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From: gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Egregious restrictions on source code in comp.sources.unix
Message-ID: <11348@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 9 May 90 11:57:14 GMT
References: <973@gargoyle.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Cygnus Support, Palo Alto
Lines: 60

I find the GNU license, or full public domainness, more to my taste than
Dan Bernstein's.  Dan seems to want to restrict some of the things I
find most critical to free software's usefulness.

The ability to distribute modified versions means that if the author
gets busy, or goes catatonic on the net, or just stops being interested
in the program, then the program's users can carry on maintaining it.
It decouples further development possibilities -- ANYBODY who gets a
neat idea can implement it that weekend and post it, or pass it on.
While I also know that having a good "central clearinghouse" for changes
and new versions is quite useful, I would view that as desirable, not
required.  If the clearinghouse falls down, the software is still useful,
and that's when you really need the right to distribute modified copies.
And an ambitious person who is willing to become the new clearinghouse
*clearly* needs that right.

Dan claims it's "dangerous" for just anybody to be able to modify the
code and pass it on.  I guess it was dangerous for him to write the
code in the first place, too.  Do we really want to trust free code
written by some guy across the net to do secure authentication?  [I
think the answer is yes -- I trust code I can read a lot more than
binaries I can't, e.g. what you get from your Unix vendor.  And a bunch
of good people on the net can also read it, and warn us about
troubles.  Indeed, the whole Unix system was and is written by "guys
across the net".  I don't see how patches are any less trustworthy than
the original package, though.]  The way to avoid a proliferation of
different versions is to put out regular, definitive releases that
include all the popular features, and give them wide distribution.
Survival of the fittest...

Dan's copyright also restricts unmodified copying to people who don't
charge a fee.  As one of the people who worked on the 1987 Sun User
Group tape, phrases like that cost us a lot of headaches.  Anytime
someone said something like that, we had to send them a contract to
sign, since it wasn't clear to us whether our nonprofit user group was
"charging a fee" or "making money" or "commercial use" or whatever
their notice said.  And it quickly became clear that while it was
*easy* to collect software from the authors, it was *painful* to get
them to sign a form, possibly get their employer to sign the form, and
postal-mail it to us.  Especially when they thought their license terms
were already perfectly clear.  Details like that held up the tape for
six months or more.

Instead of making it clear whether a given party can use the software,
"no fee" restrictions make it fuzzy.  Matt's point about uunet is 100%
right-on here too; uunet won't send me netnews unless I pay them; are
they charging a fee for netnews?  Then how can they send me Dan's
software?  Then how can it be posted to comp.sources.unix?  I'd rather
shut down Dan-style postings than shut down uunet.

On the time limitation/revocation issue, if Dan has found a new wrinkle
in the copyright law (perhaps post-Berne-Convention, which the U.S.
only adopted this year?) then let's haul it out and look at it.  Since
you seem to have a copy of the law, Dan, can you post that paragraph with
whatever context is needed?
-- 
John Gilmore      {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu      gnu@toad.com
 Boycott the census!  In 1942, the Census Bureau told the Army which block
every Japanese-American lived on, so they could be hustled to internment camps.
         Maximum penalty for refusing to answer:  $100, no jail.