Xref: utzoo alt.security:1329 alt.folklore.computers:4641 comp.society.futures:1957 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!snorkelwacker!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.security,alt.folklore.computers,comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Feedback on Computer Crime Message-ID: <5=25C=1@xds13.ferranti.com> Date: 9 Aug 90 15:07:57 GMT References: <14443@wpi.wpi.edu> <9008081452.AA18175@stc06.CTD.ORNL.GOV> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 16 > >If you wrote a good program, you gave it to everyone because you were proud of > >it, and if someone took your code and changed it so that it was better well, > >then, good for them. You were proud for them as well. But today people don't > >circulate software for the good of al concerned, they do it for personal gain. > Stallman, and *many* GNU supporters would beg to differ. And so would I, as a GNU opponent. The restrictive licensing of the GNU copyleft are *not* the only, *nor* the best, way of getting your code out to as many people as possible. There are people out there who have taken free code I have written and put it into commercial programs. I'm proud of them as well... for taking a program and putting the time and effort needed to make it part of a real product. If I'd have used the GNU copyleft, they wouldn't have been able to do that. And the world would have been a poorer place for it. Some people *need* shrink-wrapped turnkey systems... and they *do* cost money to produce. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U`