Copyright on the Python and Python-console icons?

[Tim Peters]

[Tim Peters]
> Whether any entity in the US apart from the government can
> meaningfully put something in the public domain appears to have
> the legal answer "no", according to one US lawyer who researched
> the issue.  Businesses and individuals supposedly can't disclaim
> copyright (the meaning of "public domain" -- nobody holds copyright)
> even if they want to.

[Erik Max Francis]
> Uh, where in the world do you get this idea?

Which one?  The definition of public domain is conventional.  The rest is
from private communication with a Famous IP Lawyer during Python's licensing
struggles, and I don't have permission to repeat that here.  Talk to a
lawyer if you care a lot:  it's a question of law, with lots of arguments on
both sides.  Creative Commons is on the "sure you can" side of it:

 http://creativecommons.org/

Lawrence Rosen (the Open Source Initiative's lawyer) is on the "not a
chance" side of it; e.g.,

 http://www.mail-archive.com/license-discuss@opensource.org/msg03380.html

An insufferably long scholarly piece arguing all sides:

 http://www.nyls.edu/samuels/copyright/beyond/articles/public.html

Alas, it isn't open to Usenet debate, so I'm out of this now <wink>.