Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Public Domain.

Author:William Crim
Posted:9/10/2000; 3:40:46 PM
Topic:Guido and Richard
Msg #:21134 (In response to 21129)
Prev/Next:21133 / 21135

This isn't public domain code.

Public Domain is a specific thing. It means, "This code is not copyrighted". This is different than "I don't care when you do with it", which is an implicit license covering use and distribution.

Icon says in their submissions section:

Contributions to the Icon program library must be free of any distribution restrictions.

We reserve the right to modify submitted programs to correct errors, to improve code, and to make them conform to library conventions.

This means, they acknowledge your copyright, and you agree to apply no restrictions. However, you still own the code and can do whatever you want with it, including offer that same code under a different license elsewhere. You can't relicense public domain code, since the code literally belongs to noone, not even the author. If it was public domain code, they would not need to reserve any rights to do anything.

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