Re: RFC: xemacsweb - XEmacs vs. GNU Emacs
On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 22:53:20 PDT, Per Bothner said:
Nonsense. Corporations assign/give code to organizations that
release
the code under very unrestrictive licenses, which are pretty darn
close to public domain. The minor "fiduciary" advantage of using
But they are *NOT*, in fact "public domain", which has a very specific
legal meaning. Two points to consider:
1) Placing code in the public domain means that you can no longer put
a "hold harmless" clause in as part of the copyright (i.e. you can't say
"by copying this software, you agree to not sue us if it breaks"). Thus,
if you put code in the public domain, you're liable to all sorts of legal
nasties if it causes a problem for somebody.
2) Remember that one of Microsoft's first products was a Basic interpreter,
which was basically just a public domain one that was ripped off and sold
under the Microsoft label.
I think both of these are good reasons why a corporation would want to
be *damned* sure it was issuing code under an appropriate open license
rather than allowing it to slide into public domain.
--
Valdis Kletnieks
Operating Systems Analyst
Virginia Tech
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