Re: Is this Public Domain? And is it DFSG-free?

[Pontus Lidman <pontus@lysator.liu.se>]

> > To sum it up:
> > 
> > 1) Is the license DFSG-free as it stands?
> 
> Non-copyrighted (public domain) material cannot have (and does not need) a
> licence.
> 
> > 2) Can the author re-distribute his software under, e.g., the BSD license
> >    now, despite having released it with the above license?
> 
> No. The copyrights having been given away (or annihilated), they cannot be
> reclaimed by the author or anybody else. It also means anybody can reuse any
> material in any way they like and claim to have unshared copyrights to the
> resulting work (this is where GPL-ed work differs most notably from work in
> the public domain); strictly speaking this applies only to the parts that are
> (in the terms of US law) "original works of authorship" produced by that
> person. Doing so would not however affect the original version in any way.

Thanks for a very clear explanation. I do indeed have a statement from the
author saying that he wrote it all, except for one file which is
covered by the BSD license. I now feel I can safely go ahead and try to
make a package of it.

-- 
Pontus Lidman, pontus@mathcore.com, Software Engineer
No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up.
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