Re: "Public Domain"

[Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@pasteur.fr>]

On Saturday 30 January 1999, at 21 h 20, the keyboard of Steve Greenland 
<stevegr@debian.org> wrote:

> I've always understood that placing a (formerly/potentially) copyrighted
> work "in the public domain" is a statement by the author that they are
> giving up all copyright rights (if that's the correct phrase), 

In France and, I assume, in many other countries, it is almost impossible to 
put something in the public domain: you cannot completely give in your rights. 
You have to die first and even then it takes a long time after this.

> anyone may use it in any way they please. For example, most US gov't
> works are public domain, presumably because the US residents taxes paid
> for them (yes, I know that's not universally true, that's why I wrote
> "most").

I have at least one package (ncbi-tools6) whose sole licence is "This work is in the public domain"...