Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!pebbles!ned From: ned@pebbles.cad.mcc.com (Ned Nowotny) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Why I do not support GNU Message-ID: <3346@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM> Date: 17 Oct 89 16:18:02 GMT References: <8910160520.AA01740@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu> Sender: news@cadillac.CAD.MCC.COM Reply-To: ned%cad@MCC.COM (Ned Nowotny) Distribution: gnu Organization: MCC CAD Program, Austin, TX Lines: 43 In article nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu writes: >The problem with public domain code is this: If I want my code to be >and remain freely available, I can't put it in the public domain. If >I do, someone can take my code and mix it with theirs. My code effectively >becomes theirs. This is not acceptable to me. > If you put your code in the public domain, it remains in the public domain. If someone else incorporates some or all of your code into their own program, the code you placed in the public domain is still available and free. If you copyright your code, it is not free. It has been restricted and encumbered even if the requirement is only that your name remain associated with the code. Software sharing is not enhanced by copyrights regardless of the conditions of the copyright. Code is being continually rewritten with only superficial differences because some misguided legislators have concluded that encoded algorithms are similar to paragraphs of written prose. Frankly, the vocabulary and semantics of typical programming languages combined with the very real concerns over run-time efficiency do not allow even a small subset of the expressive power available to an author writing in a natural language. The copyright laws for computer software should only restrict the wholesale copying of non-trivial programs and subsystems, not each function or statement. Of course, defining such a legally binding distinction may be nearly impossible. However, there is little practical difference in enforcing copyrights on either GNU's libg++ library routines by FSF or the Apple ][ bootstrap ROMS by Apple. Both are needlessly restrictive even if both organizations enjoy the right to restrict such code under current law. If you really want your code to be free, believe in software sharing, and want to contribute to a growing foundation on which others can build, place your contributions in the public domain. Otherwise, you are attempting to place restrictions on the code produced by others who may wish to use a portion of your own code, even a reimplementation if they have contaminated themselves by having examined your code previously. This is more properly the theft of the work of others than the case you cite where your public domain code is incorporated into another's proprietary program. In that case, your own code is still freely available. Ned Nowotny, MCC CAD Program, Box 200195, Austin, TX 78720 Ph: (512) 338-3715 ARPA: ned@mcc.com UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!milano!cadillac!ned ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "We have ways to make you scream." - Intel advertisement in the June 1989 DDJ.