Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hplsla!jima
From: jima@hplsla.HP.COM (Jim Adcock)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: g++ vs. cfront 2.0 in the Real World
Message-ID: <6590204@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 17 Jul 89 16:59:58 GMT
References: <799@redsox.bsw.com>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 53

>   Gee, just what the computing world needs.  Link in the wrong library and
>   get a licensing virus in your program.
>
>not a virus, a legally defensible solution.
>
>A virus is simply clever, legal precedent is truely useful.

I don't consider this clever, nor useful, but rather destructive to society
in general, and software writers in general.

It is one thing to put legal restrictions on the use of one's product -- if
you're honest and up front about those restrictions.  It is a far worse
thing to introduce hidden licensing restrictions into another's work.

In the first case, one can see one made a mistake -- "oops, I linked in
a forbidden library -- I meant to get that library from /usr/public_domain/CC,
not /usr/copyleft/CC."

In the second case -- when people are playing tricks to hide licensing 
restrictions in their code -- then one can never be sure one's code is in
the clear -- because if you linked in the wrong library by mistake, that
is never made clear to you.

If there were some simple way of testing this -- like if one generated code
based on restricted FSF stuff, and if doing so caused "FSF_copyleft_violated" 
to be defined in name space, then at least a user could always do a:

nm mystuff | grep "FSF_copyleft_violated"

or something, and make sure one has not accidentally linked in the forbidden
fruits.  As it now stands, people claim to be introducing hidden licensing
restrictions in their code, so one can never be sure when this will come
back to haunt you.  Then other people get all paranoid about code that is 
offered "freely."

So now, for example, when I offer code that I have written on this net,
people write back and say: "What do I have to do to get it?", and I say:
"just ask me for it" and they don't believe it.  So people just keep
rewriting the same code over and over again.

How many copies of "streams" does the world need?
How many copies of "complex" does the world need?
How many copies of "matrix" does the world need?
How many copies of "vector" does the world need?
How many copies of "string" does the world need?

How about all the .h files necessary to get C++ to talk to 15 year old
C libraries?

etc, etc, etc, etc.

Can't we at least agree to make these base things *truly* public domain,
and then get on with the more interesting work?