[License-discuss] Can copyrights be abandoned to the public domain?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Richard Fontana (rfontana at redhat.com):

> I believe I am the counsel Tom is referring to, though the Fedora
> policy conclusion Tom refers to was prepared by Tom. Nevertheless I
> would see it as Fedora adopting more or less the liberal and pragmatic
> view I have had on this subject for a long time. 

Seems reasonable to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong (you're the professional), but I would imagine
the relevant question for Red Hat, Inc. was not whether the erstwhile
copyright owner actually succeeded in eradicating legal title to his/her
copyright property (what is properly meant by 'public domain'), but
rather whether Red Hat, Inc. will be reasonably protected against
infringement claims by either the owner's success or by estoppel.  

Since the policy conclusion you and Tom Calloway spoke of, any number of
people have told me 'You must be mistaken on
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/public-domain.html, because
Red Hat Legal allowed Prasad J. Pandit to package ndjbdns for Fedora.'
I've responded that of course I might be wrong, but not for non-sequitur
reasons like that.  It's funny how many people cannot seem to grasp that
corporate counsel's job is to protect company legal interests, not make
pronouncements on points of legal theory.  ;->

> However (modulo that "or patent" language :) CC0 approximates nicely
> the way I think we should analyze the more typical kinds of simple
> public domain dedications we encounter in FOSS code.

Thank goodness, at least it's well written and with an eye to producing
desired result via other means if the direct approach fails.

-- 
Cheers,                      "Overheard a hipster say 'Quinoa is kind of 2011',
Rick Moen                    so I lit his beard on fire."      -- Kelly Oxford
rick at linuxmafia.com
McQ!  (4x80)