Don't put your software in the public domain

[Paul Rudin]

Lawrence D’Oliveiro <lawrencedo99 at gmail.com> writes:

> On Friday, June 3, 2016 at 9:53:47 PM UTC+12, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>
>> A licence is something like a contract...
>
> A licence is quite different from a contract. A contract requires some
> indication of explicit agreement by both parties, a licence does not. That’s
> why Free Software licences only have to say something like “by using this
> software, you agree to the following terms...”, because if the user doesn’t
> accept the licence, then they have no licence.

But that's exactly what a contract is - an agreement. The licence is an
example, on the one side the copyright holder is agreeing not to sue the
user for copyright infringment and on the other the user is agreeing to
only use the code according to the terms.

>
> EULAs for proprietary software, on the other hand, try to have it both
> ways, by having a clause like the above, as well as requiring you to
> click an “I Agree” button or some such.

You can agree a contract by conduct...