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From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386,misc.legal
Subject: Re: GNU and the issue of support
Message-ID: <1990Sep10.175419.14010@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 10 Sep 90 17:54:19 GMT
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In article <14926@yunexus.YorkU.CA> shields@yunexus.YorkU.CA (Paul Shields) writes:
>
>It really irritates me when, time after time, upon calling a company
>and reporting a problem I have with their software, going over the
>usual answer of "oh yes, we know about that, but why don't you grit
>your teeth and wait -- we'll probably generate a fix by the time hell
>freezes over," etc, and ask if there is any way I can negotiate a
>source licence, they say, flatly, "no".  In case you were wondering,
>it's happened to me more than once.  Of course I have no legal
>recourse because the software contains the usual non-warranty.
>
>It's time to make laws to invalidate those non-warranties.
>Suggestions as to how such a law should be worded?

No individual shall distribute a piece of software, without devoting himself
to a lifelong commitment to fix any problem with that software, immediately
and without additional compensation.  Alternatively, the individual is
required to distribute, free of additional charge, all information and source
materials used to create the piece of software.

(obviously, I feel this is a very bad idea)