Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!sunic!tut!funic!santra!news From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: Re: Selling of free software Message-ID: <1990Aug12.223315.6908@santra.uucp> Date: 12 Aug 90 22:33:15 GMT References: <6--4A8C@xds13.ferranti.com> <1990Aug8.173146.1206@santra.uucp> <7268@star.cs.vu.nl> Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system) Reply-To: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 37 In-Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) In article <7268@star.cs.vu.nl>, ast@cs (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >This is correct. If you post a program and put in an explicit message that >it is in the public domain, then no one can get it out of the public domain. >Anyone can modify it (even a single character) and then copyright the modified >version and prevent anyone from using THAT version, but the original remains >in the public domain. Once pubic domain, always public domain. I can uderstand this. However, I think some license agreements say that you are not allowed to redistribute the software you get. To get the software, you must sign the license agreement. So even if all of that software is in the public domain, you are not legally allowed to redistribute it to anyone. I may be wrong, but I think this was the case with the Berkely distribution (BSD) source license some time ago (I don't know if it still is). >The GNU copyleft, which >creates legal obligations on the part of anyone selling it, causes lawyers >to go into infinite loops. Yes, but that's what lawyers are supposed to do. I haven't found any other way to achieve the goal of keeping the software easily available to all in all cases. The Berkely copyright is not that good for my goals because it allows someone to take the code and redistribute only a binary of a modified version; I want the source to be always available to all users of the software, even improved versions (so everyone else can make improvements, too). It seems to be happening that lawyers are becoming more familiar with and start accepting the GNU copyleft. Many hardware and Unix vendors (Mt. Xinu for HP BSD, DG ?) use gcc as their primary or secondary compiler and I think even more include GNU Emacs in their OS distribution (DEC, Berkely, NeXT according to the latest GNU bulletin). I suppose this trend will continue as more GNU software will come to the market and more of the commercial world starts seeing the benefits. //Jyrki