Do I need license to release the Python version of old BASIC games?

[Michael Torrie]

On 06/21/2015 08:27 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Public domain is not a licence, and many places (including the US) do not
> allow individuals to put works into the public domain. (US government works
> are a special case.) Some places will not recognise a public domain
> dedication, and will treat the work as being legally copyrighted by you
> with All Rights Reserved. Some legal jurisdictions prohibit owners from
> surrendering some or all rights.
> 
> You might not choose to pursue a copyright claim, but your heirs might,
> which means that a "public domain" release is legally unsafe unless the
> work actually is in the public domain due to age.

Yes of course public domain is not a source code license.  That's not
what I meant anyway.  But sure, pick some license like MIT or BSD and
call it good.

As for it being not possible to place something in the public domain,
that's news to me and certainly news to a number of projects including
Libravox. All of their recordings state that they are in the public
domain.  Of course the texts being read are in the public domain by
virtue of their copyright expiring.  But the recordings themselves could
be copyrighted, but are not.

>From some brief research, it appears there is some question about the
ability to declare something to be in the public domain, but it is by no
means a sure thing and lots of people feel it's just fine to declare
something to be in the public domain.  What his heirs try to assert is
probably not his concern nor would I worry about it.  This is wandering
in the weeds in typical python-list style!