Public Domain vs License, was For Approval: GPLv3

[Chris Travers]

Hi Alexander;

On 9/3/07, Alexander Terekhov <alexander.terekhov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I don't care how GPL software interacts with my work. Interact all the
> ways you want. I just can't grasp how that wonderful "pure copyright
> license" ("sublicensing is not allowed ... the recipient automatically
> receives a license from the original licensors") could possibly apply
> to work in which rights under copyright were simply completely
> waived/abandoned by the copyright owner.



You are right.  It doesn't apply.  It can't be sublicensed, nor can
additional permissions be removed.

However, since you have no copyrights to enforce, you can't really stop
people from including it in GPL3 works as a whole.

If that is what you want, take a BSDL template and add a condition that
states clearly that sublicensing under the terms of the GPL3 is not allowed.


Once you resolve that problem
> regarding public domain, think of the case when "a license from the
> original licensors" is BSDL or something else non-GPL.


My understanding of the BSDL is that it is possible to essentially add an
additional license with the end licnesee governed by the GPL.  This is the
sublicense and seems to have no legal effect as far as I can tell by itself,
since you get the full BSDL permissions from the original owner *and* the
option of applying GPL restrictions to your own changes provided that they
are copyright worthy (changing if ptr = NULL to if ptr == NULL probably
wouldn't qualify because no expressive elements are added).

 Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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