Re: [boost] Boost License Issues

From: Joel Young (jdy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-19 10:00:59

IANAL...

Once something has been released into the public domain, then it is
free.  I can use it to create a derivative work under my own copyright.
The derivative work can have very minimal changes such as simple
formatting.  For examples look at any of the republished classic texts.
Note the copyrights on them.  Also look at the GRASS project 

Which was originally public domain from the Army and now exists in a GPL
version and in one or two commercial products.

http://grass.ibiblio.org/index2.html

Joel
--------
From: Andrew Koenig <ark_at_[hidden]>
Date: 19 Nov 2002 09:35:49 -0500
  To: Boost mailing list <boost_at_[hidden]>
  Cc: jdy_at_[hidden]
Subj: Re: [boost] Boost License Issues

Joel> The author releases the software into the public domain.  Ten
Joel> seconds later boost copyrights the software and releases it
Joel> under the Boost Public License...

I believe that once something is in the public domain, it can no
longer be copyrighted.  Anyone who likes can attach any kind of notice
to it, but those notices have no effect because the original item is
in the public domain.

My understanding is that this state of affairs is one reason why the
Free Software Foundation refuses to distribute the source code for the
implementation of the Icon programming language:  The authors (University
of Arizona) have placed the implementation in the public domain,
but the FSF distributes only material that is covered by the GPL.

-- 
Andrew Koenig, ark_at_[hidden], http://www.research.att.com/info/ark