[Clipart] [OT] PD and Software

[Glenn Randers-Pehrson]

At 02:19 PM 4/13/2004 -0400, cws456456 at aol.com wrote:
>Kinda off-topic, kinda not...
>
>We're getting into a lot of dicussions about Public Domain and various
>liscences through which art could be released.  Well I have a question.
>Can Software be released to the Public Domain?

Yes.  I wrote lots of PD software when I was a Federal employee.

>If so, wouldn't that be the most "free" and "open" way to release it?

It is "free" but it is not "open" because anyone can take a copy and
proprietize it.  It happens to lots of gummint software; it gets
taken private, modified, and sold back to the gummint at $5000/seat.

>I think that woudl clear up a lot of the GPL, LGPL, BSD, QRS, TUV, WTH, CWS, 
>BOB etc etc ad nuseum...  debates.
>
>Just let evrybody have it.  Absolutely no strings attached.   No requirements 
>to include the source code.  No "backwards-compatiblity" clauses.

Art doesn't have a "backwards-compatibility" problem but it's an
important part of software that can be ruined by putting in PD.

There is much less of an argument against putting artwork in PD.

Glenn