Don't put your software in the public domain

[Lawrence D’Oliveiro]

On Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 8:58:19 AM UTC+12, Nobody wrote:
> 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).

Thanks for clarifying that.

> 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.

I wonder about the point of that, though; I have heard of cases where the judge ruled that the contract had been breached, and awarded damages of one pound/dollar/euro. So other than winning a symbolic victory, what was the point?