Public domain software is particularly tricky situation for multi-nationals. Vetting an MIT licensed library is virtually a no-op, but some jurisdictions simply do not recognize PD licenses (let alone "do whatever the fuck you want" licenses people sometimes write while being clever). The one time I got stung by this it wasn't that hard to fix but things could have gone a lot different if we had more deeply leveraged either of the two PD tools that we had in our dependency chain. I swapped one for a slightly larger MIT licensed library, and set a coworker up to cleanroom the other, since I was already tainted.
> You could sue me for copyright infringement anyway, but you’d need to prove that my program copies yours. Some of the criteria used to prove this include the structure and organisation of the original source code, so even if I were to have used a different programming language, if I use the same code structure (even coincidentally) then it can appear as if I copied your program.<p>AFAIK, at least in the US, coincidence in and of itself is just fine, to prove infringement the copyright holder has to show that the defendant had access to the work, i.e. they actually copied it. This would seem to rule out most scenarios with a SASS/closed source plaintiff.
misleading title: it’s not complicated, but you can make it complicated. Just use cc-by (sa or nd) and an osi approved foss license. A good read: <a href="https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/owning-your-own-copyrights-in-open-source/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/owning-your-own-copyright...</a> or see <a href="https://blog.codeforscience.org/intellectual-property-in-open-projects/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.codeforscience.org/intellectual-property-in-ope...</a> to keep it simple!
It's complicated for lawyers. It's not complicated for people who don't have the money to hire and pay lawyers.<p>Who is the target audience for this book?