Re: Comments regarding rhash_1.2.5-1_amd64.changes

[Rhash Admin <rhash.admin@gmail.com>]

Hi Debian-legal people,

I want to consult about legality of the following statement in the rhash 
package source files:
 * Copyleft:
 * I, the author, hereby place this code into the public domain.
 * This applies worldwide. I grant any entity the right to use this 
work for
 * ANY PURPOSE, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required
 * by law.

The (upstream) source code is covered by "MIT or RHash dual license" ( 
http://rhash.anz.ru/license.php?l=en ).
The Wikipedia says being in "public domain" means "not covered by 
copyrights",

so here are the questions:
1) does the above "public domain" statement contradicts with being 
covering by license?
2) shall the above statement be re-worded/removed (in upstream sources) 
to avoid adding "public domain" statement to the (already complex) 
debian/copyright file?

The original Idea, for the statement was to convey to people in very 
short legal-looking message, that the RHash License allows to do 
anything with the source code. Not sure if the goal was reached.
  Regards,
  Alexey

12.06.2011 2:34, rhash.admin wrote:
> Luca,
> I suppose you indeed found a contradiction. Thanks for that!
>
> Seems that the term "public domain" has legal meaning "not covered by 
> copyrights" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain ). I'm not 
> native English speaker, so please forgive my ignorance :)
> This term was used in source code unknowingly, but to encourage people 
> to do anything they want with the code I written. So I should reword 
> these statements somehow.
>
>
> 11.06.2011 16:05, Luca Falavigna wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Several files under librhash are public domain
> > Please mention them in copyright file.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Luca