Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ucdavis!deneb.ucdavis.edu!cck From: cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: BISON, GCC, and the GNU public license. Message-ID: <4996@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> Date: 29 Jul 89 15:55:16 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26719@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5351@ficc.uu.net> Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu Reply-To: cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 47 In article <5351@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <26719@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes: >You know the answer already, I'm sure. But... you can not give a car away >and still keep it. The same is not true of software (or books, tapes, etc). > >Analogy thus falls apart. Perhaps the analogy falls apart on the issue of copying, but that was not my chief point. I was (and am) concerned with the attempt of software vendors to control what I do with the product other than copying. And the analogy holds at least partially in the car case. If I start cloning Caddies, GM can get on my tail. GM cannot, however, claim any interest in possible income streams generated by my use of that car, but software vendors do make such claims. If autos were sold like software, you'd pay a different price for your car depending on whether you were going to carry 1 person or 6, whether you were going to use it in your business or not, etc. You'd pay one price if you could buy it through a university agreement with the campus bookstore, another price if you bought it through a franchised dealer off campus. >Tell me... how do you feel about other intellectual property laws? >Copyrights on music, books, movies, etc...? As an academic, and one who teaches business history, I would like to see software-style licensing extended to my classroom lecturers. Students would pay one tuition rate for my classes if they agreed never to make any commercial use of the material presented. They would pay another rate for ~possible~ commercial usage with royalties for any ~actual~ commercial usage. Whenever they make use of any of ~my~ ideas in a commercial setting, they must announce that they are so doing. (The possible argument that there is a defacto royalty payment through taxes does not hold for foreign nationals and out-of-state students.) Earl H. Kinmonth History Department University of California, Davis 916-752-1636 (voice, fax [2300-0800 PDT]) 916-752-0776 secretary (bitnet) ehkinmonth@ucdavis.edu (uucp) ucbvax!ucdavis!ucdked!cck (telnet or 916-752-7920) cc-dnet.ucdavis.edu [128.120.2.251] request ucdked, login as guest, no password