Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!pardo From: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Copylefting Message-ID: <8791@june.cs.washington.edu> Date: 25 Jul 89 16:21:37 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <23837@santra.UUCP> <5207@ficc.uu.net> <12344@pur-ee.UUCP> <26633@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel) Organization: University of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle Lines: 26 >[Ongoing discussion of copyleft vs. public-domain (PD).] A copyleft requires (most :-) people who redistribute your program to redistribute the source. I believe (personally, IMHO) that this has at least two important `academic' advantages over public-domain software. * There is a strong `sharing' incentive. If I find a bug, I share it. If you find a bug, you share it. Bugs get fixed. With PD code, a `branch' that goes proprietary will stop propigating bug fixes back to the main tree. * The copyleft is propigated with the code. If the copyleft includes some kind of credit to the original authors, then the Great Inspiration (tm) of users along the way will get passed back to the creator. Aside from the ``warm fuzzy'' feeling of hearing from people, you also get good ideas. Finally, remember that GNU's copyleft has a very specific set of goals. If you wish, you can `copydown' your programs in a way that is more or less restrictive, as you please. ;-D on ( Parameter passing by copy-in copy-left ) Pardo -- pardo@cs.washington.edu {rutgers,cornell,ucsd,ubc-cs,tektronix}!uw-beaver!june!pardo