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From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software, development & copyrights
Message-ID: <26832@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 1 Aug 89 01:13:39 GMT
References: <Jul.5.09.29.33.1989.23541@topaz.rutgers.edu> <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26778@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5363@ficc.uu.net>
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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In article <5363@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
<In article <26778@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer) writes:
<> Ditto for 90% of the programmers in the world.
<
<That, I won't. You're playing games with words.
<
<Just because the direct product of the company is not software doesn't mean
<they won't be hurt by the FSF copyleft.

Peter, you have this habit of reading straw men into what other people
write, without regarding what they actually wrote.

I didn't say that _only_ people who sell explictily software would
have problems with copyleft. I said that over 90% of the programmers
in the world aren't in a position where selling the software is
needed.

I didn't even say that copyleft wouldn't hurt you if you weren't in
the software business - I said that if they didn't need to sell the
software, then copyleft won't bother them.

<Most of the software in the world is sold as part of a system.

Um, first of all, most software (by raw line count, not by
package/program count) in the world isn't sold - it's PA.  That's
because most of it is written by the US government using taxpayers
money, which was (until recently) required to go into the public
domain (with the minor exception of software that was classified).

Now, if you restrict your statment to "most of the software sold in
the world is sold...", then I might be able to accept it - once again,
by raw line count, not by program or package count. The "might" is
because a fair number of the people who sell software bundled that way are
willing (or, if they're IBM, required by judicial order) to sell the
same software unbundled. If that weren't true, and all software that
was sold as part of a package weren't sold in any other form, then I'd
say you were right.

Note that, while these packages compromise a majority of lines sold,
it doesn't follow that the majority of programmers working on lines
sold are working on such products. And I didn't talk about size of
packages number of lines etc, but about number of _programmers_.

<It's not
<sold explicitly as a seperate product, but it's sold nevertheless. And free
<access to the sourtce code of this software would indeed hurt the company.

Did I say it wouldn't?

<I make a living supporting other people who write software as part of a
<system that's sold to electric utility companies. Ferranti goes to some
<lengths to keep competitors away from the source to the system. I'd hate
<to see what would happen if CDC had free access to all our released source.

I've worked for companies that did similar things, except we didn't
distribute binaries. No problem for us.

Note that I didn't say that people who bundle other things with their
software and sell that package wouldn't be hurt if their stuff was
copyleft. After all, they are doing software development for
commercial purposes.

Of course, I don't think that most such people would be hurt. After
all, if they bundle the software, they have a dongle. They don't have
a problem unless they buy the dongle from someone else who could go
into competition with them, as the patents & copyrights on the
_dongle_ should do the trick.

Though if there's a big enough market, someone will reverse-engineer
the dongle. But the same is true of the software.

<> It's just that the FSF wants things to be best for society,
<
<When a man comes up to you with the intent of doing you good, run the other
<way.

Right. After all, we wouldn't _ever_ want to benefit by somebody
else's good will, would we?

That's why you don't trust people's good will, you trust their their
self-interest. It works better. And you yourself pointed out that
Stallman's self-interest is in creating a programmers utopia.

	<mike
--
It's been a hard day's night,				Mike Meyer
And I been working like a dog.				mwm@berkeley.edu
It's been a hard day's night,				ucbvax!mwm
I should be sleeping like a log.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET