[tutwabee]

What is the difference between Raymond's proposed non-restrictive open source software licensing plan and unleashing software into the public domain? It seems like the authors of such software would have absolutely no control over their software under these licenses, effectively forfeiting their intellectual property rights.

[gtufano]

Well, if you release in public domain you lose any right, AFAIK. Someone could step over, take your code and have intellectual property over it. You don't forfeit your property of the code with BSD licensing. IANAL, of course.

[lutorm]

Someone can't make public domain software unpublic. They can take it and do what they please, but they can't change the terms of use for others.

AFAIK, generally US Government developed software is generally public domain (unless it's classified or something) and I doubt that means someone can just "assume ownership" of it.

[anamax]

> AFAIK, generally US Government developed software is generally public domain (unless it's classified or something) and I doubt that means someone can just "assume ownership" of it.

They can't assume ownership of exactly what the US govt released, but they can create a derived work and own that.

[lutorm]

True, but that's fine. It doesn't affect you in any negative way.