Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ulowell!apollo!gaz
From: gaz@apollo.COM (Gary Zaidenweber)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GNU programs, copyleft (was Re: IS MT UUCP Legal??) (long)
Message-ID: <446a8472.ce45@apollo.COM>
Date: 14 Jul 89 14:33:00 GMT
References: <1602@atari.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, Mass.
Lines: 51

From article <1602@atari.UUCP>, by apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt):
> covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes:
>>	I just saw a version of 'uucp' being sold by the company
>>that makes the MT C Shell. I also noticed in the credits for uucp in the
>>manual, that it was ported to the ST from C Code by the GNU Freeware
>>people. My question is:
>>	Is it ethical for someone to port freeware code from one
>>one computer to another, and then sell the ported code??
> 
>>	The 'uucp' sold for $49.95 and has a very skimpy manual.
>>About 10 pages in the small manual sized pages.
> 
>>Richard (gtephx!covertr) Covert
> 
> FSF (The Free Software Foundation) makes their copying and derivative-
> works policy very clear.  Selling a derivative work is not allowed by
> their guidelines.  Furthermore, their stuff is usually copyright FSF,
> so there's some law behind their requests.  However, to my knowledge,
> there has never been a court challenge to their guidelines, so I don't
> know what the legal community has to say about them.  I suspect they're
> indefensible, but that's not an expert opinion.

[...deleted because I'm not writing to debate the ethics (at this time:-) )]

> 
> I find the copyleft annoying, because it means I can't use GCC to
> develop programs which Atari hopes to profit from: code generated by
> the C compiler, and certainly code with FSF library modules included,
> count as derivative works.  GCC is the best compiler I can't use.
> 
> After my signature is a copy of the file COPYING as received from
> BAMMI@CWRU when he sent me the GCC 1.35 distribution sources.
> 
> ============================================
> Opinions expressed above do not necessarily	-- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
> reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.	  ...ames!atari!apratt
> 
[...I deleted the GNU 'COPYING' file because Allan already posted it]

Allan, I understand your feeling of "annoyance", however, I don't see
anything in the GNU General Public License prohibiting a company from
charging for 'warantee' and 'support'. In fact, isn't Mt. Xinu making
a living from providing just that for GNU? I suspect that the agreement
is defensible (at least here, in Massachusetts) though, from my slight
knowlege of Richard Stallman's personal beliefs, I don't think he has 
much use for lawyers and wouldn't sue for money (he has about as much
use for money as he has for the legal system.) I would take the 
agressive position: give the program away and charge for the manual,
support and a warantee. Go for it.

(Look, no flames about Atari's support and warantee policies!)