The status of a work, such as a program or document, where the author has irrevocably waived any copyright in the work so that it can be freely copied and used. In countries such as Germany and the USA statutes and government publications are considered to be in the public domain. In the computer industry the term is normally applied to the computer programs and data supplied to computer user groups by its active members for circulation among the group as an aid to the operation of computers or the removal of bugs.