Public Domain source code

[oksid]

Hi,

I've started to make a collection of public domain source code found on
the Internet.

The list of what I've already found is on my web site, there :
http://www.whoow.org/public_domain/

I found a lot more source codes which are tagged "public domain".
Most of them are in reality copyrighted under the GPL or BSD license.

Some others have a sentence like this one :
"This code is in the public domain. All that I request is that my name
should not be removed."
It is clear that the author misunderstood the public domain, and
therefor the source code is not in public domain.

I took the decision to store only source code that have (in my own
opinion) a strong value added.
So I've banished garbage collected languages.

C is my preferred language, but valuable code written in an other
language is welcome.

So the question is :
Do you know some software source code that I could add to my archive ?
If the answer is yes, can you give me it's URL ?

Thanks in advance.

Jean-Marc Lienher

[Richard Heathfield]

In <24cd3$4afa9bcf$50532d57$27...@news.hispeed.ch>, oksid wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I've started to make a collection of public domain source code found
> on the Internet.
>
> The list of what I've already found is on my web site, there :
> http://www.whoow.org/public_domain/

From one of the files there:

#include <apollo/base.h>
#include <apollo/gpr.h>
#include <apollo/pad.h>
#include <apollo/error.h>
#include <apollo/pgm.h>
#include <apollo/pfm.h>

Um, how likely do you think this is to be generally useful to people?

(By the way, in the same file, some of the identifiers contain dollar
signs!)

--
Richard Heathfield <http://www.cpax.org.uk>
Email: -http://www. +rjh@
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line vacant - apply within

[oksid]

Richard Heathfield wrote:
> In <24cd3$4afa9bcf$50532d57$27...@news.hispeed.ch>, oksid wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've started to make a collection of public domain source code found
>> on the Internet.
>>
>> The list of what I've already found is on my web site, there :
>> http://www.whoow.org/public_domain/
>
> From one of the files there:
>
> #include <apollo/base.h>
> #include <apollo/gpr.h>
> #include <apollo/pad.h>
> #include <apollo/error.h>
> #include <apollo/pgm.h>
> #include <apollo/pfm.h>
>
> Um, how likely do you think this is to be generally useful to people?
>
> (By the way, in the same file, some of the identifiers contain dollar
> signs!)
>

http://www.whoow.org/public_domain/gif2gpr.html

Yes, your right. I thing that I can delete this one.
I was searching for a GIF decoder, I was happy to find this one.
But I must admit that I didn't checked it's usefulness.
If days have more than 24h, I would rewrite this code using modern
standards...

Except decuscpp, sqlite and xd (and maybe not the same version), I've
not compiled any of the files found on my web site.

[Beej Jorgensen]

oksid <ok...@bluewin.ch> wrote:
>Some others have a sentence like this one :
>"This code is in the public domain. All that I request is that my name
>should not be removed."
>It is clear that the author misunderstood the public domain, and
>therefor the source code is not in public domain.

Personally, speaking as a non-lawyer, I think this means its in the
public domain, and there is a non-binding request to have the author's
name included for credit.

The USGS does this with some of their public domain data, where they
request that you put a little credit or USGS logo on the result.
However, since the data is in the public domain, this can't be enforced.

Now, if the software contains a notice such as:

This software is hereby granted to the public domain and is
Copyright (C) 2009 John Example. All Rights Reserved.

then I'd say it's not really in the public domain. :)

I'm all for public domain archives even with non-standard code in it.
Disk is cheap.

archive.org has a "software" section, but it's not entirely easy to
navigate.

-Beej

[Thad Smith]

Beej Jorgensen wrote:
> oksid <ok...@bluewin.ch> wrote:
>> Some others have a sentence like this one :
>> "This code is in the public domain. All that I request is that my name
>> should not be removed."
>> It is clear that the author misunderstood the public domain, and
>> therefor the source code is not in public domain.
>
> Personally, speaking as a non-lawyer, I think this means its in the
> public domain, and there is a non-binding request to have the author's
> name included for credit.

Yes, I interpret it that way as well. A "request" is not a licensing
requirement. I seriously doubt one could be found guilty of copyright
infringement on such work for any purpose.

If someone changed to code to claim ownership they might, in conjunction
with other acts, be guilty of fraud, but not copyright violation. If
they changed the code, but not the authorship to imply that the original
author was incompetent, they might be guilty of libel.

--
Thad