
> From that:
>> It might be ruled to create a global licence for unrestricted use. That
>> licence might or might not then be adjudicated to be revocable by subsequent
>> copyright owners (heirs, divorcing spouses, creditors).
.....
I'm surprised the tax man doesn't have a say; if I disclaim any property/right 
in the UK it might be thought of as an attempt to evade death duties, taxes 
always outlive death :(

-- 
Robin Becker

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#109404

On Thu, 2 Jun 2016 04:41 pm, Gregory Ewing wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> 
>> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html
> 
>  From that:
>> It might be ruled to create a global licence for unrestricted use. That
>  > licence might or might not then be adjudicated to be revocable by
>  > subsequent copyright owners (heirs, divorcing spouses, creditors).
> 
> If that's possible, then could said heirs, divorcing spouses
> and creditors also revoke supposedly permanent rights granted
> under an explicit licence? Or is putting the word "irrevocable"
> in the licence enough to prevent that?

Further thoughts on this question...

A licence is something like a contract, in that it is binding on both
parties unless mutually agreed by both parties. With something like the MIT
licence, there's no action that the licensee (the user of the software) can
do to void the contract. And since there is no expiry date, the licence
lasts forever, hence the author cannot unilaterally cancel the licence.
Even if subsequent copyright owners (heirs etc) stop distributing the
software to *new* users, existing licensees still have the right to
distribute the software.

On the other hand, the GPL can be revoked, since the licence requires the
users to do something: if you distribute software based on the GPLed code,
you must also distribute the source code under the same licence terms. If
the user fails to do so, then one of two things happen:

(1) If the GPL licence is valid, then they are in breach of the licence
terms, the licence is revoked, and they are not legally permitted to
distribute or use the software;

(2) If, as some people insist, the GPL licence is not valid, then they have
no valid licence, and are not legally permitted to distribute or use the
software.

That's why, for all the talk about the GPL never being held up in court,
*nobody* has ever challenged it in court. If they did, and failed, then
they would be in breach of copyright. If they succeeded, they would still
be in breach of copyright. Any user of GPLed software who challenged it
would be shooting themselves in the head: *either way*, win or lose, they
would be in breach of copyright law.


(Reminder: I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)



-- 
Steven

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#109413

On Jun 3, 2016 04:57, "Steven D'Aprano" <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
> (1) If the GPL licence is valid, then they are in breach of the licence
> terms, the licence is revoked, and they are not legally permitted to
> distribute or use the software;
>
> (2) If, as some people insist, the GPL licence is not valid, then they
have
> no valid licence, and are not legally permitted to distribute or use the
> software.
>
> That's why, for all the talk about the GPL never being held up in court,
> *nobody* has ever challenged it in court. If they did, and failed, then
> they would be in breach of copyright. If they succeeded, they would still
> be in breach of copyright. Any user of GPLed software who challenged it
> would be shooting themselves in the head: *either way*, win or lose, they
> would be in breach of copyright law.

I'm not sure this is completely right. The GPL explicitly says one doesn't
have to agree to the GPL to use the software. The GPL only comes into
affect when distribution is involved. So challenging the legitimacy of the
GPL in court (which certainly has happened in Germany) wouldn't prevent one
from using the GPL software. Only from distributing it.

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#109453

On Fri, 3 Jun 2016 11:14 pm, Michael Torrie wrote:

> I'm not sure this is completely right. The GPL explicitly says one doesn't
> have to agree to the GPL to use the software. The GPL only comes into
> affect when distribution is involved. 

Yes, you're right, I was unclear. 

See https://opensource.org/licenses/GPL-2.0

in particular clause 5. The GNU Library General Public License will be
similar.

I was thinking about the difference between a user of the software (as in
programmers and developers) versus *end-users* of the software who merely
use the finished product, but neglected to make that explicit. Sorry about
that.

Mere use of the code as an end-user does not require that you make the
source code available: the GPL states "The act of running the Program is
not restricted", which is blanket permission (a licence?) to run the GPLed
code.

(I am surprised that it takes so little to grant end-user usage rights, but
IANAL and presumably the FSF's lawyers consider that sufficient. Perhaps
there are common law usage rights involved.)

I intended to refer to users of the GPL software as developers, that is,
those who incorporate The Program (the GPLed code) in their own code. For
those people, you need a licence to copy, distribute and modify the GPLed
code. And *that* comes with restrictions: if you distribute the copied or
modified code, then you must abide by the terms of the GPL, which is to
give *your* users the same licence as the GPL offers.

If you don't, then you have no right to copy, distribute or modify the code,
and are in breach of copyright.


> So challenging the legitimacy of the 
> GPL in court (which certainly has happened in Germany) wouldn't prevent
> one from using the GPL software. Only from distributing it.


Are you referring to Welte vs Sitecom? I wasn't aware of that until now.

If so, this case found that the GPL was valid, and enforced the terms of the
GPL against Sitecom.

There have been many times that the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has
had to force companies to comply with the GPL. There has been at least one
time that they actually had to take legal action to force compliance
(against Monsoon Multimedia, Inc, on behalf of Busybox). Normally
infringers back down when caught, but Monsoon dug their heels in and
refused to budge. So the SFLC took them to court.

Not surprisingly, Monsoon settled out of court rather than risk a bigger
penalty from a judge. As the SFLC Legal Director Daniel B. Ravicher said:

    In all of our years of doing open source license enforcement 
    work, we’ve never come across any party that thought it was 
    in their best interest to test the GPL in court, and Monsoon 
    was no exception.

http://torquemag.io/2013/03/busybox/

They preferred to pay a financial settlement (in other words, a fine) and
come into compliance, rather than risk having a judge tell them they were
infringing copyright.



-- 
Steven

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#109493

On Fri, Jun 3, 2016, at 22:02, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> (I am surprised that it takes so little to grant end-user usage
> rights, but IANAL and presumably the FSF's lawyers consider that
> sufficient. Perhaps there are common law usage rights involved.)

Technically, there are statutory usage rights; 17 USC 117 (a) (1):

(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of
Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an
infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or
authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer
program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step
in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine
and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and
that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued
possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

The proprietary software industry's continued ability to make demands in
an EULA rests on a rather shaky (though less than it was in the
box-full-of-disks days) theory that buying software does not in fact
make you the "owner of a copy", something that open-source types don't
tend to claim regarding their own software.

(IANAL either of course)

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#109429

On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 9:53:47 PM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> A licence is something like a contract...

A licence is quite different from a contract. A contract requires some indication of explicit agreement by both parties, a licence does not. That’s why Free Software licences only have to say something like “by using this software, you agree to the following terms...”, because if the user doesn’t accept the licence, then they have no licence.

EULAs for proprietary software, on the other hand, try to have it both ways, by having a clause like the above, as well as requiring you to click an “I Agree” button or some such.

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#109439

On Fri, 03 Jun 2016 09:15:55 -0700, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

>> [quoted text muted]
> 
> A licence is quite different from a contract. A contract requires some
> indication of explicit agreement by both parties, a licence does not.

More precisely, it requires "mutual consideration", i.e. each party must
provide something of value to the other. If a party doesn't provide
something of value, they can't claim any harm in the event of a breach, as
they haven't lost anything (failure to receive what the other party
promised doesn't count, as it didn't belong to the recipient to start with).

This is why you sometimes see contracts where one party pays a nominal sum
(e.g. one pound/dollar/euro) in return for assets which may have
significant value but also significant liabilities attached. The fact that
they paid /something/ allows them to enforce the contract.

OTOH, a Free software licence is unilateral; the author grants the user
certain rights, with the user providing nothing in return.

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#109450

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 8:58:19 AM UTC+12, Nobody wrote:
> On Fri, 03 Jun 2016 09:15:55 -0700, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> 
> >> [quoted text muted]
> > 
> > A licence is quite different from a contract. A contract requires some
> > indication of explicit agreement by both parties, a licence does not.
> 
> More precisely, it requires "mutual consideration", i.e. each party must
> provide something of value to the other. If a party doesn't provide
> something of value, they can't claim any harm in the event of a breach, as
> they haven't lost anything (failure to receive what the other party
> promised doesn't count, as it didn't belong to the recipient to start with).

Thanks for clarifying that.

> This is why you sometimes see contracts where one party pays a nominal sum
> (e.g. one pound/dollar/euro) in return for assets which may have
> significant value but also significant liabilities attached. The fact that
> they paid /something/ allows them to enforce the contract.

I wonder about the point of that, though; I have heard of cases where the judge ruled that the contract had been breached, and awarded damages of one pound/dollar/euro. So other than winning a symbolic victory, what was the point?

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#109469

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99@gmail.com> writes:


> I wonder about the point of that, though; I have heard of cases where
> the judge ruled that the contract had been breached, and awarded
> damages of one pound/dollar/euro. So other than winning a symbolic
> victory, what was the point?

Damages for breach of contract are supposed to reflect the loss you
suffered as a result. A nominal award is basically saying, yes - the
other guy has failed to fulfil his contractual promise, but you haven't
actually suffered any real loss as a result.

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