For Approval: GPLv3

David Woolley forums at david-woolley.me.uk
Sat Sep 1 21:12:40 UTC 2007


Alexander Terekhov wrote:

> Problems? What problems? I'm really interested, Eugene. Care to elaborate?
> 
Dedicating to the public domain is not recognized in most parts of the 
world, so what you would actually have is a bare public licence.

I believe there is some uncertainty as to whether works can be in the 
public domain in the USA except when the copyright has expired or would 
otherwise be owned by the federal government.

Dedicating to the public domain leaves you fully liable to be sued for 
any harm attributable to the software.

The lack of provenance means that it is generally unsafe to use public 
domain software, as one cannot evaluate whether it is all validly in the 
public domain.

-- 
David Woolley
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