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From: ted@nieland.DAYTON.OH.US (Ted Nieland)
Newsgroups: comp.org.decus,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: DECUS L&T Public Domain Tools Survey
Message-ID: <00409.AA00409@nieland.DAYTON.OH.US>
Date: 30 Mar 90 01:20:30 GMT
Followup-To: comp.org.decus,comp.sys.mac
Lines: 42

In Article <54091@bbn.COM>, levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) writes:

>About the Mac piece of this survey (I can't speak about any other part):
>                                                                        
>StuffIt! is NEITHER public domain nor free.  It is shareware.           
>                                                   
>Much other popular Mac software is NOT public domain, though it may   
>not have a shareware fee attached to it; authors wish to retain any   
>rights they are entitled to keep.  Some software, such as BinHex 4.0, 
>is truly public domain. (I don't know about Kermit.)
>
>If you are really doing a survey of public domain software you must be 
>clear about what can be on this list.  As you have phrased your query, 
>I would never have put StuffIt! on my ballot.


You didn't read the message very well:  Note the original text:

   Attached is the DECUS Languages & Tools (L&T) Special Interest Group (SIG)  
   Public Domain Working Group Top 30 Tools tools survey ballot.  The L&T      
   PDWG is trying to find the most used/favorite non-comercial programs on     
   the various computer systems.  


The key words here are NON-COMERCIAL PROGRAMS.  Stuff-it any many of the
other Mac programs fall into that category.

The Survey is called the Public Domain Survey for two reasons:  1) The DECUS 
Public Domain Working Group is sponsoring it, and 2) Public Domain is used
as a generic term to cover non-comercial software.

I don't agree with the use of "Public Domain" software, but the industry and
the users allow it to cover true public domain, freeware (copyrighted, but not 
public code), and shareware.  Most of the books, artcles and adds from places 
that have collections of shareware and the like call it all public domain.
I don't like it, but it is what people understand.


--
M. Edward (Ted) Nieland

Ted@NIELAND.DAYTON.OH.US     (aka  uunet!dayvb!nieland!ted)