Path: utzoo!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: The GNU Public License Message-ID: <5024@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> Date: 3 Aug 89 00:31:30 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <98@euteal.ele.tue.nl> <1463@l.cc.purdue.edu> <99@euteal.ele.tue.nl> Sender: uucp@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu Reply-To: cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 44 In article <99@euteal.ele.tue.nl> mart@ele.tue.nl (Mart van Stiphout) writes: >In article <1463@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >Unlike many other posters, I can't subscribe the opinion that having >the sources is necessary because the software is usually bad. >I assume people who are into operating systems and stuff like that want >to make changes in the operating system sources but how many people are >into such things? There are other reasons for wanting the source code, other than to rip it off. (a) Much **IX documentation was written in an era when the source code WAS available. Consciously or unconsciously, this documentation makes certain assumptions that are no long appropriate when **IX is a black box (unless you've paid an enormous fee for source code rights); (b) documentation and programs are often out of sync. I've had the experience of doing everything absolutely by the book and not having it work. After wasting hours, I've taken the problem to the university consultants. After proving to themselves that I had RTFM, they looked at the source code, only to find that the documentation was out of sync with the version running on the local system, and there was ~absolutely~ no way I could have done things by the manual and had it work! Please note carefully: I'm not talking about twidling the kernel. I'm talking about ordinary user-level utilities such as the shell. My profession is teaching modern Japanese social and intellectual history, but as a **IX user since 1979, I've had no difficulty breaking the system just by doing things according to the documentation. In all such cases I could have saved myself and the university considerable time and money if I could have been able to look at the source without having to go through n-layers of drek to get to the few exalted high pooh-bahs with such rights. Frankly, as an academic who lives in two worlds (Japanese history, data base management systems), I'd like to see software vendors live by the standards of openness that prevail in academic work OR I'd like to see academics able to make the sorts of claims and covenants over their ideas that software firms seem to think their GAWD-given right/left.