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Software Licenses
Books
Open Source
Glossary
Advertising Clause
Compatible Licenses
Copyleft
Derivative Works
Dual Licensing
FLOSS
FOSS
Free Software
Incompatible Licenses
OSD
OSI Certified
OSS
Permissive Licenses
Viral Licenses
Licenses
AGPL
Apache
Apple
Artistic
BSD
CDDL
CPL
EPL
GPL v2
GPL v3
IPL
LGPL
MIT
Mozilla
SPL
X License
X11 License
Organizations
ASF
FSF
OSI
SFLC
People
Bruce Perens
Eben Moglen
Eric Raymond
Lawrence Lessig
Linus Torvalds
Richard Stallman
Proprietary
Closed Source
Freeware
Shareware
Public Domain
Shared Source
MS Community License
MS Permissive License
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Public Domain
Public domain refers to those works (including software) where
there is no copyright or proprietary interest in the work, either
because the copyright has expired, because of the operation of law,
or because the rights holder(s) chose to place their work into
the public domain (the last of which may not be possible in some
jurisdictions). As a result of being in the public domain, there
are very few if any restrictions on how the work may be used or
distributed by others.
For authors who wish to allow free use of their works, an
alternative to placing them in the public domain is to use a
permissive license.
This allows very broad usage of the work while allowing the copyright-holder to include
a disclaimer of warranties and require attribution if he wishes.
Please note that the phrase "public domain" is also sometimes used,
generally informally (but even in some court cases) to refer to works or
information that is public knowledge and/or widely available. When used in
this manner, the phrase does not mean that no copyrights or other
proprietary interests apply.
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