Re: [RFC] windres' -I option

[Ian Lance Taylor <ian at airs dot com>]

"Dimitrie O. Paun" <dimi at intelliware dot ca> writes:

> On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, Christopher Faylor wrote:
> 
> > I've talked to lawyers about this.  In theory it should be ok but it
> > still leaves the ownership in question so that someone could come along
> > later and say "What?  You had no right to put that in the public
> > domain!" Signing all of the legal documents means that there is more
> > protection against this type of thing.
> 
> But it is my code, how can *I* not have the right to put in the public
> domain? And if I don't have that right, how do I have the right to
> assign it to the FSF?

This is off topic for binutils, but, surprisingly, under the current
copyright regime (after the U.S. joined the Berne Convention), it's
not clear that anybody has the right to put something in the public
domain.  That essentially constitutes abandonment of copyright, and
it's not clear that it is possible to abandon copyright.  Certainly
the copyright law does not mention this possibility, or provide any
means for doing so.

Of course there is stuff which is in the public domain.  Copyright
expires after a (long) period of time, and the information then goes
into the public domain.  Also, certain types of information creates by
U.S. government agencies is in the public domain.

But it's not clear that information which was created by a private
individual can go into the public domain.

In any case, the FSF would still want a signed piece of paper.
Otherwise they have no legal proof that they are free to use the
patch.  Receiving an e-mail message is not enough.

Ian