On Sun, 31 May 2009, Antony Stone wrote:

(I am not a lawyer)

> Since copyright is automatic upon creation of a piece of work, surely it
> isn't possible for anything to have "no copyright"?

That's what lawyers and different juristictions debate.

A) Some people claim to do things (write programs for example) that they hand
    over to "public domain". This may or may not be accepted legally.

B) 70 years (or so) after the author of a work dies, that work becomes public
    domain. The copyright expires. That's virtually "no copyright" to me at
    least.

> however I think Tomer's original statement about VirtualBox being out in the
> public domain (without the capitals) is meaningful.

As I tried to explain, I was only nitpicking about the term Public Domain, as
Virtualbox is by no means Public Domain. Neither express nor implied. It is
(still) Free Software and Open Source.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se