[svlug] Fedora or Ubuntu for novis

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alan DuBoff (aland at softorchestra.com):

> On Sat, 20 Sep 2008, Don Marti wrote:
> 
> > So why the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication?
> >  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
> 
> I like this license.

Again, that is not a licence -- which is the reason it's called a public
domain _dedication_.  (Yes, the word "licenses" is indeed part of CC's
URL, i.e., they dropped the page into that existing directory tree.
Nonetheless.)

It is a statement of the owner's[1] wish and intention to disclaim property
rights on his/her own behalf and to enforce that intention against any
heirs, assigns, creditors, and so on, who ordinarily have a claim to the
property even if the current owner isn't interested.  The owner is
saying "I wish for this property's legal characteristic of being ownable
at all to cease to exist, even though its copyright term hasn't expired,
yet.  Please, Mr. Judge, respect my wishes, if the matter ever comes up
in court."

It's really not at all certain that any particular judge in any
particular jurisdiction will honour that intention, and it's known that
at least one major jurisdiction (the UK) absolutely will not.  Which, as
I mentioned in my page on "public domain" works, is the biggest of
several problems with the concept.

> I like the above license because it looks like a truly open and 
> free license (that and it's short enough for most engineers to 
> read and finish in one sitting:-). Isn't that what we should 
> strive for?

I'm curious:  Isn't the text "Copyright (C) 2008 Owner Name. Do whatever
you want with this work" roughly an order of magnitude shorter and
simpler still?  Is there just some compelling ideological advantage to,
instead, pretending that dedicating to the public domain is
unproblematic and hoping for the best?

My best guess is that's the hitch, really.  Probably, I've spent too
many years reading law and no longer think entirely like a human being.
;->

Here's an analogy that may or may not be useful, substituting, for
reasons of familiarity, a tangible object for the abstract property
called copyright.  (Naturally, those are not entirely the same thing, as
real objects cannot be indefinitely duplicated out of nothing, and do
not cease to be ownable after a number of years.)  Programmer is
talking with Lawyer, one day:

Programmer:  I bought a 21' Victory-class sloop, some years ago, but now
             I'd like it to be ownable by nobody.
Lawyer:      You want to give it away?
Programmer:  No, not at all.  I want it to be public domain, ownable by
             nobody, so that everyone can enjoy it without conditions.
Lawyer:      Well, that's very nice of you, but it's not that simple.
             The law goes to some lengths to avoid property having no 
             owners as a matter of public policy, and the odds are you'd
             accomplishing only either the state "escheating" the yacht
             like a broker account you haven't touched for seven years or
             someone else picking up ownership under the abandoned 
             property laws, or your creditors or kids getting it.
Programmer:  Can't I just put a plaque on it saying I decree that this
             property isn't owned by anyone, any more?
Lawyer:      Sure, but wishing doesn't make it so.  Also, suppose it slips 
             anchor and rams someone else's boat?  I'm not at all sure
             you can escape responsibility merely by saying that you'd 
             declared you didn't wish to own it, starting a week earlier.
Programmer:  So, what do you recommend.
Lawyer:      Well, you can set up the Programmer's Yacht Public Trust to
             hold the ownership title and make it available to all
             comers....  Say, you sure you don't want to just give it
             away?

[1] Actually, if you look closely at it, it addresses either the scenario
of ownership _or_ that of not being the owner but desiring to "certify"
that you've made a good-faith effort to "verify the copyright status" of
some upstream work, guesstimate it to be public domain, accept the risk
of being sued if you're wrong, and wish your improvements to that work
(along with the work itself) to fall into the public domain without
waiting for copyright expiration.