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From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: libg++ and copylefts
Message-ID: <608@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 22 Jul 89 17:04:35 GMT
References: <799@redsox.bsw.com> <6590194@hplsla.HP.COM> <318@gt-eedsp.gatech.edu> <2053@dataio.Data-IO.COM> <42888@bbn.COM>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 25

In article <42888@bbn.COM> jgrace@porter-square.BBN.COM (Joe Grace) writes:
>In article <2053@dataio.Data-IO.COM> you write:
>>	Redevelop libg++ from scratch. Explicitly make it *PUBLIC DOMAIN*.
>>	This would solve those nasty copyright problems.
>
>I'm not sure this approach would really work in general since GNU can
>take software from *PUBLIC DOMAIN* and incorporate it under their
>copyleft restrictions.  Someone pointed out how FSF seems to have
>taken some government subsidized code, copylefted it, and taken over
>maintenance of the code --- thereby killing the code's *PUBLIC DOMAIN*
>availability and utility.  (We're talking hoarding here, folks.)

The public domain code's public domain status has not changed.

Anyone can take public domain code and make a restricted product out
of it.  No improvements they make will become public domain.  Indeed,
they will tend to be much more restricted than FSF's improvements
would be.  Anyone can still go back to the original public domain
code, however, and build from that.

If someone writes a public domain libg++, it would stay public
domain.  However, improved versions might not be public domain.

Do you think FSF shouldn't be able to copyleft improvements
they write?