New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Why not publish into the Public Domain, instead of OSS licence?

Ask HN: Why not publish into the Public Domain, instead of OSS licence?
6 by hutzlibu | 25 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, I am about to publish my long year project and have not yet choosen a licence. Anyone should be free to use it, for any purpose. (So definitely no copyleft licence) But why should I use any licence at all and not skip all this alltogether and choose the public domain? I mean, I still want the credit (and donations) directed towards me. But in my understanding there is not really a difference? Fraud happens with proper licensed projects, too (when some shady website repackages vlc for example and sells it as theirs or redirect donations) and claiming ownership of something you do not own is fraud either way? So what is the advantage of a common OSS licence, except the overhead of long license text (with maybe my name and email) to be included everywhere? Am I missing something important?

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