Quote:
Originally Posted by Tale
Interesting... If I post some code here, then I (almost?) never add any license. However, because this is a public forum, I would consider everything I post here publc domain (unless otherwise noted).
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Interesting… you’re not alone! Having no intentions to do another quantitative survey, I’d say, virtually nobody adds an express license when posting to the forum. Admittedly, I have completely blinkered out licenses for forum posts in my recent survey which focused on complete programs (coded in JSFX, LUA, EEL, PY), collated from different repositories (ReaPack, the Stash, GitHub, but not the forum) and consequently used in REAPER itself (\REAPER\Effects, \REAPER\Scripts).
With regard to forum posts, I should like to add: We probably don’t need to be too nit-picky about licenses of text posts and nearly decontextualized snippets of code in the forum when using licenses deliberately and carefully in our complete programmes.
Although we don’t have express provisions for the case of no license in this forum (as e.g.
GitHub has them), your posts (including snippets of code) most likely cannot be subsumed to be public domain. (
[C]ode that doesn’t have a license is NOT automatically in the public domain.) I believe that all
newly fashioned thoughts (also in discussion stages before the final product/programme) are automatically
attributable to their respective contributors without the requirement to even put a “copyright” in front of every thought posted here. In addition, the timestamp of the forum could possibly serve as a proof of original inventorship.
In contradistinction, if dedication to the public domain (i.e. the relinquishment of some of your personal rights) is actually intended, this has to be stated specifically because its legal implications cannot be simply implied, e.g. “
dedication for the benefit of the public at large and to the detriment of [your] heirs and successors”. In return for the generous act of public dedication and as you would expect from a worthy license, this "public domain (un)license" even disclaims warranty and limits liability.
Finally I feel that we have to clarify the following points in order to bring this discussion to the next level:
- What are the legal consequences when simply trusting in implied licenses or when unlicensing our software (= entrusting it to the public domain)?
- What are the reasons for using licenses?
- What are our expectations/benefits when using them?
Werner