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The US too. The public domain is where things go when their copyright expires. In most countries -- including the United States -- there is no legal procedure

The US too. The public domain is where things go when their copyright expires. In most countries -- including the United States -- there is no legal procedure to dedicate something to the public domain. You can claim something you wrote is in the public domain until you're blue in the face, but it's not. You still own the copyright on it. The closest you can get to a public domain declaration is a bare license: basically a license which says "Copyright 2012 by me: I give you the license to do whatever you want with this." The problem with a bare license is that if your code doesn't work right, people can (and do) turn around and sue your pants off. Because -- remember -- the work is not in the public domain. You own it and are responsible for it. Thus we get to a BSD-style ("academic") license. At a minimum this license says "Copyright 2012 by me: I give you a license to do whatever you want with this as long as you agree not to sue me if something doesn't work". Always use, at a minimum, a BSD-style license. Public domain is a fiction.

tptacek 15y ago
The stridency/accuracy ratio of this comment is interesting. http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html
- dctoedt 15y ago
  The GP [SeanLuke] does make one good point, which is that using a BSD-style license is a good idea, because it gives you ammunition to help defeat a "creative" claim that you should be liable for problems other people have with your code. Otherwise, I agree, there are a fair number of inaccuracies in the GP [SeanLuke] comment.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    While conceding immediately that you generally do want to take whatever "free" steps that are available to you to avoid frivolous lawsuits, what's your take on how likely it is that someone would prevail with a claim like "a bug in the software code that you abandoned all claims to cost me millions of dollars"? (I ask because I'm curious, not to further a debate about PD).
    - dctoedt 15y ago
      The odds that a plaintiff would prevail in such a claim are close to zero. But defending against the claim would cost money. "Free" steps such as the BSD license give you a better shot at being able to stop the claim at lower cost --- think Spock with a Vulcan neck pinch, as opposed to Kirk having to slug it out out.
- SeanLuke 15y ago
  Just because Daniel Bernstein claims something on the internet doesn't make it any truer than, well, if I claim it. [okay, maybe a little truer. He did write qmail] But I'm particularly interested in Bernstein's ad hominem broadside on Rosen for stating, while general counsel for OSI I believe, that public domain dedication is unlikely in the US. Rosen is "only a lawyer" according to Bernstein -- who I might add is "only a mathematician". Though you have to give him props for representing himself in Bernstein v. Commerce. I myself think that Rosen's conservative position is the right one. Even Lessig's CC0 dedication is couched in tons of careful "we're not sure if this works" verbiage. At any rate, presuming this is unsettled law -- and it seems to me that it's pretty unsettled -- that alone makes it unwise to be attempting a public domain dedication.
  - tptacek 15y ago
    Dan Bernstein's a mathematician (albeit one unusually well versed with the legal system, for obvious reasons), but you should also note that one of the commenters on this very subthread is a lawyer. I'm really not interested in the conflict between the OSI and Dan Bernstein. I'm just responding to your comment. Pretty sure you're wrong about PD being a "fiction".
    - SeanLuke 15y ago
      > I'm really not interested in the conflict between the OSI and Dan Bernstein. I'm just responding to your comment. Well, you did directly cite an article, about a third of which is devoted to smacking down someone with more cred than himself. That being said, my comment about PD being a "fiction" was overly excessive bomb-throwing, I admit.
      - tptacek 15y ago
        Thanks. But, can I just add two things: that's about as specific a legal argument as I've ever seen an engineer (or mathematician) make, including chapter/verse citations to actual court decisions. Not only are you mischaracterizing it, but you might also take a moment to be specific about which parts of it you disagree with. Why should we be interested in how we feel about people's interpersonal conflicts? Bernstein is right or he isn't. Second: I didn't call you out for bomb-throwing (that would be hypocritical in the extreme). Can I ask, how much of your original comment do you still stand by?

tptacek 15y ago

The stridency/accuracy ratio of this comment is interesting. http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html

dctoedt 15y ago
The GP [SeanLuke] does make one good point, which is that using a BSD-style license is a good idea, because it gives you ammunition to help defeat a "creative" claim that you should be liable for problems other people have with your code. Otherwise, I agree, there are a fair number of inaccuracies in the GP [SeanLuke] comment.
- tptacek 15y ago
  While conceding immediately that you generally do want to take whatever "free" steps that are available to you to avoid frivolous lawsuits, what's your take on how likely it is that someone would prevail with a claim like "a bug in the software code that you abandoned all claims to cost me millions of dollars"? (I ask because I'm curious, not to further a debate about PD).
  - dctoedt 15y ago
    The odds that a plaintiff would prevail in such a claim are close to zero. But defending against the claim would cost money. "Free" steps such as the BSD license give you a better shot at being able to stop the claim at lower cost --- think Spock with a Vulcan neck pinch, as opposed to Kirk having to slug it out out.
SeanLuke 15y ago
Just because Daniel Bernstein claims something on the internet doesn't make it any truer than, well, if I claim it. [okay, maybe a little truer. He did write qmail] But I'm particularly interested in Bernstein's ad hominem broadside on Rosen for stating, while general counsel for OSI I believe, that public domain dedication is unlikely in the US. Rosen is "only a lawyer" according to Bernstein -- who I might add is "only a mathematician". Though you have to give him props for representing himself in Bernstein v. Commerce. I myself think that Rosen's conservative position is the right one. Even Lessig's CC0 dedication is couched in tons of careful "we're not sure if this works" verbiage. At any rate, presuming this is unsettled law -- and it seems to me that it's pretty unsettled -- that alone makes it unwise to be attempting a public domain dedication.
- tptacek 15y ago
  Dan Bernstein's a mathematician (albeit one unusually well versed with the legal system, for obvious reasons), but you should also note that one of the commenters on this very subthread is a lawyer. I'm really not interested in the conflict between the OSI and Dan Bernstein. I'm just responding to your comment. Pretty sure you're wrong about PD being a "fiction".
  - SeanLuke 15y ago
    > I'm really not interested in the conflict between the OSI and Dan Bernstein. I'm just responding to your comment. Well, you did directly cite an article, about a third of which is devoted to smacking down someone with more cred than himself. That being said, my comment about PD being a "fiction" was overly excessive bomb-throwing, I admit.
    - tptacek 15y ago
      Thanks. But, can I just add two things: that's about as specific a legal argument as I've ever seen an engineer (or mathematician) make, including chapter/verse citations to actual court decisions. Not only are you mischaracterizing it, but you might also take a moment to be specific about which parts of it you disagree with. Why should we be interested in how we feel about people's interpersonal conflicts? Bernstein is right or he isn't. Second: I didn't call you out for bomb-throwing (that would be hypocritical in the extreme). Can I ask, how much of your original comment do you still stand by?