Clarify what "public domain" actually means in PEP templates

[ncoghlan]

Most (all?) PEPs include a public domain dedication at the end, but that's not necessarily a concept that consistently applies across different jurisdictions.

For PEP 531, I've amended that part of the PEP to say:

This document has been placed in the public domain under the terms of the CC0 1.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Perhaps we should make that the default text in the PEP template? (We can leave it up to individual PEP authors if they want to clarify the terms on their old PEPs)

[warsaw]

On Oct 27, 2016, at 11:52 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

Most (all?) PEPs include a public domain dedication at the end, but that's
not necessarily a concept that consistently applies across different
jurisdictions.

For PEP 531, I've amended that part of the PEP to say:

This document has been placed in the public domain under the terms of the
CC0 1.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

Perhaps we should make that the default text in the PEP template? (We can
leave it up to individual PEP authors if they want to clarify the terms on
their old PEPs)

Has the standard disclaimer ever been questioned? What risk does does leaving
it with the current wording open us up to? Does the CC0 generally apply
across all/most jurisdictions or at least have a more widespread
acknowledgment of legal validity?

[steveholden]

I don't know, but [email protected] should be able to give a definitive ruling and (if necessary) new acceptable wording.

[warsaw]

On Oct 28, 2016, at 06:55 AM, Steve Holden wrote:

I don't know, but [email protected] should be able to give a definitive ruling
and (if necessary) new acceptable wording.

+1 - of course, this language has been in place forever and legal@ has never
said anything one way or the other iirc.

[ncoghlan]

I don't think the standard disclaimer has ever been questioned, and I doubt it will be. However, "public domain" and whether or not you can contribute something to it is jurisdiction dependent, while the CC0 license is explicit and applies anywhere that "copyright license" is a meaningful term.

The human readable form of the CC0 license also helps explain the terms for folks that don't personally know what "public domain" means.

[warsaw]

On Oct 28, 2016, at 07:00 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:

I don't think the standard disclaimer has ever been questioned, and I doubt
it will be. However, "public domain" and whether or not you can contribute
something to it is jurisdiction dependent, while the CC0 license is explicit
and applies anywhere that "copyright license" is a meaningful term.

The human readable form of the CC0 license also helps explain the terms for
folks that don't personally know what "public domain" means.

I'm not saying I'm against it, I'm just not sure it's necessary. But I'll
happily defer to legal@

[ncoghlan]

To be clear, I don't think it matters all that much if we change it - given the nature of PEPs, the copyright isn't the interesting bit, it's the ideas they contain.

It's just bugged me for a while since I'm a bit of a licensing wonk and you technically can't just put things in the public domain by saying "I declare this is public domain" - the state gives you particular rights by default, and you actually have to relinquish them the right way to make it a legally binding statement.

I finally got around to doing something about that for my latest PEP, so I figured I should note the deviation from the template and why I did it :)

[Rosuav]

I think 99%+ of us don't particularly care about the wording, so if legal@ reckons there's a better way to word it, change the template and all future PEPs will slide painlessly to the new wording. +0 on the change in question.

[gvanrossum]

Did we ever hear from legal@ here?

[ncoghlan]

Just noticed that this issue was still open. @VanL - should we switch the PEP template over to an explicit CC0 license rather than the current public domain statement, or should I just close this and not worry about it?

[stevendaprano]

This has bugged me for a very long time too. As far as I understand it, here in Australia there is no legal provision to relinquish copyright by putting things in the public domain before copyright would naturally expire. The same applies in the US, where the Copyright Office has officially sat on the fence about this issue.

http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/no-rights-reserved.html

#ncoghlan a note: CC0 is a public domain dedication not a license.

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

[vpoulailleau]

In France, we have to die and wait 30 years to declare that the document is in public domain. Another option is to stay alive 70 years, and then the document is in public domain…

I use CC0 in France, to comply to laws and have a "public domain"-like statement.

For those who speak french: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domaine_public_en_droit_de_la_propri%C3%A9t%C3%A9_intellectuelle_fran%C3%A7ais

[brettcannon]

I've emailed @VanL to see if he can comment on this.

[VanL]

This is probably not a huge issue, risk-wise. If we want, we can update the statement to say, "This document is placed in the public domain or under the CC0-1.0-Universal license, whichever is more permissive."

[brettcannon]

@VanL thanks for the clarification! I'll update the templates accordingly.