Don't put your software in the public domain

[Paul Rudin]

Nobody <nobody at nowhere.invalid> writes:

> 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.

Don't confuse consideration with agreement - they're seperate legal
concepts.

Agreement is certainly necessary in pretty much all
jurisdictions. Consideration is required in most common law jurisdiction
(England, the US, most of the commonwealth) but not in many continental
legal systems.



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

Nope - the user promises to abide by the terms of the licence. This is a
very common kind of consideration.