Don't put your software in the public domain

[Nobody]

On Fri, 03 Jun 2016 09:15:55 -0700, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

>> [quoted text muted]
> 
> A licence is quite different from a contract. A contract requires some
> indication of explicit agreement by both parties, a licence does not.

More precisely, it requires "mutual consideration", i.e. each party must
provide something of value to the other. If a party doesn't provide
something of value, they can't claim any harm in the event of a breach, as
they haven't lost anything (failure to receive what the other party
promised doesn't count, as it didn't belong to the recipient to start with).

This is why you sometimes see contracts where one party pays a nominal sum
(e.g. one pound/dollar/euro) in return for assets which may have
significant value but also significant liabilities attached. The fact that
they paid /something/ allows them to enforce the contract.

OTOH, a Free software licence is unilateral; the author grants the user
certain rights, with the user providing nothing in return.