Releasing to Public Domain (was: Re: JtR add-on licenses)

[David Paleino]

(CCing debian-legal, so that they could give advice. Full thread at
	http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-john-devel/2009-January/000232.html
)

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:40:11 +0300, Solar Designer wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 06:03:07PM +0100, David Paleino wrote:
> > However, I was planning the release of 1.7.3.1 in Debian and... luckily I
> > marked my debian/copyright with big TODO marks, we avoided a sure REJECT ;)
> 
> Well, I think you could include 1.7.3.1 in Debian without the patches
> initially.  You don't have to apply them.

Sure I could. But then I would forget about them, and after some months I'd say
"wtf are these patches here? rm -rf debian/patches/*!" ;-)

(trust me, no one knows me better than myself.)

> I wrote:
> 
> > > The possibilities for contributed code, to be considered for inclusion,
> > > appear to be:
> > > 
> > > - public domain statement (in this case, the author should be mentioned,
> > > but no copyright statement may be included; in fact, a copyright
> > > disclaimer may be included along with the "placed in the public domain"
> > > statement);
> > 
> > Well, copyright statement is just saying "Hey, I did it, I have my rights
> > on it and can exercise those" --
> 
> A copyright statement says "I have my rights on it and can exercise
> those".  It does not say "I did it" (copyright could also have been
> transferred to the person/entity).

Yes, sorry, I meant that.

> > but right after you release it in the "public domain".
> 
> I have no idea what you mean by this.
> 
> My point was that "public domain" and "copyrighted work" are mutually
> exclusive.  So one can't meaningfully include both a copyright and a
> public domain statement on a file.

I meant something like:

/*
 * Copyright © xxxx, Foo Bar <foo at bar.com>
 * This work is hereby released to Public Domain
 */

That is: with the first line you state your rights over the code, and with the
second you exercise those by deliberately losing them. debian-legal: am I
totally wrong? (IANAL.)

> [..]

Kindly,
David

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