[Savannah-register-public] Re: [gnu.org #353765] Releasing a Savannah project in the public domain

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2008 at 06:26:02PM -0500, Karl Berry via RT wrote:
>     Do you have recommendations for releasing a piece of software in the
>     public domain?
> 
> As far as I know, FSF/GNU has never made official statements or
> recommendations about doing this.  Or even unofficial ones.
>     
>     Also, isn't there something about countries who don't permit to
>     disclaim copyright, that we need to take into account?
> 
> I have heard this too.  I have also heard that the USA may be such a
> country.  However, I've never seen anything legally authoritative about
> it (either way), just FUD from programmers.
> 
> Perhaps Brett has some knowledge of the legal status of public domain.
> 
>     I fear would lead to a lack of clarity. 
> 
> Well, his intent seems clear enough.  What legal effect his wording has,
> though, I'm not qualified to say, and I expect you'd need an
> international copyright lawyer to make a meaningful comment.  Yikes.
> 
> In terms of whether we accept the project on savannah, though (I'm
> just guessing that's what's happening?), we could ask rms ...

I don't see a problem with accepting the project at Savannah, public
domain sounds acceptable.

I'm just looking for a non-ambiguous way to release code under the
public domain. If the licensing team don't have that in stock, I'd
recommend doing the same thing as SQLite, that is:
- source code:
  ** 2005 November 29
  **
  ** The author disclaims copyright to this source code.
- patch/contribution notices (http://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html):
  The author or authors of this code dedicate any and all copyright
  interest in this code to the public domain. We make this dedication
  for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of our
  heirs and successors. We intend this dedication to be an overt act
  of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights to
  this code under copyright law.
Wdyt?

The general goal is to keep Savannah a place where GPL-compatible code
can be downloaded and reused without much thinking, hence why we need
to avoid lengthy non-standard notices that people have to spend time
studying (and bug address@hidden about :)).

-- 
Sylvain