4 ms·

By itself it is wrong. Public domain is still a license. License let you do anything is a must as copyright is granted auto. You need to license. If the publ

By itself it is wrong. Public domain is still a license. License let you do anything is a must as copyright is granted auto. You need to license. If the public domain does not license, there is no public domain (except those fall into it after certain number of years). You may sense why the need of effort by SQLite to confirm its public domain status and left other not compiled in. Another issue is the free vs open source debate. Does it have to be pure. Another time but SQLite seems allow both, just not in its core.

skissane 6y ago
> Public domain is still a license If you read the CC0 – https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode – it is structured into two parts, a waiver (in section 2) and a fallback license (in section 3). The license is certainly a license, but is the waiver a license? Especially since the license, by its terms, only applies if the waiver does not – if the waiver is judged valid in some legal jurisdiction, the license does not apply. Some of the language in section 2 could even be read as settling a trust, with the general public as the beneficiary, the copyright as the trust property, and the copyright owner as both settlor and trustee.
breck 6y ago
You don't need a license to communicate. #LibertyNotLicenses
rpdillon 6y ago
I fear this comment will come across as pedantic, but I think it's a distinction worth highlighting. I am not a lawyer, but I care about this stuff and have studied it. My (somewhat educated) understanding is that public domain is a rejection of copyright, and is therefore the lack of a license. Rather that saying "I'm the owner, and you can do whatever you want", it instead says "I am not the owner", and indeed, even further "No one is the owner". Naturally, this can only be said by the person who would have held the copyright, so paperwork is still necessary to show this. Stanford[0] has a page about this that's pretty interesting (among other things, it mentions public domain works can be copyrighted again if they are gathered into collections, which I find fascinating). The intro text on public domain says this: > The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. In the case of sqlite, I think it falls under "dedicated works"[1], which is one of the four ways they mention that leads to a work falling into the public domain. [0]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ [1]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/#dedicated_works https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/...

skissane 6y ago

> Public domain is still a license If you read the CC0 – https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode – it is structured into two parts, a waiver (in section 2) and a fallback license (in section 3). The license is certainly a license, but is the waiver a license? Especially since the license, by its terms, only applies if the waiver does not – if the waiver is judged valid in some legal jurisdiction, the license does not apply. Some of the language in section 2 could even be read as settling a trust, with the general public as the beneficiary, the copyright as the trust property, and the copyright owner as both settlor and trustee.

breck 6y ago

You don't need a license to communicate. #LibertyNotLicenses

rpdillon 6y ago

I fear this comment will come across as pedantic, but I think it's a distinction worth highlighting. I am not a lawyer, but I care about this stuff and have studied it. My (somewhat educated) understanding is that public domain is a rejection of copyright, and is therefore the lack of a license. Rather that saying "I'm the owner, and you can do whatever you want", it instead says "I am not the owner", and indeed, even further "No one is the owner". Naturally, this can only be said by the person who would have held the copyright, so paperwork is still necessary to show this. Stanford[0] has a page about this that's pretty interesting (among other things, it mentions public domain works can be copyrighted again if they are gathered into collections, which I find fascinating). The intro text on public domain says this: > The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. In the case of sqlite, I think it falls under "dedicated works"[1], which is one of the four ways they mention that leads to a work falling into the public domain. [0]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/ [1]: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/#dedicated_works https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/...