PE>> What I basically want to do is enable people to use a work as
 PE>> though they had written it themselves.

 RS> Yeah, I understood what your were trying to do fine, it just wont
 RS> work. Because the bits you DIDNT write are not YOUR work, so you
 RS> can NEVER get to own them like that, get to claim them as your own
 RS> for the purposes of copyright. Coz they aint YOUR work.

I can sell the copyright to someone else, and then they own it
just like they had written it.  So why can't I sell it to lots
of people, and then they all have copyright over it (joint), or
something like that, so that they, and only they, have
complete rights over any derived work?

 RS> In your case the question really is quite complicated. If for example
 RS> your code was doing something quite fancy, say PKT->QWK conversion,
 RS> and just had a bug in it which didnt handle say a dud date properly,
 RS> you cant take PD code, fix that date bug, claim you own the whole of
 RS> the code as your own just because you fix the bug and stick a copyright
 RS> notice on it. Copyright law doesnt let you do that basically.

I think it is important to not have anything at all that would
inhibit a commercial enterprise from using code that I have
written.  If they aren't allowed to spend their own money
fixing bugs in my code and then owning the new version, they
may well think it's better to write their own.  It is this
that I am trying to avoid, and I thought making it PD enabled
this.

 PE>> Even if they distribute the source code to their product,
 PE>> as some graphics libraries do.

 RS> Well, thats a whole nuvver can of worms, stuff which is copyrighted
 RS> but you are free to use.

No, I didn't mean that.  I meant, e.g. that I purchased MCOMM,
a comms library.  It comes with source.  It is copyrighted by
the author.  If he had some modified PD source mixed up in 
that, I would want his copyright notice to remain valid.
BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

--- Mksmsg