[License-discuss] [Osi] [General enquiries] Dual License for CC0

[Ben Tilly]

My non-lawyer mind understands it as follows.

If the PD declaration holds, then you're right.  But there can be a
legal question as to whether the PD declaration has legal force.  But
if it does hold, THEN you can use MIT.  So you're covered either way.

This seems to me to be strictly better than a straight PD declaration
which might or might not have force depending on legal jurisdiction
and legal theories that I don't know the ins and outs of.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Wilson, Andrew <andrew.wilson at intel.com> wrote:
> odie5533 at gmail.com writes:
>
>> Hi. I see questions about CC0 and public domain dedication pop up all
>> the time on message boards. In the FAQ, it goes through why these
>> licenses are not currently OSI approved. I was wondering if you could
>> amend the FAQ to put forth the option that developers can dual license
>> their work as e.g. both CC0 and MIT. It seems a lot of people don't
>> know about this option, and it makes for a good middle ground for
>> those that want public domain, but also want to be sure they're
>> covered by OSI's approval system.
>
> Not clear to my non-lawyer mind how these licenses could coexist, at least in a legal system like the US
> where PD is recognized.  If the CC0 PD declaration is valid, how can the original copyright holder
> then grant an MIT license to copyrights he/she no longer controls?
>
> In a legal system where PD is not recognized, e.g. Europe, then the effective portion of CC0 is presumably not
> the PD declaration but the permissive license.  As other posters have noted, that permissive license
> is not perceptibly different in effect from MIT.
>
> Andy Wilson
> Intel open source technology center
>
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