The State of Python

[Grant Griffin]

Dan Smart wrote:
> 
> tim_one at email.msn.com (Tim Peters) wrote in
> <LNBBLJKPBEHFEDALKOLCIEEAGMAA.tim_one at email.msn.com>:
> >  The decision to put something in the public domain is
> >irrevocable, so stops that game before it starts.  In the area of
> >programming languages, the decision to develop Icon
> >(http://www.cs.arizona.edu/icon/) in the public domain has granted Ralph
> >Griswold a long, happy and lawyer-free life.
> >
> 
> WARNING (IANAL but have been advised by one)
> Putting something in the public domain involves releasing it without a
> license and I have been told that this is extremely risky. Apparently the
> primary purpose of a BSD style license is to limit liability - typically to
> no more than you paid for the software (i.e. nothing). With out such a
> license clause, or indeed a license at all, you are potentially open to
> unlimited liability in the event that a user of your software suffers harm
> from such use - even though they paid nothing for it.
> This struck me as insane, but I have been assured that this is the case.
> 

IANAL either, but I think I can explain the logic of it (assuming the
law is based logic <0.1 wink>).

Ownership of a copyright entitles you to impose terms on its use.  Those
terms can be whatever you and the user find mutually agreeable--even
virus-like terms which pollute the software that _you_ create
<subliminal naming-of-names: GPL>).  Limitations of liability obviously
is among the terms you might impose.

When you give up ownership of the copyright by putting a work in the
public domain, you can no longer impose usage terms (including
limitations of liability); that's pretty-much the concept of "public
domain" itself. 

IANAL-but-i-play-one-on-tv-<wink>-ly y'rs,

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com