Bradford W Miller Bradford_W_Miller@raytheon.com writes:
I don't think this is a good idea for two reasons. 1) you don't have the right to put anything but your own work into the public domain (and even then because of implicit copyrights, etc. even a dedication to the public domain may not be sufficient). 2) by putting the work into the public domain you lose all control over it - someone else can sell it, and take credit for it for instance, and the author (or anyone else for that matter) will have no recourse.
it was most certainly NOT my intention to impose a particular copyright on someone else, sorry if i jumped the gun here. However most of SLIME (swank.lisp, swank-sbcl.lisp, present.lisp, etc.) already is public-domain and other files, like slime.el and swank-lispworks.lisp, have their own copyright notices written by the original authors.
If you want to put something into the public domain, you will at the very least have to have the author submit a statement of dedication to that effect.
the only source-code file which didn't have a copyright notice was swank-ecl.lisp and i have the author's permission for that. what should i do for README and HACKING where there is no single author?