As a copyright lawyer in the EU, my general information is that one does not dabble with public domain in mainland Europe. This is inter alia due to different legal traditions compared to the British isles and North America. You just don’t and for very good reasons.
scoop
dimitarvp
scoop
I beg your pardon, I’m afraid it was a mistake to reply in the first place.
In my experience, these discussions can be very taxing and – unfortunately – rather hostile to lawyers. Due to exceptionally poor health I’m currently unable to engage more than this:
In short, code “licensed” as public domain (i.e. not licensed) or licensed under CC0 is rejected during due diligence since it creates legal uncertainty for companies using it in their software. Please bear in mind, creating legal uncertainty and making code undesirable can be a feature. If so, then one should go ahead. Otherwise, if possible MIT/BSD is generally the best option.
Take care all of you guys and stay safe out there.
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scoop
dimitarvp
I believe most people here know better than to shoot the messenger. So IMO it’s not a concern at least in ElixirForum.
That can mean a ton of things. Normally I’d err on the cynical side of “we can’t steal the code and then turn around and sue the creator”. 
But I’m pretty sure that was not what you were going for. You likely meant that creators can in theory sue for profit sharing and companies want nothing to do with that.
Thanks for chiming in. Your profession is very under-represented around here and your takes are HIGHLY valued. Have no doubt! 
Look after yourself, please. I’m just starting the second part of the same journey myself – starting to go for a physiotherapist regularly starting next week, and will hire a dietitian soon after – and I know what you’re going through. If you want to chat, you can DM me anytime.
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scoop
Basically yes, or rather you have no idea what can happen legally. The reason why it’s such a big thing is that you have chains of liability for infringements of intellectual property in software contracts.
When an organisation utilises a piece of software it’s keen on first having ensured that it can pass on any liability for infringements to the vendor. The vendor in turn has its vendors and will want to pass on any liability if possible.
When either large organisations ponder acquiring a license for a piece of software or say a startup is about to get bought up or invested in, teams of suits will review the licenses of the software that is used. I’ve seen teams disappointed for not being able to use a perfectly good piece of software. That’s a bit of a waste. Many times it’s just marked as a risk and not taken care of.
So public domain is when something isn’t protected at all. It can be out of scope of intellectual property laws in the first place or the protection period has lapsed. Also, different countries may have different exemptions from protection (public documents, libraries’ use etc.). But is it possible to commit something to public domain by your own actions and achieve the same effect? I’d say in most of Europe you cannot. In the Nordics you need to enter a specific contract, such as a FOSS license. Anything less will just be “no license, not allowed”. Look at the construct in the CC0 – if the jurisdiction does not recognise committing to public domain, then you grant a very wise license instead to try to achieve the same goal.
So the CC0 is “better” in that it’s more clear – but it’s not written with copyright of software in mind. In most jurisdictions, software is a particular subject matter with particular scope of protection and exemptions, still within the framework of copyright. There are plenty of FOSS licenses with better name recognition that will do the same.
Generally:
- a permissive open source license for the code and
- a Creative Commons license (not restrictive) for the documentation and other material
will get you very far.
Of course, there are advanced discussions to be had regarding reciprocity (copyleft) and if FOSS is tolerable due to competition with e.g. Amazon that may offer your software as a service.
Thank you Dimitri! 
I love to support the community and give back. I’ve had so much joy in weekend projects in Elixir and I’ve always found terrific support here. It is my experience that this forum is a very hospitable place and I’m a bit ashamed of momentarily being overly afraid of having awoken the flame war bear.
Glad to hear, health is everything. Will send you a message 
Kind regards,
C / “Mr Defensive”
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eksperimental
Hi @scoop,
thanks for chiming in.
What is your opinion on releasing to the PUBLIC DOMAIN and using a dual license, Creative Commoons Zero, AND either the MIT-0 or the Zero-Clause BSD licenses.
Thanks.
0
scoop
Of course
Sure, you could do CC0 for documentation and other things and MIT-0 or Zero-Clause BSD for code and be set up pretty good. The only thing is that while the software licenses are OSI approved, their name recognition isn’t great. That may be somewhat of a marketing decision.
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eksperimental
Could I do both, docs and source code under both licenses + public domain?
So long as the license’s choice will not imply a limitation on picking my project under the sight of a lawyer, personally, I would not worry about marketing.
I am scarily surprised to see how very few software is released under the public domain.
0
scoop
I think that if you’re that keen on adopting the public domain model you should go for that whole heartedly (code and docs).
It’s poor legal advice (as per above), but I could imagine worse. Your code and obviously your wishes and preferences should be guiding (obviously).
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