Public domain mistake?

[jcowan at reutershealth.com]

daniel wallace scripsit:

> Under Utah law, the elements of promissory estoppel are:
> 
> (1) The promisee acted with prudence and in reasonable
>    reliance on a promise made by the promisor;
>    
> (2) the promisor knew that the promisee had relied on
> the promise which the promisor should reasonably expect
> to induce action or forbearance on the part of the promisee
> or a third person;

Since public licenses are promises to everyone, I should think the
elements of #2 would be hard to establish in any particular case.
When I license my work, I don't *know* that you rely on my promises,
since I don't know you at all.

> If there exists a mistaken presumption of law (not material fact)
> which preempts or voids an open source license agreement and
> the source code has been widely distributed under that license,
> the copyrighted code permissions would exist in the public domain
> for all practical purpose.
> 
> Anyone who could show they had invested time and effort in
> reliance on promised copyright permissions could claim
> promissory estoppel to continue developing and expanding projects
> into the future.

It looks to me like this would protect you against an attempt to
revoke a GPL license in bad faith; but it's far from clear to me that
it would give you full rights to the work beyond what the GPL allows.

IANAL, TINLA.

-- 
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