On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 18:01:17 +0200, Hrvoje Niksic said: Yes, it's true. And it's specifically *why* the BSD, X11, and similar copyrights exist - if you put it in the public domain, you give up ALL rights to it, including any right to say what happens with it in the future, or to say that you can't be sued for problems with the software. Why would anybody put anything under PD? Because they don't understand the difference between "PD" and "a freely redistributable copyrighted work". On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 10:33:50 PDT, Per Bothner said: Clause 11 of the GPL version 2: 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. Note that you accepted *that* clause as a condition of copying YOUR copy, whereas most of the other clauses determine what you can/can't do when passing it along to OTHER people. Since public domain means *specifically* that you have voided all rights to it, that includes the right to put that in a PD document and have it actually MEAN anything. If it is included as part of a "by copying you accept these terms" copyright, it's quite binding. A bug was found in the GPL recently, in that it *might* be defeatable if the suit is filed in a jurisdiction that does not allow the waiving of consequential damages. There was a discussion regarding the Python license on Slashdot a while ago regarding this - basically, the Python people wanted it interpreted according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, which allows such waiving. The crux of the matter is that everybody agreed it was a good idea, but it was unclear whether it was an impermissible additional restriction on the GPL. No, I didn't go back to see what the final resolution, if any, was. ;) /Valdis