On Tue, Aug 18, 1998 at 03:40:08PM -0600, Marcelo E. Magallon wrote: > Guys, what exactly *is* public domain? Is public domain DFSG-ok? Gene (whom > I'm Cc'ing here) is the author of wdm, a nice looking login panel (xdm > derivative). He would like to include some pictures taken with the Hubble > Space Telescope (HST) as possible backgrounds for wdm. The images (some of > you may know them, the so-called "Pillars" [1]) are in the public domain > according to GSFC. Can those images, without NASA's written permission, be > distributed on a cd-rom? > Just to answer your question....(since someone already commented on the legal status of THESE pictures) Public DOmain (AFAIR) means well... normally when you write something it is automatically copyright by you. But if you place it in the "Public Domain" you give up all rights of copyright...so someone can use it without even giving you any credit It really simplifies using the code :) It seems (from what I have seen) people tend to place things in the public domain, when it i ssome tiny little snippit of code that they don't care if someone uses (like earlier on debina-user someone gave me an example code snippit and when I asked if I can use it he said "you may consider it as being in the public domain") or if its something they really don't want to support and don't care too much who uses it. -Steve -- /* -- Stephen Carpenter <sjc@delphi.com> --- <sjc@debian.org>------------ */ E-mail "Bumper Stickers": "A FREE America or a Drug-Free America: You can't have both!" "honk if you Love Linux"
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