Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!agate!eris.berkeley.edu!mwm
From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Software, development & copyrights
Message-ID: <26778@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 29 Jul 89 22:13:34 GMT
References: <Jul.5.09.29.33.1989.23541@topaz.rutgers.edu> <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26695@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <9029@thorin.cs.unc.edu>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
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<It strikes me that the two side in this discussion are not talking about
<quite the same thing.  "Using software to make a better product" (Mike)
<sounds good, but what if (as Peter seems to be saying) software IS the
<product?  

That's a minority case, and only occurs because of the warped view of
intellectual property society has now.

<And no one has addressed the issue, raised by Peter, of development cost.

The development cost only applies when the software is the product.
When the software is a tool to be used by the developers, then the
development cost is overhead, like internal memos, books of procedures,
and the coffee machine.

<The bottom line:  if you want to make a living out of programming, you
<or your company needs to copyright your code in order to maintain your
<rights to sell the code. 

This is a false statement, the same one made by Peter. I make a living
out of programming (a quite nice one, I might add), and neither I nor
my employer copyright my programs to maintain rights to sell them.
Ditto for RMS. Ditto for 90% of the programmers in the world. In fact,
it's not even true for all the people who make a living working for
companies produce software as a product.

Your world view (and Peter's) is for some reason warped. I've noticed
this tendency among people who are making a living as programmers
selling software. Most programmers aren't in that situation. They are
doing maintenance and/or development for someone who uses the tools
the programmers work on as tools, not as product. Those people have no
need to sell the tools, and for many of the tools don't care whether
others see and use them. Of course, in some cases, they aren't willing
to release the software at all, because they consider it a vital edge
on their competition. To those people, the GNU copyleft is no problem
- they either give away sources, or districute nothing.

<The FSF seeks to establish a different kind of property
<right, by claiming rights to any software which "uses" GNU software, 
<where "uses" varies from program incarnation to program incarnation.

Well, the FSF uses the copyright laws to force people who use their
tools to follow their version of what the intellectual property laws
should be. This is exactly what a commercial software developer does.
It's just that the FSF wants things to be best for society, while the
developer wants things to be best for the developer. Naturally enough,
commercial software developers have problems with this. The rest of
society doesn't.

<The pro-GNU forces will undoubtably flame me soundly, that's okay, I
<have my asbestos undies on.  They seem to outnumber the counter-GNU
<forces by a considerable margin.

Yup - by about the margin of commercial software developers to all
other software developers, or 9-1.

	<mike
--
When logic and proportion have fallen softly dead,	Mike Meyer
And the white knight is talking backwards,		mwm@berkeley.edu
And the red queen's off her head,			ucbvax!mwm
Remember what the dormouse said.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET