No rights reserved

[David Croft]

Open Source license discussion mailing list:


Karsten M. Self wrote:

> The lay interpretation of "public domain" includes works to which an
> author has disclaimed interest in exclusive rights under copyright law.
> I believe Larry's interpretation is that such works are _governed_ by
> copyright, however, they are, expressly or implicitly, licensed for use
> free of restraint by the author.  More confusing are licenses or grants
> which read as "this software is public domain with the following
> conditions...", usually proscribing commercial use or some other
> restriction.


How does one properly and concisely state that a work is released to the 
Public Domain?  This is a question that has eating at me for some time 
now.  The only thing that I have been able to find thus far on this 
subject is the following:
http://www.mindspring.com/~mccarthys/no-cense/give.htm

As even these suggestions seem a bit too wordy for me, I am considering 
simply switching the word "All" to "No" in the standard copyright statement:
"Copyright 2001 David Wallace Croft.  No rights reserved."


I believe that this statement would effectively surrender all exclusive 
rights reserved to the copyright holder under copyright law.  Any 
comments or suggestions would be appreciated.



-- 
David Wallace Croft
(214) 533-3047 cell
http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~croft