Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?

Eric Bohlman wrote:

> This is a rather sticky point.  It's unlikely that someone who 
> unofficially "disclaimed copyright" would willingly change his mind 
> afterwards, but that assumes ideal circumstances.  In the Real World, 
> people sometimes die, get divorced, or get sued by people they owe money 
> to.  It seems to me that if someone from a country that doesn't 
> recognize voluntary relinquishment of copyright (and, AFAIK, that's most 
> countries) contributes code to SQLite or something similar, his heirs, 
> ex-spouse, or creditors could end up with a proprietary interest in part 
> of the code.  Not good.

I think that maybe everyone is getting their nickers in a bunch over 
nothing here.  It seems a little paranoid to get worried because 
somebody is giving something away for free.  What's somebody going to 
sue for?  Lost earnings because they didn't get their share of royalties 
for the code their former spouse/ancestor wrote?  The code was written 
with the understanding that it would not generate any revenue.

Copyright on the code has been renounced in the U.S.  So somebody in 
Germany wants to sue Mr. Hipp because he can't renounce it there. 
That's really great, but German courts have very little ability to act 
against foreign citizens who are in another country.  The same applies 
to other courts in other countries.  You can get all the judgements 
against a foreign citizen you want in a Russian, Spanish or Chinese 
court.  So long as the citizen stays on their native soil there's 
blessed little that can be done about collecting on those judgements.

Before somebody chimes in about how it'll be your own company that gets 
sued for using the code, sit down and relax.  Unless you have very deep 
pockets, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to be a 
target of such a suit.  There's no point in going after somebody who'll 
be bankrupted by fighting the case, since there'll be no money to 
collect.  That's the sort of thing that happens to Daimler-Chrysler or 
IBM, because they can afford to fight the case.  If your company is that 
size, you should be fretting the matter with your lawyers, not a mailing 
list.

My advice?  Stop fretting and get on with using this great little 
library.  There's a lot more profit in that than there is in worrying 
about the unlikely event of a lawsuit that can't be collected on.

Clay Dowling
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