Releasing a unique hack mostly using other people's stuff

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by Erwin

Well, I am a lawyer.

From what I understand, AT&T lost copyright over the code by distributing it widely, effectively making it open source. They implied they were waiving their rights to it. That's different to saying that source code with no copyright notice is automatically open source.

Similarly, if I make a script, and send copies to everyone without making it clear that it is not public domain, my actions imply that I want it to be public domain. However, if I make a script and only upload it to vBulletin.org which only licensed vBulletin owners can access, that hardly means I want my script to be public domain.

See the difference?

Disclaimer: Though I am a lawyer, the above is not formal legal advice.

I can't see the difference yet. Are you saying that people who publish source code and distribute it to tens of thousands here on vbulletin.org without any copyright notice are not distributing it? By the mere fact of uploading your code to vbulletin.org, you are distrubuting it.

If AT&T with their millions of dollars lost such an argument, I'd rather not risk it, as I don't have their clout. I'd ather spend the few seconds required to paste that notice.