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From: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: The GNU Public Virus strikes again!
Message-ID: <8YW.FW.@splut.conmicro.com>
Date: 14 Sep 90 02:09:55 GMT
References: <25630@shamash.cdc.com> <12347@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard)
Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX
Lines: 44

In article <12347@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
                                ^^^-> Do you speak for the FSF?

>If FSUUCP's authors are using GNUUCP and are not distributing sources,
>they are in violation of the GNU General Public License.

This very subject was discussed on here a couple of months ago. The question
came down to, "What sources do they need to distribute?" The entire FSUUCP
package, or just GNUUCP?

The author has stated in this group that, because of the possibility that they
would have to distribute source to the entire package, that they had stopped
using GNUUCP altogether and reimplemented the UUCP communications part of
the package completely separate from anything tainted by the GPV.

Here's one case where the GPV has acted in direct contradiction to its stated
goals: it has decreased sharing of code, instead of increasing it.

It's long past time for the soi-disant FSF to quit trying to coerce others to
give away their source code.

>Check with the authors by phone or postal mail (if you can't reach them
>by email).  The license specifies that either they must ship matching
>sources with the binaries, or they must provide sources to anyone who
>asks for them for a nominal charge.  If they are doing neither, wave a
>club at them and tell them to stop.  FSF has never had to sue anyone
>over copyleft violation but there's always a first time.

Why doesn't FSF pick on someone their own size? The Clarkson packet drivers
are distributed under the GPV (which is why I gave up on modifying their SLIP
driver for my DG-1 laptop), yet (according to postings on
comp.protocols.tcp.ibm-pc) Xircom, the company who makes the Ethernet
adapter that plugs in to a PC parallel port, distributes a driver built on
the Clarkson skeleton, and prohibits anyone from redistributing the source to
it. This is a clear violation of the terms of the GPV. Why isn't the FSF
howling at their door? Maybe it's because they're afraid that it will be
unenforceable, and they'd rather use the specter of litigation to scare
individual software developers into releasing their code?

-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL   | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jay@splut.conmicro.com       (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity.
"I can't believe I really wrote     +----------------------------------------
this." - Henry Spencer, about awf, his nroff -ms subset written in awk