Why a license is better than Public Domain [LWN.net]

Why a license is better than Public Domain

Posted Nov 30, 2007 18:29 UTC (Fri) by jreiser (subscriber, #11027)
In reply to: Huh? by thumperward
Parent article: qmail released into the public domain

How is it "always best to provide a license"?
It is better for those who use the code, because a license identifies someone who claims to have authority to grant the license. One of the problems with Public Domain is that there is no identified authority. Anyone can claim that something called "public domain" instead is really theirs (was stolen from them.) A license provides users with a defense, and somebody to sue for not having legitimate authority to grant the license. Public domain opens users to attack from all quarters, and requires users to mount their own defense. Suppose that [a court decides that] the code really does belong to somebody else. Then a user who claims "public domain" is liable for intent to steal the code, while a bona fide licensee is not [excludes collusion between licensee and licensor to steal the code by creating a bogus license, etc.] In either case the user might be forced to discontinue using the code, but having a [supposedly valid] license tends to limit other losses.

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There are reasons, this isn't particularly compelling

Posted Nov 30, 2007 20:37 UTC (Fri) by kmself (subscriber, #11565) [Link]

Proof and/or demonstration of authorship is one of the key parts of virtually any copyright dispute. In most cases it's sufficiently trivially accomplished that it's not given much thought. There are significant legal sanctions against false claims of authorship, and for a work as well documented and publicly distributed as qmail, chances of success would be low (though cooperation of djb in any defense would help).

And having a license over a codebase doesn't necessarially free you from conflicting claims of ownership. Hell, it's even possible to imagine a world in which some two-bit thuggish company tried to claim a copyright interest in the Linux kernel.

The better reasons for license, of some sort, are:

A framework for distributing the work, including:
Clear statement of copyright interest.
Clear statement of rights of recipients to modify, use, and redistribute the work.
A clear statement of any additional rights of authorship which are or are not retained (rights not explicitly granted are implicitly retained under US statute).
Clear statement of obligations (if any) when receiving, modifying, using, and/or distributing a work.
A disclaimer of warranty and liability

The cover of an approved license also greatly relieves the burden on those who would like to engage in further distribution, modification, and use of the work. For many FSF Free Software projects, having a clear check that works are granted under an approved and accepted license provides a very real and useful protection against real and imagined legal threats, from both outside and inside the organization. Mirror sites and CD/DVD services for CentOS, Debian, Fedora, and Gentoo come to mind. Likewise, odds of an effective attack against adopting a tool for use within an organization merely because it is licenced under GPL, BSD, or MIT license (and is hence "legally risky") wouldn't get far in any sane environment -- in almost any case such code is already in extant use. "Public domain" is a slightly harier threat at present.

Why a license is better than Public Domain

Posted Nov 30, 2007 23:39 UTC (Fri) by ajross (subscriber, #4563) [Link]

It is better for those who use the code, because a license identifies someone who claims to have authority to grant the license. One of the problems with Public Domain is that there is no identified authority

In what was does Bernstein's announcement and the decade-long history of the product not constitute an identification of authority? This is very much a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, it's conceivable that you could get in trouble just grabbing source off the internet if you have to prove later on that it's legally useable. But it should be abundantly clear that that is not what is happening here. Really, are you honestly any more confused about where qmail comes from now than you were yesterday?