Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!pasteur!talvola From: talvola@janus.berkeley.edu (Erik Talvola) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Re^2: Software, development & copyrights Message-ID: Date: 9 Aug 89 18:54:51 GMT References: <26@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <26832@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5401@ficc.uu.net> <26879@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <1312@mcrware.UUCP> <1017@anise.acc.com> <1610@bucket.UUCP> Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU Organization: U.C. Berkeley Lines: 75 In-reply-to: leonard@bucket.UUCP's message of 8 Aug 89 04:56:30 GMT Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.47.3 of Sun Aug 16 1987 on janus (berkeley-unix) In article <1610@bucket.UUCP> leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson) writes: Gnu is providing "tools" and "libraries". Ok, let pick a quite reasonable analogy. I'm dealing with someone who produces a wonderful set of automated machines tools and design libraries for them. You feed in a design and out comes whatever... you can even (with a bit of work) get the tools to produce themselves or even *improved* versions of themselves. I have no problem with this person claiming rights to the tools. And if I use the knowledge I get from examining them or the design libraries to design better tools or libraries, then indeed they should be able to excercise an amount of control based upon the extent to which the new items are *derived* from the old. (that's what derivative work *means*) But they want to say that they have rights over *anything* produced with theses tools and libraries, not merely things *derived* from them. Sorry, but if I use their tools to build a piano, the have no rights to the piano in any ethical system. I don't believe this is really an accurate analogy, and I would like to supply one which I feel is closer to the situation. Let's say that one is writing a large research paper. In this paper, he is using information from several other papers written by different people. Now, this person isn't deriving anything from the other papers, but he is using them in the writing of his paper. Now, if this person uses the actual text of one of the original papers, then he is subject to the conditions of its distribution. For example, it may say something like: "No portion of this paper may be distributed without the express written permission of the author." Yes, quotes are allowed to be taken from papers without getting permission, but let's say that the person took a whole chapter from some book and used it. Now, the writer of the new research paper has a couple of options. He can rewrite the section of the paper which was copied, or he can go by the rules and contact the author for permission, and see what restrictions the author wants on the distribution. I see this in being similar to the GNU stuff. Someone wants to write a new compiler, and wants to use Bison. Yes, Bison is only a tool, but it contains code with restrictions on it. In the same way that you cannot take a chapter of a book and republish it, you cannot take a section of code (namely, the skeleton parser), and republish it - without the permission of the author. In the case of the GNU stuff, the 'permission of the author' means that you must obey by the rules and distribute your source code. The same goes with the C++ library, and the forthcoming C library. OK - you may say "this is unfair, since you need the C library to do anything." Perhaps you do, but since the code in the library isn't yours to do with, since you did not write it, you don't have permission to do what you want with it. This includes incorporating it in your personal works without following the author's rules. If you don't want to follow the rules - write your own code. I am avoiding one argument that many people have brought up - that is, should the FSF copyleft the C/C++/Bison stuff. I feel they have the right to do so, since it is their code. I use the Gnu stuff often here at Berkeley, and the Gnu stuff is used all the time in many of the classes here on campus. I just wish that instead of trying to find ways to get around the restrictions on the Gnu code, people would either a) distribute their source like Gnu does, or b) use Gnu stuff on Gnu-type code, and commercial/other stuff on code which they want to distribute binaries only. -- +----------------------------+ ! Erik Talvola | "It's just what we need... a colossal negative ! talvola@janus.berkeley.edu | space wedgie of great power coming right at us ! ...!ucbvax!janus!talvola | at warp speed." -- Star Drek