Re: OSD && DFSG convergence
On 20030126T194352-0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 10:57:01PM +0200, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> > As far as I know, public-domain software does not exist.
>
> Nonsense.
>From WordNet (r) 1.7 [wn]:
nonsense
adj : having no intelligible meaning; "nonsense syllables"; "a
nonsensical jumble of words" [syn: {nonsense(a)}, {nonsensical}]
n 1: a message that seems to convey no meaning [syn: {nonsensicality},
{meaninglessness}, {hokum}]
2: ornamental objects of no great value [syn: {falderal}, {folderol},
{frills}, {gimcrackery}, {gimcracks}, {trumpery}]
I doubt that. It may be false, but it is not unintelligible.
> In the U.S., at least, copyright holders always have the
> option of placing their copyrightable works into the public domain
> through an explicit declaration.
I visual-grepped the USA copyright law documentation. I could not find
anything that supports this. Do you have a reference?
(In any case, whether or not such declarations are effective with
respect to copyright protection, they can IMO be regarded as a license
stating "you can treat this work as if it were in the public domain".)
> Also, there is -- again in the U.S. -- such a thing as an
> uncopyrightable work, and such things can be in the public domain[1].
Sure there are uncopyrightable works. There are such things in Finland,
too. I was explicitly limiting myself to software, for which I am not
aware of any uncopyrightability.
> The Debian distribution contains things that aren't "software", like
> word lists, and some of things are neither software nor subject to
> copyright law (in the U.S.).
If it is not software, then it is not public-domain software.
(I even remember past discussions on Debian lists, perhaps even this
one, where it was debated whether the DFSG, _software_ guidelines,
apply to such works.)
--
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, FM (MSc) * http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ * gaia@iki.fi
Reply to: