Re: [Ocaml-lib-devel] Pickler (type-safe marshalling)

[skaller <sk...@us...>]

On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 23:30 +1300, Jonathan Roewen wrote:
> > http://devnulled.ath.cx/svn/dst/trunk/kernel/pickle.mli
> > http://devnulled.ath.cx/svn/dst/trunk/kernel/pickle.ml
> >
> > Unfortunately it's not clear what the license is, but a trivial
> > reimplementation from the signature is possible.
> >
> > Rich.
> 
> >From what I understand from SML.NET licence, it should be safe to
> declare our pickler stuff public domain.

Two points here: 

1. If you don't provide convincing evidence someone can copy
your code freely, they are well advised to assume it is
Copyright with no Licence to copy. Even downloading it
would breach copyright, and, you'd be up for Criminal
charges yourself for Inciting a Crime -- by placing
such stuff in easy reach on the Internet.

None of this is likely to happen, and the laws on incitement
vary from country to country, but here, if, for example,
you leave your car keys in your car, you're committing  
the crime of inciting theft.

2. I hear that in Europe "Public Domain" only applies to
a particular media. Thus a work in "Public Domain" on
say Film is NOT copyable on say a DVD. The rights to each
media are separate. [Another eg: Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony is surely in the public domain .. but 
recordings of it, or printings of the score by a publisher
are NOT .. copyright still applies to everything other than
the original score]

Therefore, Public Domain is not recommended by licencing
experts. An explicit Licence permitting copying and modification
on any and all media is preferred.

Whilst it is unlikely any legal action will eventuate 
on minor pieces of software .. if you do wish to encourage
people to use your software it seems like a good idea to
try to make them comfortable about it -- a one line text
in the webpage or source saying Copyright Fred Nurk 2005,
Free for Any Use, or, Licence: LGPL or whatever, seems
like a good idea.

-- 
John Skaller <skaller at users dot sf dot net>
Felix, successor to C++: http://felix.sf.net