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Public-domain software
Public-domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words, software for which there is absolutely no ownership such as copyright, trademark, or patent. Software in the public domain can be modified, distributed, or sold even without any attribution by anyone; this is unlike the common case of software under exclusive copyright, where licenses grant limited usage rights.
Under the Berne Convention, which most countries have signed, an author automatically obtains the exclusive copyright to anything they have written, and local law may similarly grant copyright, patent, or trademark rights by default. The Convention also covers programs, and they are therefore automatically subject to copyright. If a program is to be placed in the public domain, the author must explicitly disclaim the copyright and other rights on it in some way, e.g. by a waiver statement. In some jurisdictions, some rights (in particular moral rights) cannot be disclaimed: for instance, civil tradition-based German law's "Urheberrecht" differs from Anglo-Saxon common law tradition's "copyright" concept.[how?]
From the software culture of the 1950s to 1990s, public-domain (or PD) software were popular as original academic phenomena. This kind of freely distributed and shared "free software" combined the present-day classes of freeware, shareware, and free and open-source software, and was created in academia, by hobbyists, and hackers. As software was often written in an interpreted language such as BASIC, the source code was needed and therefore distributed to run the software. PD software was also shared and distributed as printed source code (type-in programs) in computer magazines (like Creative Computing, SoftSide, Compute!, Byte, etc.) and books, like the bestseller BASIC Computer Games. Earlier on, closed-source software was uncommon until the mid-1970s to 1980s.
Before 1974, when the US Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) decided that "computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author's original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright", software was not copyrightable and therefore always in the public domain. This legislation, plus court decisions such as Apple v. Franklin in 1983 for object code, clarified that the Copyright Act gave computer programs the copyright status of literary works.
In the 1980s, a common way to share public-domain software[verification needed] was by receiving them through a local user group or a company like PC-SIG of Sunnyvale, California, which maintained a mail-order catalog of more than 300 disks with an average price of US$6. Public-domain software with source code was also shared on BBS networks. Public-domain software was commercialized sometimes by a donationware model, asking the users for a financial donation to be sent by mail.
The public-domain "free sharing" and donationware commercialization models evolved in the following years to the (non-voluntary) shareware model, and software free of charge, called freeware. Additionally, due to other changes in the computer industry, the sharing of source code became less common.
With the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 (and the earlier Copyright Act of 1976), the legal basis for public-domain software changed drastically. Before the act, releasing software without a copyright notice was enough to dedicate it to the public domain. With the new act, software was by default copyright-protected and needed an explicit waiver statement or license from the author.
Reference implementations of algorithms, often cryptographic meant or applied for standardization are still often released into the public domain; examples include CERN httpd in 1993 and Serpent cipher in 1999. The Openwall Project maintains a list of several algorithms and their source code in the public domain.
Hub AI
Public-domain software AI simulator
(@Public-domain software_simulator)
Public-domain software
Public-domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words, software for which there is absolutely no ownership such as copyright, trademark, or patent. Software in the public domain can be modified, distributed, or sold even without any attribution by anyone; this is unlike the common case of software under exclusive copyright, where licenses grant limited usage rights.
Under the Berne Convention, which most countries have signed, an author automatically obtains the exclusive copyright to anything they have written, and local law may similarly grant copyright, patent, or trademark rights by default. The Convention also covers programs, and they are therefore automatically subject to copyright. If a program is to be placed in the public domain, the author must explicitly disclaim the copyright and other rights on it in some way, e.g. by a waiver statement. In some jurisdictions, some rights (in particular moral rights) cannot be disclaimed: for instance, civil tradition-based German law's "Urheberrecht" differs from Anglo-Saxon common law tradition's "copyright" concept.[how?]
From the software culture of the 1950s to 1990s, public-domain (or PD) software were popular as original academic phenomena. This kind of freely distributed and shared "free software" combined the present-day classes of freeware, shareware, and free and open-source software, and was created in academia, by hobbyists, and hackers. As software was often written in an interpreted language such as BASIC, the source code was needed and therefore distributed to run the software. PD software was also shared and distributed as printed source code (type-in programs) in computer magazines (like Creative Computing, SoftSide, Compute!, Byte, etc.) and books, like the bestseller BASIC Computer Games. Earlier on, closed-source software was uncommon until the mid-1970s to 1980s.
Before 1974, when the US Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) decided that "computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author's original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright", software was not copyrightable and therefore always in the public domain. This legislation, plus court decisions such as Apple v. Franklin in 1983 for object code, clarified that the Copyright Act gave computer programs the copyright status of literary works.
In the 1980s, a common way to share public-domain software[verification needed] was by receiving them through a local user group or a company like PC-SIG of Sunnyvale, California, which maintained a mail-order catalog of more than 300 disks with an average price of US$6. Public-domain software with source code was also shared on BBS networks. Public-domain software was commercialized sometimes by a donationware model, asking the users for a financial donation to be sent by mail.
The public-domain "free sharing" and donationware commercialization models evolved in the following years to the (non-voluntary) shareware model, and software free of charge, called freeware. Additionally, due to other changes in the computer industry, the sharing of source code became less common.
With the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 (and the earlier Copyright Act of 1976), the legal basis for public-domain software changed drastically. Before the act, releasing software without a copyright notice was enough to dedicate it to the public domain. With the new act, software was by default copyright-protected and needed an explicit waiver statement or license from the author.
Reference implementations of algorithms, often cryptographic meant or applied for standardization are still often released into the public domain; examples include CERN httpd in 1993 and Serpent cipher in 1999. The Openwall Project maintains a list of several algorithms and their source code in the public domain.