You can’t put software in the public domain
Stephen Shankland has a good article about whether or not public domain software is open source or not. Short summary: attorneys say no, open source advocates say yes. The difference of opinion is due to the issue that Stephen doesn't cover. The biggest myth of public domain software. Most developers believe they can say the software they write is in the public domain. They can't.
You can't put software in the public domain. No license you write, no written statement you prepare, no will you draft can put software in the public domain. The minute you write a few lines of code, you own the copyright on them. You can give it away, reassign it, license it, but you can't remove the copyright. Public domain software has no copyright. It's not a license that makes public domain software public domain. It's the lack of a license or copyright.
The only software that I know of that is truely in the public domain is software written by U.S. government employees. Like the hospital administration software Medsphere started with – software that was developed by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
