Public Domain and liability

[Brian Behlendorf]

On Mon, 7 Aug 2000, Blake Cretney wrote:
> The concern is that even if you place a disclaimer on the software,
> someone could legally distribute your software without the disclaimer.

Not if the license prevents that, as do the open source licenses I'm most
familiar with (BSD, GPL, etc).  They specifically state "redistribution
must include this license", with the disclaimer in the license.  There's
been debate about the strength of that disclaimer, but based more on
speculation that any particular event where a disclaimer was insufficient
protection.

> Has anyone ever been sued, especially successfully, for a
> non-malicious public domain program?

Not that I've heard of.

	Brian