Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!inco!alembic!csu
From: csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: The OSF is *what*?
Message-ID: <1989Sep16.054622.21479@alembic.acs.com>
Date: 16 Sep 89 05:46:22 GMT
References: <8909130635.AA29672@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU> <8909131235.AA13992@fnord.umiacs.UMD.EDU>
Reply-To: csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack)
Organization: Alembic Computer Services, McLean, VA
Lines: 47
UUCP-Path: uunet!inco!alembic!csu

In article <8909131235.AA13992@fnord.umiacs.UMD.EDU> steve@UMIACS.UMD.EDU writes:
>   If the situation is being accurately represented, then OSF is making a
>major mistake, and deserves some serious flaming.
>
>   If Dave Mack is getting beaten up for no more reason than has been
>described, 

Whoa there. I'm the Dave Mack in question and as far as I know, no
copyright death squads are hunting me. They said they're going to send
me a letter. I'll probably survive it, unless they meant letterbomb.

I think you have excessive expectations regarding what the Open Software
Foundation is all about. The OSF products are "open" to OSF members. You
plunk down your twenty-five grand for membership, then you're entitled
to buy the Motif source for a grand, and presumably use it in your products.
(I haven't read the OSF License Agreement - I hope someone from OSF will
correct me if I'm wrong.) I understand that binary copies are available
for fifty bucks or thereabouts, although I don't know if you have to be
an OSF member to get those also. 

>	    then I see myself in a situation where I can't post context diffs
>to Motif sources, for fear of legal retaliation from some droid at OSF.

While the conversation I had did not deal with context diffs, the warning
I got strongly suggests that posting diffs would not be appreciated by
the OSF legal staff. The gentleman I spoke to gave me e-mail addresses
for some mailing lists specifically for the transmission of bug reports
and patches. I'm slightly hesitant to post the addresses - send e-mail 
if you want them.

>   Can someone from OSF present the OSF side of the story, and/or a public
>apology to Dave Mack and to the sensibilities of the net, depending on which
>is appropriate?

Dave Mack neither wants nor requires a public apology. Please get it
straight, folks: Motif is the intellectual property of the OSF. It is
not public domain. They're within their rights in asking me not to post
pieces of their code. We've come to take the ability to do that for granted,
particularly in the case of the BSD source and all the public domain stuff
we've become accustomed to, but this is a different ball game.

I appreciate the support from those who have posted, but there are
more important issues to get worked up about. Let's keep this in
perspective, OK?

Thanks,
Dave Mack