[En-Nut-Discussion] RFC: Copyright of trivial code

[Bernd Walter]

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 09:47:00AM +0100, Harald Kipp wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> there are several simple files, for which a copyright notice looks 
> overdone to me, specifically header and make files.
> 
> I suggest to change their copyright to
> 
> "The authors disclaim all copyrights and release this document into
> the public domain."

You can't disclaim a copyright and you don't need to declare it
to have a copyright.
An author always has the copyright - declared or not and he can't ever
loose it.
The only way a copyright can change the owner is by inheritance.
However you need to declare permissions, otherwise no permissions are
granted at all.
That's the reason why working contracts always reserve an exclusive use
right for everything their employees create within their job
The more important thing is if the author allows code use in the same
way as the rest of the code.
"Release into public domain" could also mean something restricted like GPL
and since an author can't ever disclaim his copyright...
Moreover if the author disclaims his copyright this might be read as if
he isn't the author (the only reason why he has no copyright for something)
and there is no legal statement from the unknown author.
And you shouldn't forget that an author can be sued if there is no
"use at your own risk" clause - even if it is published for free.
If something is worth to be protected is something different and often
enough something for court, but it shouldn't matter if the author grants
enough permissions.

> Any objections?

Do you have problems with any specific files?

-- 
B.Walter <bernd at bwct.de> http://www.bwct.de
Modbus/TCP Ethernet I/O Baugruppen, ARM basierte FreeBSD Rechner uvm.